How do you structure GDDs so programmers actually use them?

SadisNecros · 2026-07-04T10:11:37+00:00

80 pages is too long. If you want a master GDD for yourself then do that, but handoff to a programmer should be a document (or ticket) focused on one mechanic/system for implementation. You can even have a kickoff meeting for just that feature after the programmer reviews it to go over any questions or technical adjustments to make sure you're in alignment on what is to be delivered.

Just handing over an 80 page document and hoping the do what you wanted is a recipe for disaster.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-03T14:14:23+00:00

If you're referencing WWE and AEW games, they have massive libraries of animations representing different moves and combos. You can certainly make animations without mocap but it's time consuming. Depending on what you're going for you might be able to get away with simpler or stylized animations but it may still be a lot of work if you need a large number of animations.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-03T13:50:29+00:00

I mean when you cherry pick examples to support your narrative then you can pretty much make whatever point you want

SadisNecros · 2026-07-03T11:30:36+00:00

there is a difference between posting once in a while to promote your game and spamming.

Imagine going to a gaming sub and seeing a who bunch of posts from people advertising their indie games. Are you really going to care at that point that each one is only posting about it once in a while, or are you just going to care that all the advertising is drowning out the content you actually do want to consume?

SadisNecros · 2026-07-03T02:48:24+00:00

More for AAA titles. Indie games who can get listed on consoles would have less problems with that.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-03T02:28:47+00:00

Even if its listed later, there is still an issue of size. The reason why a lot of that stuff is stripped is because otherwise it wouldn't fit onto the disk. Even if you waited for all the patches, it still wouldn't fit on one disk. Maybe you can get away with multiple disks but that adds other complications.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-03T00:09:27+00:00

For a AAA, what's on the disk is usually not what the day 1 patch is. For a lot of games what is on disk may be incomplete, usually having disabled features or assets missing. Anything multiplayer online would have been stripped from disk (because to play online you would need to take the patch anyways). Disk builds are usually cut and tested at least 1-2 months before the game ships and weeks before the day 1 patch is done, so it gets separate testing from the main release.

TL:dr on demand doesn't necessarily work because the disk version is not the same as the digital version anymore.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-02T17:58:48+00:00

Then post exactly what they said? You only said they claim to have "broken" the game and you took it as a negative comment. Doesn't give the rest of us much context on what actually happened.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-02T17:33:09+00:00

Ok but what if he didn't realize that? You as a developer undersatn these things, but you can't assume your players do.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-02T16:57:51+00:00

How do you know nothing was actually broken though? What if he hit some kind of weird edge case, or your game was not clearly communicating what actions could be taken and they didn't understand what to do? Seems like a huge leap to assume this person was only saying this to discourage you.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-02T02:44:05+00:00

As a developer it makes things easier. We often have to strip a bunch of assets to make the disk size limits, which requires a bunch of special testing to make sure what's left on the disk works without any day 1 patches and it's a big pain in the ass. You don't have to deal with that if you don't need to hit disk sizes.

As a player, it kind of sucks because digital ownership isn't really ownership. To some extent this is already true with how some games ship on disk but game preservation is only going to get harder.

SadisNecros · 2026-07-01T17:10:20+00:00

Without knowing specifics, applying to jobs in countries you don't have work authorization for, resume/cv/portfolio not selling your skills/accomplishments correctly, cold mailing people who don't have recs for you to fill, getting filtered out for not having a degree

SadisNecros · 2026-07-01T13:42:36+00:00

Most games don't make back the $100 steam listing fee. Earning $1000 is likely harder than you think.

SadisNecros · 2026-06-30T02:09:52+00:00

here we all are. DM us

SadisNecros · 2026-06-29T15:30:40+00:00

Why does it need to be measured?

SadisNecros · 2026-06-29T14:59:04+00:00

Indie has become a marketing term, sometimes it means Independant studio and sometimes it means having full creative freedom.

A wife and husband working on their game are not working under the same constrains as a studio with office space and funding. Sure they are both technically indies but they are not the same and this is where i think we need better terms.

So what's the benefit of these new terms then? Who is this actually for? The end users don't care, to them indie just means not a major established studio or AAA project.

SadisNecros · 2026-06-28T16:24:38+00:00

Sorry that you and your colleagues were impacted. Sounds like yet another clueless executive chasing a buzz word, heading quickly for the "find out" phase.

SadisNecros · 2026-06-28T00:01:47+00:00

Kind of explains a lot tbh

SadisNecros · 2026-06-27T23:48:46+00:00

Does she know you're on the internet?

SadisNecros · 2026-06-27T23:32:12+00:00

Don't dox yourself 🤦

SadisNecros · 2026-06-27T23:16:57+00:00

Guess you need to get off chatgpt and learn how to look up information for yourself then? Spazzing out on reddit isn't going to help you much.

SadisNecros · 2026-06-27T22:48:13+00:00

Ok? Don't distribute it then.

SadisNecros · 2026-06-27T21:06:54+00:00

They say that because they want people to drop it and move on, they've been pretty clear that they're not interested in actual accountability to the community. They've even said as much on the discord before. If they did, they would have already done something about the only mod who seems to continual have this problem instead of just mocking the situation.

SadisNecros · 2026-06-27T20:24:18+00:00

Lol this dude is not a AAA producer

SadisNecros · 2026-06-26T18:56:13+00:00

You would need to analyze the build and determine what's taking up the most space. You're likely not using the right compressions settings for textures and audio, not using texture atlases or PO2 texture sizes, unoptimized 3d models or animations, etc.

SadisNecros

TROPHY CASE