Art direction

Optional

Art direction says what the game must look and feel like, without saying how to make it. The builder keeps the craft, and you keep the intent. The builder is the person, team or AI that turns your package into a game.

Structured art direction lives in one direction.json beside the chapters. Five kinds of entry in it are judged by people:

A pillar is a visual priority. When two choices conflict, the pillar says which wins.
A mood names a feeling: its intent, what it borrows from, and what it must not become.
An anti-reference names a result you do not want, such as the genre's usual bright adventure-poster look.
A must-keep is a visible quality every build has to preserve.
The viewing entry says how someone should watch the game when judging it: how fast, how big, and on what kind of screen. A package has one.

direction.json

{
  "pillars": {
    "weather-stays-readable": "Severe weather changes the view without hiding the safe route.",
    "equipment-feels-used": "Every tool looks maintained by hand rather than fresh from a shop."
  },
  "mood": {
    "cold-focus": {
      "intent": "A clear, quiet climb through severe weather.",
      "anti": [
        "No warm holiday imagery.",
        "No heroic summit spectacle."
      ],
      "borrows": [
        {
          "from": "winter climbing field photographs",
          "what": ["flat winter light", "worn fabric surfaces"]
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "anti": {
    "no-adventure-poster": "Do not turn the climb into a bright adventure poster."
  },
  "must_keep": {
    "rope-stays-legible": "The rope between climbers stays visible in every weather."
  },
  "viewing": {
    "speed_and_size": "the normal climbing camera at play speed",
    "calibration": "an sRGB display at standard desktop brightness"
  }
}

Each mood has its own anti list for that mood. The top-level anti block is for the whole look, and those entries have names you can point at.

The presentation chapter then points at these entries. A citation is an entry's dotted name in backticks, such as pillars.weather-stays-readable. The section is Delegated, because the builder decides how to achieve the intent. The Who decides chapter explains the tag.

04-presentation.md

DELEGATED: presentation-direction

Keep the safe route readable through blowing snow, with edge detail that stays calm rather than glowing, as guided by pillars.weather-stays-readable.

Show repaired seams, replaced buckles, and uneven wear on every tool, as guided by pillars.equipment-feels-used.

Let the wind drop out near each handhold so the climb feels concentrated rather than frantic, following mood.cold-focus.

Keep the framing close to the climbers and refuse triumphant summit poses, following anti.no-adventure-poster.

Keep the rope darker than the snow and clear across each climber's body, preserving must_keep.rope-stays-legible.

A pillar, mood, anti-reference or must-keep that no chapter cites draws a warning.

Pillars, moods, anti-references and must-keeps are read and judged by people, not by a machine. Measurable promises about colour, contrast and timing use the same file and are checked by acceptance tests. The Palette and colour promises chapter covers them.

Full rules: OpenGDD specification, §9.