Game Documentation Guide - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 34

Worlds, levels, missions, and quests. The game design doc also includes full de-
tails on the gameworld, the areas that the world is broken up into, and story-based
gameplay such as missions or quests. In this section you might want to include the
following.

•

A backstory of the world: how the world got to the place where it is when
the player meets it. This backstory may never be told to the player, but it is
helpful to designers who must generate story from the higher-level narrative
presented by the treatment doc. This is only for story-based games.

•

Maps of all the areas of the game, showing where the player starts and ends,
plus descriptions in text.

• A full rundown of the game's story, divided up in such a way that it follows

the player's progress through the game. This will either be fairly high-level if
the game is nonlinear (like Bethesda's Oblivion , where there are a host of ways
to get from the beginning to the end) to very granular for linear games such as
Tomb R a i d e r or Metal Gear Solid .

- This rundown may also include a ramp-up section that shows what skills
or abilities or items the player has acquired progressing through the story.
For instance, in level 3, the player should be power level 6 and should be
capable of dealing 100 damage per second. He should have acquired the
Gauntlet of Might and know that his chief enemy is the Scarlet Snake.

•

A full listing of quests and missions, including

- where the quest is found;
- where the quest is turned in, if anywhere;
- who gives the quests;
- where the quest sends the player;
- what the quest's reward is;
- the story accompanying the quest;
- any ramifications from fulfilling the quest (for instance, the player be-
comes an enemy of the God of Law).

The Script: Cutscenes and Dialog
Also included in the game design document, or if it's very lengthy, as a document
in itself, is the game script. This document shows every line of spoken or written
dialog in the game, from what goes on in in-game movies (cutscenes) to quest dialog
to player shout-outs to sports commentary. Anything that the player reads or hears
in the game should be written here.