1.3 - What's a GDD?

What's a GDD?

A game design document (often abbreviated GDD) is a highly descriptive, living design document of the design for a video game. A GDD is created and edited by the development team and it is primarily used in the video game industry to organize efforts within a development team.

Video games are software, and software projects don't succeed without some kind of project management tools, even when working solo. A GDD is one of those tools, specifically designed for video game projects.

Our very own Tom Boyles, of Avachoo Games (http://www.avachoo.com), will be presenting his take on GDDs and how we can use them in our game development.

I'm super excited to see what Tom has for us. Tom has multiple projects, and many of us saw him share one of his games at a recent meetup. He's working with a small team, so his insight on how this tool helps him get things done will be very helpful to all of us. I can't wait!

Ludum Dare Wrap-Up

Many of the group recently participated in the Ludum Dare game jam and will have time to share their projects during the Show N Tell portion of the evening. We're looking forward to see what everyone worked on!

Agenda

Our meetups follow the same basic format, and we'll let you know if there's ever a significant change to it.

• Arrive: Mingle and eat (usually pizza)

• Show N Tell: We hope that you come to every meeting with something to share. We won't learn by watching. We learn by doing. Bring whatever you're working on and show us. Get some feedback, and iterate. Set a goal to have something to share. If you don't get it this time, work toward it.

• Presentation: Whether we have a guest presenter or are presenting within the group, there will usually be a short presentation of some kind. Generally limited to 30 minutes.

• Workshop / Hack: Let's get our hands dirty, or our brains, or something. Let's work on something. It could be with pencil and paper, whiteboards, computers, whatever.

• Wrap-up: Hit the highlights, upcoming events/activities, community channels

Be sure to checkout the meetup description for all the places you can connect with the group (we have LOTS of ways).