213 - Bethke "The Design Document"

"When one says "Look it up in the design document," folks are generally referring to the game design document. This is the fun document that details all of the characters, the levels, the game mechanics, the views, the menus and so on - in short, the game. The game design document for most designers is great fun; here they get to flesh out their vision with muscles and sinew on top of the skeleton of the game concept that it was before. By no means am I saying it is easy to create a complete design document. Creating a finished design document is so difficult I have never been able to finish one of my own, nor have I seen anyone else his or her design documents. With my two latest projects, Starfleet Command: The next Generation for Activision and Black9, I am certainly taking the design efforts to our highest levels, and I see the results paying off with faster and stronger production.
The game design document is part of a suite of documents that specific the game your are creating. All of these documents i collectively call the production plan:

Concept/Vision/Proposal document
Game Design Document
Art Design Document
Technical Design Document
Project Schedule
Software Testing Plan
Risk Mitigation Plan"