Guides

How to write a game design document

What belongs in one, what does not, and why most stop being read by week three. Twelve sections with the prompts written out, plus a free Markdown template meant to be cut down rather than filled in.

Includes a template · Markdown · 3 kB

What a narrative designer actually does

Not game writing with a better title. The job is deciding how a story reaches the player through systems, and most of it produces structure rather than prose — plus the two failures that look like bad writing but are not.

The tools a small team actually needs

Seven categories, organised by which decisions are expensive to change later and which ones you are overthinking. Includes the three questions to ask of any narrative tool before you commit to it.

Twine, or something else?

What Twine is genuinely good at, where people start looking around, and an honest side-by-side. If the browser is where your story ends, the answer is to stay with Twine — and the page says so.