Pre-Production Documentation Problems and Their Fixes
The Documentation Trap: When Polish Becomes Procrastination
Remember that surge of excitement when starting a new game project? The ideas flow, the possibilities are endless. For many new indie teams, this initial energy often funnels into creating beautiful documentation. I’ve seen it countless times: a team spends weeks perfecting concept art, crafting an elaborate Game Design Document (GDD) layout, or designing a stunning pitch deck. They feel productive. They show off their sleek documents, convinced they’re making progress. But then, the actual development stalls. The art isn’t implemented, the mechanics aren’t coded, and the meticulously planned features remain just that – plans. This is the “false done” phenomenon, and it’s a common pitfall in pre-production.
The Illusion of “Done”
Visually appealing documentation, especially when overly detailed or rigid, can create a deceptive sense of completion. It’s tempting to polish concept art until it looks like final in-game assets, or to design a GDD with a complex navigation structure and professional branding. This prematurely polished work tricks teams into believing they’ve completed real work. The brain interprets the finished look of a document as a finished product, even though no code has been written.
This temptation extends to all early documents. Pitch decks become works of art rather than concise summaries. Feature lists expand beyond necessity, meticulously describing every nuance of a hypothetical system. The consequences are severe: development gets stalled, precious time is wasted, and motivation dwindles as the gap between polished plans and actual progress widens. This over-documentation can also lead to feature creep, as every brainstormed idea finds a formal place in the sprawling document, making it harder to cut later.
Finding the Balance: Documentation vs. Active Work
The key is to understand that documentation is a tool, not the end product. It exists to support development, not to replace it. A crucial concept here is Minimum Viable Documentation (MVD). This means defining “enough” documentation for each stage of your project. For a core concept, a simple one-page brief outlining the genre, core loop, and unique selling proposition might be enough. For basic mechanics, a bulleted list or a simple flowchart can suffice. Art style direction might only need a few reference images and a short paragraph.
Crucially, documents are living, evolving tools. They are not static blueprints carved in stone. Embrace iterative documentation. Your initial ideas will change, and your documents should change with them. The primary purpose of documentation is communication and alignment within the team, or even just for yourself as a solo developer. It’s about ensuring everyone understands the vision and next steps, not about creating an unchangeable historical record.
Practical Fixes and Actionable Steps
How do you avoid the documentation trap and keep your project moving forward?
Start with core concepts. Before anything else, clearly define the game’s heart: what is it, who is it for, and what makes it unique? Use simple language.
Next, embrace proto-documentation. Forget elaborate software or complex layouts initially. Use basic, accessible tools: bullet points in a text file, quick flowcharts drawn on paper or a simple digital whiteboard, rough sketches for art ideas. The goal is clarity and speed, not beauty.
Adopt a “playable first” mentality. Get a basic prototype running as early as possible. Your documentation should support this goal, not delay it. If a document isn’t directly helping you build or test something, question its immediate necessity.
Time-box your documentation. Set strict limits for how long you spend on any single document. For example, give yourself two hours to draft the core loop, or one hour to outline the first level’s objectives. When the time is up, move on to implementation.
Regularly review and refine your documentation. Don’t let it become a dusty archive. Periodically revisit your documents, prune outdated information, and refine sections for clarity and conciseness. If a piece of documentation isn’t actively serving your project, remove it or condense it.
Finally, link documentation directly to tasks. Your documents should translate into actionable development tasks. If you define a mechanic in your GDD, create a task in your project management tool to implement it. This direct link ensures that your planning leads to actual work. This is where a robust game dev journal can become invaluable. Tracking your game development progress, documenting your decisions, and noting your next steps in a game development log directly supports this “documentation to task” workflow. Having a structured way to track game development progress, organize your creative process, and revisit past ideas prevents wasted time. For a tool that helps you stay on track and organize your game development log, explore our dedicated game dev journal features. Start your journey of effective, actionable documentation today: track game development progress.
A Story of Iterative Success
Consider a small team I advised who started on a puzzle-platformer. Their initial instinct was to spend a month creating a sprawling GDD with detailed lore, character backstories, and every puzzle concept meticulously drawn. I encouraged them to pause. Instead, they spent a single afternoon sketching the core mechanics on a whiteboard: “player jumps, interacts with colored blocks, blocks activate doors.” The next week was spent building a basic prototype with placeholder art. Their “documentation” became a simple text file updated daily with observations from playing the prototype. “Jumping feels floaty, need to adjust gravity,” “Red blocks too easy, add a timing element.” This iterative approach, driven by a playable first mentality, meant their documentation was always relevant, always concise, and always pushing the project forward. They avoided the “false done” trap entirely, consistently making tangible progress instead of just polished plans.