Game Vision: Documentation Problems and Their Fixes

Refining Your Game Vision Through Iterative Journaling

Many indie game developers struggle with balancing documentation and active development. You either spend too much time writing things down upfront, paralyzing your progress, or you dive straight in, only to find your game lacking direction and focus later. How do you find the sweet spot?

The key is to think of your game vision as something that evolves rather than something that’s set in stone from day one. And the best way to track that evolution? An iterative journaling approach.

User Story: Finding Clarity Through Journaling

Let’s say you’re a solo developer working on a pixel art RPG. Initially, your game vision is “a classic RPG with a unique crafting system.” Sounds good, right? But it’s vague.

Without a game dev journal, you might spend weeks implementing core mechanics, only to realize the crafting system doesn’t quite fit the narrative you’re building.

Now, imagine this:

Week 1: You experiment with three different crafting systems. You journal each experiment, noting the pros, cons, and potential for each. One system feels clunky, another too complex. The third, a simple combination system, feels promising.

Week 2: You playtest the combination crafting system with friends. Their feedback is mixed. Some love the simplicity, others find it limiting. You journal their feedback, identifying the core issue: a lack of meaningful choices.

Week 3: You iterate on the combination system, adding unique properties to crafted items based on specific ingredient combinations. You journal your design decisions, explaining why you chose this approach. Another playtest yields positive results – players now feel like they have agency over their creations.

By consistently journaling, you’ve not only refined your crafting system, but you’ve also deepened your understanding of your game’s core identity. You now know that your RPG is less about complex systems and more about player choice and meaningful consequences.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

• Analysis Paralysis: Spending too much time planning and not enough time doing. Combat this by setting time limits for documentation tasks. Dedicate a specific amount of time to journaling each day or week, and then move on to development.

• Over-Documenting Early: Trying to nail down every detail upfront. Instead, focus on capturing the essence of your vision and allowing it to evolve through experimentation. Your initial vision is a hypothesis, not a prophecy.

• Failing to Adjust Documentation: Letting your documentation become outdated. Regularly review and update your game dev journal to reflect your current understanding of the game. This is why a digital, easily editable format is ideal.

Actionable Steps for Prioritizing Documentation

1. Record Experiments: Document every experiment, no matter how small. What did you try? What were the results? What did you learn?
2. Capture Playtest Feedback: Playtest early and often. Record all feedback, both positive and negative. Look for patterns and identify areas for improvement.
3. Explain Design Decisions: For every major design decision, write down why you made it. What problem were you trying to solve? What were the alternatives? This context will be invaluable later.
4. Use User Stories: Frame your journaling around user stories. “As a player, I want to be able to easily craft items so that I feel like I have control over my character’s progression.” This helps keep the player experience at the forefront.

Making Journaling Effortless

The biggest hurdle is often consistency. You need a system that makes journaling easy and accessible. That’s where a dedicated tool can make all the difference.

To help you consistently refine your vision and stay on track, consider using a streamlined journaling tool designed for game developers. This can help you easily capture your thoughts, experiments, and feedback in a structured way. You’ll be able to track your progress, identify patterns, and make informed design decisions. Make your life easier and effortlessly journal your game development journey today.