Game Design One-Page Design Doc

Create a one-page game design document that is readable, decision-useful, and visually polished — exportable as a PDF that looks like a real product.

Use this skill when the user wants a compact game design summary rather than a bloated GDD. The output is designed to be passed around in meetings, dropped in Slack, or emailed to publishers without embarrassment.

Read references/family-conventions.md when you want the shared style and prioritization rules for this game-design skill family. Read references/source-notes.md when you want the distilled takeaways from the reference template and the GDC talk overview.

Core principle

A one-page design doc is not a small bad GDD. It is a compressed communication tool.

It should:

• state what the game is
• state why it is interesting
• state what feeling or fantasy it is chasing
• state the core features and interaction model
• state enough production framing to make it actionable

It should not:

• try to explain every subsystem
• drown the reader in lore
• use vague slogans instead of specifics
• hide the real game behind marketing fluff

What to produce

Produce:

1. One-page PDF — the shareable, visually designed version
2. One-page markdown doc — the editable text version
3. Structured source JSON — the intermediate data used for rendering

Visual design

The PDF renderer (scripts/render_one_page_gdd.py) produces a professional dark-theme layout:

• Dark background — near-black navy #0F111A, with a lighter panel for the header
• Teal accent colour — #00C8A0 for rules, section headings, pillar tag nubs, and bullet markers
• Pillar tags — design pillars rendered as pill-shaped labels with a teal left accent in the header
• Two-column body — left column for mechanics-heavy content, right column for production/aesthetic content
• Section rules — a teal horizontal rule above each section label
• Poppins typeface — used when available (falls back to Liberation Sans or DejaVu)
• Branded footer — document label on the left, game title on the right

The renderer uses ReportLab (vector PDF — real text, not a raster image), making the output searchable, copy-pasteable, and print-sharp.

Font requirements

The renderer searches for fonts in standard system locations automatically:

• Linux: /usr/share/fonts/truetype/google-fonts/, /usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation/
• macOS: ~/Library/Fonts/, /Library/Fonts/
• Windows: C:/Windows/Fonts/

Preferred: Poppins (Bold, Medium, Regular, Light) from fonts.google.com Fallback: Liberation Sans (included in most Linux systems)

Dependencies

pip install reportlab

Default section structure

Left column:

• Genre / Story / Mechanics Summary
• Key Features
• Interface & Controls

Right column:

• Art Style
• Music & Sound
• Roadmap / Launch Criteria (includes platform, audience, milestones, launch date)

Header band:

• Game title
• Identity / Mantra (subtitle)
• Design Pillars (as pill tags)

Process

1. Clarify the design input

Collect or infer the minimum needed:

• game title or working title
• game identity / mantra
• 2 to 3 design pillars
• concise gameplay/story/mechanics summary
• 3 to 6 key features
• input / interface model
• art references or aesthetic direction
• sound direction or emotional audio goals
• platform
• target audience
• milestone plan or launch criteria

If the user gives messy notes, compress them rather than asking endless questions.

2. Write for one-page density

Keep each section tight.

Guidelines:

• prefer short bullets over dense paragraphs
• keep pillars punchy (2–4 words each)
• keep the summary to a compact paragraph
• keep features to the strongest few, not every idea
• make roadmap milestones concrete enough to be useful
• write like the doc will be skimmed in under two minutes

3. Preserve design clarity over style fluff

If the concept is fuzzy:

• choose clarity over hype
• expose contradictions instead of smoothing them over
• keep claims grounded in actual mechanics or fantasy

4. Build the structured source JSON

Write a JSON file matching the renderer schema.

Expected fields:

• title
• identity_mantra
• design_pillars (array, 2–4 items)
• summary
• features (array, 3–6 items)
• interface
• art_style
• music_sound
• platform
• audience
• milestones (array)
• launch_day

See references/example-input.json for a worked example.

5. Render markdown and PDF

# Install dependency first if needed:
pip install reportlab

# Render:
python scripts/render_one_page_gdd.py --input <slug>.json --md <slug>.md --pdf <slug>.pdf

The renderer auto-discovers fonts. If content is too long, shorten the copy before rerendering — do not try to fit more by cramming.

6. Check fit and trim aggressively

Before finalizing, verify:

• the concept is legible at a glance
• the features list is not overstuffed
• the PDF still feels like a one-pager (not wall-to-wall text)
• the roadmap is realistic enough to be useful
• the strongest idea is visible immediately

If the PDF looks crowded, shorten the writing. If there is too much whitespace, the document is probably well-scoped — do not pad it.

Output expectations

By default, create files in the current working directory or a user-specified target folder:

• <slug>.json
• <slug>.md
• <slug>.pdf

Use a slug based on the game title when naming files.

Response structure

When using this skill, report:

• where the JSON, markdown, and PDF files were written
• any sections that had to be compressed heavily
• any major ambiguities or contradictions you preserved or surfaced

References

Read these when useful:

• references/source-notes.md for the distilled source principles and section model
• references/example-input.json for renderer input shape and field conventions

Working principle

If a team cannot explain the game on one page, the design is probably not clear enough yet.

Use this skill to produce a one-pager people can actually read, discuss, and pass around.

<!-- license-footer --> Part of the Game Design Skills Bundle by Stanislav Stankovic. Licensed under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 — free for personal, academic and nonprofit use. Commercial use requires a licence, sold as skill packs. See <https://github.com/Stanestane/game-design-skills-bundle> for terms.

Required Notice: Copyright Stanislav Stankovic (https://www.stane-island.net/)