An important part of game design is writing a Game Design Document. Game Designers, who are just starting their careers, and are new to the game industry, are usually not familiar with the documentation process. The purpose of this thesis was to create an example Game Design Document, and a guide about writing one, for Oulu Game Lab to use as a part of their coaching.

When this work was begun, it was already known that the game industry does not have any standards for the Game Design Documentation. Several game design related books and web articles were studied, and compared with each other and with personal experiences, to find the most uniform information about writing a Game Design Document. The found information was then used to create the guide. Concurrently with the research, a design of a game was begun and a Game Design Document was written.

The work led to a conclusion that a perfect template for the Game Design Document cannot be created, but the guide works as a good basis for a designer to create a template that suits his needs.

The example Game Design Document was not finished during the timeframe of this thesis. For it was found during the research that the processes of designing a game, and writing a Game Design Document are iterative in nature, and need the effort of the whole development team to be completed.