Let's see:
You are using the IP for your own purposes but...
...you don't own the IP...
...you've not bought the IP...
...the IP is not on public domain...
...you've not been given permission to use the IP and..
...you've not asked for permission to use the IP.

What exactly do you call this then if not "ripping off"?

Oh, and if that doesn't stick, replace "IP" for "car":

You are using a Car for your own purposes but...
...you don't own the Car...
...you've not bought the Car...
...the Car is not on public domain...
...you've not been given permission to use the Car and..
...you've not asked for permission to use the Car.

So I'm NOT ripping off a car under this scenerio?

Here. Follow this thread. It's FULL of great GDD resources on the net and in books.

IGDA Forum -- "Any good examples of a design document?"

Look, if you really care about it so much why post?
The previous thread was locked because of people posting pointless posts, don't make it happen again.
I appreciate the help but i did not ask for your opinion on whether i should make the game or the Morales of making it.

Blade, I know I said I wouldn't post too much in your next thread, and I'm sorry, but it has to be said: Fastlane is one of the few users who really deserve their "Senior Expert"-title, and he has spent years on game design. He knows what he is talking about. He is offering you, with his critique, and the following posts here, the once-in-a-lifetime-chance to directly learn from someone knowing his stuff. You can choose to ignore what he says, but that means that you'll have to learn it all by yourself. This takes months, if not years. Please, use this chance. If you think comments are getting personal (again?), then react professionally. Just ignore the flames, and pick their comments apart. But always be honest with you!

Your document isn't finished, I believe we have established as much. But thats not to say that its bad - that you cerated such a document is a good step up from the other thread, and you're now doing better than a billion other people, who stumble about in the editor. But the document needs to explain to me, someone who can't see in your head, what your game will look like. How will it play, what do I see on the screen, etc. Its often hard to put in words at first what it is that you want to create, you often only see a vision, but it's important to think that out - it means that you have to make a few decisions, and often, thats a hard thing to do, but a clear, complete and good outlined design document will help you immensely. Plus, its much easier to plan and see how long its going to take with it. Ideally, if only given your document, I (or someone not knowing HP) would be able to create EXACTLY the game you're having in your head right now. (Okay, so maybe not exactly, but you might keep that idea in your head for now)


I ask you again, please, please take this chance. It might hurt now, but believe me, when I posted my first awesome project here and people tore it apart, it hurt more, because I invested more time into it without planning. So take the Design document seriously. Changes can and will happen, but the better you plan and think it through, the smaller these needed changes will be, hopefully.

As far as the legality goes, we already discussed this, no? Just remember this. (You may now argue that this was commercial and your game will be freeware, but it'd be easy to argue that your game is illegal. That, of course, doesn't mean "lawsuit", but consider that you actually have the chance of bringing your OWN universe to life - isn't that a lot more exciting?)


Maybe we really should create a "I want to create a game - How do I start?"-thread, that could be stickied, with helpful posts about Design-Docment-creation, etc. I know I could use that every once in a while!


By which I mean: Fastlane, please create topics and posts like these.

I am not ignoring him, but i have decided i want to make it and i would appreciate not being told i shouldn't

all I would like to see are like "footnotes" about the elements of the game, so also people who have never read or seen or heard about HP would know more:

"Harry Potter (a human, who was led to believe he was just a normal person until his XXth birthday and is the only person known to ever surviving the deadly XYZ spell) is the main caracter of the game"

"...to play Quidditch (a magic game, resembling basketball played on flying broomsticks. The game can be won if the Y of one team catches the X (a littel flying ABC) before the Y of the rivaling team does)"

"Hermione (one of the main characters best friends, and a very talented and intelligent young wizardess....) can be played in case the main character BLAHBLAH and then XYZ..."

That would increase the quality HUGELY.

then goddamn DO IT and prove us all wrong, and don't crave for our appreciation of your documents and/or your ideas.

Quote for truth.

By not knowing how to do better I created a game without ANY documentation. I programmed what came to my mind.
In the end it took me several years, I rewrote the whole code at least twice, I had not enough time to implement all the funny and cool features to make the game sth. outstanding and finally gamepaly didn't work out as imagined.

It's a no go.

Well of course you gotta know what you actually want to do before you start doing just something.

"Start with" was more or less ment for the point where you know what you want and you are in front of the decission of creating levels first and look how you can bring them to life or you start with simpel test levels to create your functionallity and then just replace the environment when it works.

I think the second one is better because the environment can be replaced more easily.


Of course I had a quite specific vision in my mind when I started creating Dragonrise.
I had a basic storyline and my main characters and the important points of the story where those characters meet and what results from those situations.
On the other hand I was quite sure what kind of game system I want to have (well this slightly changed after 2 years, for better without having too much to change).

So based on this (storyline, characters and game system) I started making those technical thoughts I described above.


Maybe I just focused too much on the engineering part, but you're totally right that both are important and I guess I'm in a lucky situation since I'm an artist with pencil, brush and coal and studied arts in my free time and on the other hand I studied software engineering for 2 years at university.
And 3rd my father became a novel writer during the last years and I gained a lot of it, I think because of this I was able to create the storyline in detail now, which I was not able to in earlier years.

All in all I have to admit that creating your own world is a quite hard task because it needs much more than those thoughts you have as a gamer start with "Oh you know what would be a cool game?".


But my time for GS is running low because of my browser game with more than 2.000 registrations during the last 2.5 years. Well (character/level) modelling and animating for 3D projects takes a lot of time and is main reason why I will stop Dragonrise after the next demo, but if he takes some people into his boat to do the different jobs maybe he won't be slowed down by a singe task.


But Blade, I kind of know what situation you are in and judging your post you feel quite attacked or only disappointed because others are not like you saying "Oh my god, this is what I waited for since I read the fist book!".
In the beginning you're blinded by the vision of your own ideas and first creations and simply don't understand what those yerks actually have to critisize but... they are right and bring you up to the position where you are able to judge you project as neutral as they do.
Even harder it will be to accept critique about a system you invented by your self but which turns out not as good as expected, you'll be blinded by your idea, but others are not.

@Blade

I just remembered that I made a manual for the second Dragonrise Demo, it is no design document but I think it covers some of what has been said because it describe a lot of stuff into detail covering different articles like controls, about the game, story background, walkthrough of the demo, further gameplay information, enemies etc.

I uploaded the web version of the manual for you.