# Creating and Using Design Documents 创建和使用设计文档

Game design documents actually have two roles. Everyone is familiar with their development role: Design documents help a team of people to create a game. As we said in [Chapter 1](../../part-1/chapter-1), "What Is Game Design?," one of the stages of game design is communicating the design to others, and that's what design documents do. Even if you're developing a game all by yourself, it's useful to write down the things you've decided on, to make notes and lists of features that you want to include in the game.

游戏设计文档实际上有两种作用。每个人都熟悉其开发角色：设计文档帮助团队创建游戏。正如我们在[第一章](../../part-1/chapter-1)“什么是游戏设计？”中所说，游戏设计的其中一个阶段就是将设计传达给他人，这就是设计文档的作用。即使你是一个人开发游戏，写下你已经决定的事情、做笔记并列出你想在游戏中加入的功能也是很有用的。

Design documents also play a sales role. This doesn't mean selling the game to the public; it means selling the idea of the game to a publisher. The document is crafted to convince someone at a publishing company, probably a producer, to fund development of the game. The document should be attractive, easy to read, and upbeat about the idea. It should get the publisher excited about the game and at the same time show that you know your business.

设计文档还能起到销售作用。这并不是指向公众推销游戏，而是指向发行商推销游戏的想法。设计文档的目的是说服发行公司的某个人（可能是制作人）为游戏的开发提供资金。该文件应具有吸引力，易于阅读，并对游戏创意持乐观态度。它应该让发行商对游戏感到兴奋，同时显示出你对自己业务的了解。

## Using Pictures in a Document 在文档中使用图片

As a general rule, the more pictures you include in a design document, the better, especially if it's going to be used to sell the game. The game industry is extremely visually oriented, and pictures are what make executives, producers, marketing staff, and sales people sit up and take notice. The old cliché about a picture being worth a thousand words holds true when you're trying to pitch a game to someone: You can save yourself a heck of a lot of talking with a single concept drawing. Consider including character sketches; user interface diagrams; special type fonts; screenshots from your prototype, if you have one; and anything else that might please the eye and support your message. In the early stages, before you've had a chance to create any images of your own, search the Internet for "graphic scrap"—pictures that give an idea of what you're hoping to accomplish.

一般来说，设计文档中包含的图片越多越好，尤其是当文档将用于销售游戏时。游戏行业非常注重视觉效果，图片能让主管、制作人、市场营销人员和销售人员坐直并留意。图片胜过千言万语，这句老生常谈的话在你向别人推销游戏时是正确的：只需一张概念图，你就可以省去很多口舌。考虑加入角色草图、用户界面示意图、特殊字体、游戏原型的截图（如果有的话）以及其他任何可以吸引眼球并支持你的信息的内容。在早期阶段，在你还没有机会创建任何自己的图片之前，可以在互联网上搜索“图形片段”——能让人了解你希望达到什么目的的图片。

Don't expect pictures to replace explanation, however. Every now and then, somebody—usually an artist or graphic designer—creates a game design document that's almost all pictures, with only the vaguest description of the gameplay. The author clearly knows what he wants the player to see but has very little conception of what the player is going to do. Pictures can illustrate and clarify, but they can't show the heart of the game: the player's motivation, objectives, and actions. For that, you need words as well.

不过，不要指望图片能代替解释。时不时就会有人——通常是艺术家或平面设计师——创造出一份几乎全是图片的游戏设计文档，其中只有对游戏玩法的模糊描述。作者显然知道他想让玩家看到什么，但对玩家要做什么却知之甚少。图片可以说明和澄清问题，但无法展现游戏的核心：玩家的动机、目标和行动。为此，你还需要文字。

## Protecting Your Rights 保护你的权利

If your design documents are only for your own use, then all you need to do to protect them is lock them up. However, if you're going to give copies to potential publishers, developers, or investors, you should take some simple steps to protect your intellectual property:

如果你的设计文档仅供自己使用，那么你只需要把它们锁起来就可以了。但是，如果你要把副本交给潜在的发行商、开发商或投资者，你就应该采取一些简单的步骤来保护你的知识产权：

Clearly identify them as yours. Put your name on the title page and in the header or footer of each subsequent page. This ensures that even if the copy is taken apart for some reason, your ownership is recorded on every page.

明确标明是你的作品。在扉页和后面每页的页眉或页脚写上你的名字。这样做可以确保，即使由于某种原因复印件被拆开，你的所有权也会记录在每一页上。

Include a statement that asserts that you own the copyright, in the form "Copyright © by ."

包含一份声明，申明你拥有版权，格式为 “版权© <年>，作者<你的姓名或公司名称>”。

If you don't want the document spread around, put "Confidential—Do Not Redistribute" on the title page and in the header or footer of each page.

如果你不希望文件四处传播，请在扉页和每页的页眉或页脚注明 “机密-请勿再分发”。

Don't hand out copies to all and sundry unless you don't care who sees it or makes use of it. If it's important to you to control access to your ideas, make a record of the name and address of every person to whom you gave a copy.

除非你不在乎谁会看到或利用它，否则不要把副本分发给所有人。如果控制对你的想法的访问对你来说很重要，那就记录下你给过副本的每个人的姓名和地址。

Request that the person or company that you want to show the document to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) before you give it to them. An NDA is a very short contract in which no money changes hands. Instead, the signer promises to keep your document and other information confidential, in exchange for being allowed to see it. This is an extremely common business practice, and you can find many sample NDAs on the Internet. Consult a lawyer to adapt one to your own use.

要求你希望向其展示文件的个人或公司在你将文件交给他们之前签署一份保密协议。保密协议是一份非常简短的合同，其中没有任何金钱交易。相反，签署人承诺对你的文件和其他信息保密，以换取被允许查看文件。这是一种极为常见的商业做法，你可以在互联网上找到许多 NDA 样本。请咨询律师，修改一份适合你自己使用的样本。

It is extremely unlikely that a reputable publisher will steal your document and use it to make a game without paying you. Even so, it's important that you take steps to protect your intellectual property because if a dispute arises, you need to be able to demonstrate that you considered your work valuable and tried to prevent its uncontrolled dissemination.

声誉良好的发行商盗用你的文档制作游戏而不向你支付报酬的可能性极小。即便如此，你也必须采取措施保护自己的知识产权，因为如果出现纠纷，你需要能够证明你认为自己的作品是有价值的，并试图阻止其不受控制的传播。

## About These Templates 关于这些模板

In this appendix, we have provided templates for three types of design documents: the high-concept document, the treatment, and the design script (sometimes called a bible). Each has a different function in the process of designing a game and pitching it to a publisher. However, the templates we're suggesting are by no means universal. Unlike Hollywood, which has had 80 years to work out a standard format for screenplays, there is no standard format for design documents in the game industry. Nor is there any rule about which ones you should create. Some developers might not bother to write high-concept documents at all, for example, and they might use other types of documents that we haven't discussed. It's up to you to determine what your project needs. You should feel free to adapt these templates any way you like, as long as the resulting document gets your message across and answers the questions in the reader's mind.

在本附录中，我们提供了三种类型的设计文档模板：高概念文档、综述文档和设计脚本（有时也称为 “圣经”）。在设计游戏并将其提交给发行商的过程中，每种文档都有不同的功能。然而，我们建议的模板绝不是通用的。好莱坞用了 80 年的时间才制定出电影剧本的标准格式，而游戏行业则不同，它没有设计文档的标准格式。也没有规定你应该创建哪些文档。例如，有些开发者可能根本不需要编写高概念文档，他们可能会使用我们没有讨论过的其他类型的文档。你可以自行决定你的项目需要什么。你可以随意改编这些模板，只要最终的文档能够传达你的信息并回答读者心中的问题即可。
