Europa Universalis lead says design documents stifle creativity: 'You end up with a bunch of idea guys who write all the documents and the rest are there to follow'

It takes a village to make a videogame, and there's no one way to do it. Solo devs and quintuple-A studios alike face all sorts of challenges trying to make all a game's moving parts cohere, and the more cooks you add to the kitchen, the more different design philosophies are bound to conflict. That's where design documents come in—living, comprehensive treatises that outline all a game's systems and design goals to be referenced by those working on the game—at least, for some.

Johan Andersson, lead on Europa Universalis 5, said in an interview with PC Gamer news writer Joshua Wolens that the practice can be too rigid and restraining. For Paradox Tinto, good design comes with a bit of democracy.

"Design documents stifle creativity and it reduces people's ownership and empowerment," Andersson said. "You create better games by talking with your team … tell the person some broad outlines, like 'we want this,' 'it should function like this,' a few samples, and let them make the detailed decisions. It creates greater ownership and greater accountability long-term in a project.

Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of idea guys who write all the documents and the rest are there to follow. Of course, you need to have someone in charge that goes back, 'well, let's make sure we're following towards the same goals' and all that."

He noted his team used design documents more frequently in the early days, but these days, he "doesn't believe" in the practice. "At the end of the day, you want most of the people to feel that it's their game, not a bunch of the design team or a few people's games," He explained. "You want everyone to feel ownership of the game. It becomes better then."

When asked if he felt that EU1, because of its reliance on design documents, was a bit stifled, he said it was. But they didn't use design docs out of a particular faith in the practice; the team did it "because we didn't know better."

"That was what we thought was gonna be the good way. I don't think you should judge what you did in the past by your knowledge you have now, because we don't have time machines."