There’s been a project I’ve been trying to get off the ground in designing, a fun ol’ platformer, but my previous attempts to get around writing down all the details have landed rather flat. Options like regular design documents in Word and Trello just feel like they’re cumbersome for me to navigate.
One idea which has grabbed my interest was making something in a Wiki format. Being able to smoothly categorize everything, link to any relevant resources, and easily integrate images makes me feel like it’d be an option to consider.
I’m still stuck on a few issues that leave me hesitant on investing time in this format though.
Is there any reliable options in using a wiki with other developers? In terms of my own personal situation, I don’t have the resources to host a site right now, and I’d prefer not to put my trust in a site which I fear could have the potential to close its own doors within the future, leaving the content of that wiki needing to be moved. It’d be nice to have something which could be integrated with a pre-existing, reliable cloud service like Google Drive, especially when such a service could also be used to store other important files like assets.
Currently I only see myself as the main person filling in the wiki, but how well does a wiki work when multiple developers have access to add changes? This issue feels like the sort of thing which really hinges on how well I communicate with my teammates, so while I could see it being something which isn’t much of a problem if we all keep everything open and clear, there is still room for miscommunication…
While my research has lead me to find out that game wikis are an option that other game designers have used, I haven’t seen anyone’s personal experiences with one. Has anyone here used a wiki for their game design documentation? How well did it work for your game? Was there any major hiccups which this format left you with?
For the first question! Choosing what site or what platform to host the wiki in, as for as accessibility goes, isn’t that big of a problem! As long as when someone searches “(your game’s name) wiki” and instantly find the right result it’s all good. A trello or even a github page would do for a wiki, but if you want a common website that a lot of roblox games use, go for Fandom. Some of these wikis are actually fan-made! There is also the option for an in-game wiki, which is a very good idea: easier to access and players won’t have a trouble knowing about it. Like a book that you can obtain or something that goes along that.
For the second question, if the other developers are trusted there should be no conflicts! And I assume that they have a list of things that are going to be added and won’t or fix anything without your permission, and at first I recommend you do things simple by yourself, since the game won’t have that many features at first filling it out should be easy, and the more you add to the game, the more you add to the wiki which is not hard. And when your game gets quite known, there might be some dedicated players that wanna contribute to the wiki and correct or add some stuff to it. It’s basically a community.
Sadly, I never had any experiences with wikis nor did I contribute in one, but goodluck! Doesn’t seem like a hard task
I think you misunderstand my goal here in using a wiki. I’d be using it as a way to document how I’d want the game to work, for personal use when making the game. While the resources from it could be good for making a public wiki once the game releases, the wiki made for designing the game wouldn’t be for the public.
Oh I get it, so a to-do list of some sort. Well really just go for github or trello, or this is another suggestion. You might even be able to do update videos on what your doing like this for example and archive them for later.
I use an app called Notion for documenting my game design process, which I guess functions almost like a wiki to me. It’s extremely versatile software that I would recommend checking out, you can do practically anything with it.
Notion has the full functionality of either a wiki, Google Docs, Trello, etc depending on “templates” (very very versatile), and you can create your own custom templates
For writing down ideas, I use the Notes app on my Mac/iPhone because it’s super quick to open when something comes to mind (low friction).
