Not a hundred-page bible: one page per mechanic, level, and character, each judged against your pillars and kept beside the build. Draw the core loop, keep the reason the double jump was cut, and point every playtest task at the page it changes.
Free for macOS, Windows, and Linux. No account, no subscription.
Sound familiar?
Every game should have a design doc. Almost nobody keeps one true.
One long document, read once. People stop after the pillars, and the mechanic they’re building is somewhere on page forty.
Values change in every playtest. Soon the build becomes the reference and the doc collects dust.
A doc for ideas, a sheet for numbers, stickies for level flow, and notes you texted yourself. Asking a teammate is faster than finding the answer.
How it fits
Every part of the game gets a short page with the same sections: why it’s in the game, how it should feel, its rules and numbers, and what it will never do. The pages are plain markdown in your project folder, next to your Godot or Unity project if you like.
What you will use most
Mechanics, levels, and characters as cards that open their pages, joined by labelled arrows and coloured by status.
Tasks on a board, each pointing at the mechanic or level it changes. The page holds the design, the board holds the work.
Images, PDFs, and the balance sheet live in the project, linked to their pages. Rename one and every page follows.
A playtest note sits on the rule it’s about, signed by its writer, and closes once the page is updated.
Connect your own agent and ask. It reads the mechanic’s page before it writes the GDScript or C#, and changes your design only if you ask.
See the game whole
Lay out what the player spends and what gives it back, with every card a page you can open. Arrows carry labels and frames group a system. A card’s colour follows its status, so a cut mechanic turns red by itself.
Start today
One command sets up the game’s folders, its five framing pages, and the one-pager, cut list, playtest log, and art bible, named in Title Case. Then give your first mechanic a page in its system. In the app, pick Game when you start a new project.
$ eidos install @The-Virtual-Panda/game --naming "Title Case"
✓ installed @The-Virtual-Panda/game → Blueprints (Eidos 5.5.0, naming Title Case)
collections: The Game, Mechanics, Levels, Characters, Items
$ eidos new Mechanics "Wall Cling" --group Movement
✓ Mechanics/Movement/Wall Cling.md (Mechanics, mechanic.one-pager, id B-7X1Z)Start here
Game is in the Registry: five pages for the whole game, mechanics and items by system, levels by act, and characters, with a page type for enemies. Every page moves from Idea to Shipped, and a cut one keeps its reason. A playtester role sees only what’s in the build. If your game is built on its setting, add Places and Factions from World.
A video game, a mechanic at a time
Mechanics and items by system, levels by act, characters and enemies, a cut list, a playtest log, and a playtester role that sees only what is in the build.
$ eidos install @The-Virtual-Panda/gameIn the app: New Project, then pick it from the list.
A fictional world, for a series or a table
Places by region, factions, characters, arcs by campaign, a history, and a player role that sees only what is revealed.
$ eidos install @The-Virtual-Panda/worldIn the app: New Project, then pick it from the list.
Download Eidos MD, start from the game framework, and give your core mechanic its own page. It’s free, and your pages stay in your project.
Free for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Your files stay plain text in a folder you own.