A six page document is not a Design Document.
It is called a high concept or treatment at best.
If you are designing any game it should take about 20 pp.
Any less and it is impossible to fully detail what the game should look like and play like.
It is not completed, as i have said before.
Says nothing about the game.
Says alot about HP (please see my post above about illegally using IP) but nothing about gameplay.
As others have pointed out, this line "the player will also be able to use magic at any time, and as the game progresses, the
character will learn new spells."
is saying nothing more than what happened in the book; it doesn't point towards any original or derivative gameplay.
Could that be, do you think, because it is based from the book? Just a thought.
What would you want it to say, maybe something totally different from the book?
I believe what you might be saying, although badly wrote, is that i have not gone in to detail how the game will play out.
Furthermore, here you repeat yourself "[...]character will learn new spells. During his time at Hogwarts, he can explore the whole castle, learn
new spells in fun mini-games and brew exciting potions." and once again state you will learn spells and brew potions.
The reader at this stage has the following question: what is a special about your game?
From your description, it sounds exactly like the HP games that are already out there.
That just shows that you haven't played any of the other harry potter games. For one all the other harry potter games are based on the movies
not the books, and therefore they are normally quite short and in my opinion not as fun as one based on the books would be.
Characters: this is fine for a high concept, but not enough for a design document.
In a GDD, you would go into more detail on each individual character.
You say you can play HP... well so far I still don't know what the gameplay is!
I will be going into details about some of the characters.
Plot: please see my warning about IP. You CANNOT use the IP story nor modify it for your own projects, even if free or fan based.
So what? As already said do you really think company's care, if so why haven't people who made versions of sonic or Pokemon been sued.
Because it's not for commercial use, and they will most likely only make a tiny bit of money.
Also in your previous post you mentioned Warner bro's, and not having permission. Yet Warner bro's don't own any rights at all over the books except exclusivity for films.
Locations: This is actually done well. Sticking with only the first book gives you a realistic set of locations.
However, you need to describe the locations better. Are you doing the whole castle, or just bits.
ARe you doing all of hogsmeade or just the Boars inn...etc
What i have wrote in the document in locations for the first book is what there is, when i said Hogwarts i mean the whole of the castle, etc.
Mini Quests: there is some problem with language.
You refer to the below categories as mini quests but then talk about mini games.
Never inlude something in a design document that isn't referenced somewhere else.
AS others have point out, you've made a passing nod to a "lessons mini game" but have no solid description of what that is.
It could be a multiple choice test, it could be a tetris game,
it could be anything and a design document is supposed to be so it's not anythingit's something.
Maybe you should read what you just posted if you think there is a problem with my language?
So what if i called one bit a mini game and one a mini quest, the quests are indented in the menu to show what ones are mini-quests, and the quidditch is a mini-game.
About the lessons if you read below you can see that i mention a bit about how each lesson is going to be played out.
(EDIT: confusion. Your organization on this section is poor. I don't know if the mini quests are lessons and quidditch or what. After reading through a few times I get it, but trust me, people will not spend this time trying to decipher what you mean)
No one else has complained or had trouble, maybe it's just you?
Lessons: as others have said, you've made no mention of what this game will play like. You state how to make a potion (get recipie, gather ingredients, make potion) but that is not a game, that's a description from the book! I'm afraid all your lessons suffer this problem: they describe the actions as per the book but give no equivalent gameplay descritption. It's fine to know how they do it in the book but that has nothing to do with how you want to do it in the game.
Then you have misread this section because it is not a description of how it is done in the book, in fact it isn't done like that in the book.
It is a description of how each lesson will play out in general.
Quidditch: I'm assuming quidditch is the second mini game. Here again, you mention the game as per the book but no mention of how we will play it in your game.
That is because it is a Work-In-Progress.
Collectables: I don't know if this is a miniquest or not, but what do these collectables do in the game?
For example, gather the pieces for the wizard chess game.
Can you then play wizard chess? It's not mentioned anywhere so I don't know!
Collectibles are just things to collect when you want to, they are not compulsory but just something than can earn some extra stuff to do.
For example, gather the pieces for the wizard chess game.
Can you then play wizard chess? Yes that is planned, and for some other stuff there will be content unlocked like the making off the game.
Conclusion:
This is not a design document.
And I will leave you with the main reason why: after reading the entire things,
I STILL don't know if this is a RPG, FPS, RTS, Action, Adventure, what! I have NO idea what type of game it is!
I know I play HP, but that's about it.
As well, there is not even a keyboard map.
Something as simple as arrow keys to move, "i" for inventory, "r" to run,
etc not only solidifies your gameplay
but also gives insight into the type of game (a RPG will have a different keyset than a RTS and FPS, etc...).
Things like controls will be mentioned later on but it is more important for the other information i have done to be completed first and the technical stuff after.
And the game type is going to be more or less a kind of RPG but with some FPS aspects hopefully.
Recommendation:
create a 5 minute walkthrough.
Describe what the player would see and DO in teh first five minutes in the world.
This is also a good oppurtunity to hash out a tutorial.
The walkthrough will give everyone a better idea of what the game will play and look like.
Thanks, i will do that.
Choose ONE location and ONE character and ONE spell and ONE lesson and ONE...etc... and develop that and that alone.
Ignore the rest of the HP world (as a matter of fact, ignore HP all together) and focus only on ONE thing to fully detail what your game would be like in this limited instance.
Once you've succesfully done that (success means that a person can read your description and know how the game will play)
Ok, will try that.
Thanks for the crit's i believe i have managed to respond to your crits quite well.
is it not possible for blade to actually make a post without it getting carried away? I do agree the design doc is not complete, and tbh i doubt it ever will be as i doubt this project will get very far. I say this as i have worked on a fan game (trek one) and four years on it is still not finished. However good luck to you blade, but before you start another thread try to have the following, a few textured buildings, a basic level layed out with those buildings in, perhaps then you will not get so much flax 