AI#

GDD Manager integrates language models to speed up tedious tasks without taking control away from the designer. You always review before accepting — the AI proposes, you decide.

What it does#

Supported providers#

The app supports 3 providers. You choose in Settings → AI:

• Anthropic Claude (recommended for long GDDs — large context window)
• OpenAI GPT (balanced cost/speed)
• Groq (fastest, smaller models — great for prototyping)

Each provider needs your API key (you create it in the provider's console and paste it into the app). Keys are stored only in your browser — we never send them to our servers.

Design principles#

The integration was built around 3 rules:

1. You review before accepting#

Every AI generation appears in preview mode. You read it, edit if you want, and click "Accept" to commit it to the project. Nothing goes in automatically. If the suggestion doesn't convince you, discard it.

2. The AI knows it's inside a GDD Manager#

The prompts were tuned so it understands:

• That there are specific page types (no inventing new ones)
• That page types come with the right addons (e.g., attributeDefinitions is seeded with 4 typical pre-populated stats)
• That callouts have 4 intentional variants (note/warning/design-decision/balance-note) — to be used deliberately
• That the doc is fictional but concrete — it invents names, numbers, and scenarios (no generic placeholders like "Character 1")

3. It doesn't invent systems outside the theme#

The strongest guardrail in the prompt is not adding mechanics the user didn't ask for. Asked for a puzzle game? No crafting. Asked for a visual novel? No combat. The AI is forced to respect the described scope.

Full template generation#

The most powerful feature — describe your game in 3 sentences and the AI generates the initial GDD with:

• 5 hierarchical groups (Overview, Game Design, Content, Presentation, Production)
• Typed pages inside each group (attributes, characters, items, economy)
• richDocBlocks filled with 3–5 callouts per page
• attributeDefinitionsOverrides with stats coherent with the genre (RPG: HP/ATK/DEF/MAG/SPD ~100/10/5/8/5; Platformer: HP/Speed/Jump ~3/1.0/1.5)
• domainTags on each section (combat, economy, progression, etc.)
• dataId suggested per page

Typical time: 30–60 seconds. You open a ready GDD and start editing.

Example input#

Type: Top-down roguelike
Description: A wizard explorer descends 10 floors of a tower with procedurally
generated dungeons. A rune system where combinations create unique spells.
Death is permanent, but rare runes permanently unlock new combinations
for future runs.
Additional info: Pixel art, single player, build-crafting focus.

Example output (structure)#

📖 Overview — Spire of Echoes
🎮 Game Design
  ├── Core Loop
  ├── Core Mechanics
  └── Progression
📦 Game Content
  ├── 🎯 Base Attributes (HP, MP, Mana Regen, Speed, Crit%)
  ├── 👤 Explorer Wizard (profile + xp curve + progression)
  ├── 👤 Enemy: Floor Goblin (profile)
  ├── ⚔️ Fire Rune (item with effect)
  ├── ⚔️ Ice Rune
  ├── ⚡ Spell: Fireball (skill)
  ├── 🪙 Essence (permanent currency)
  └── 🛠️ Rune Table (craft table)
🎨 Presentation
  └── Visual Style / UX / Audio
🏭 Production
  └── Technology / Roadmap / Risks / KPIs

Each page comes with rich prose, callouts explaining jargon, and a configured addon structure.

Context-aware chat#

Conversational mode that knows which project/section you're looking at and responds with that in mind.

Capabilities#

• Suggest new pages for an existing context
• Edit section content (returns Markdown)
• Analyze and give constructive feedback
• Suggest relationships between sections via domain tags
• Fill in gaps with coherent content

How it "sees" the project#

The chat receives metadata from every section:

**Project:** Spire of Echoes
**Description:** Top-down roguelike wizard...
**Existing sections (tags in brackets):**
- Overview [narrative] (320 chars)
- Base Attributes [combat] (empty)
- Explorer Wizard [characters, combat] (180 chars)
- Floor Goblin [characters, combat] (95 chars)
- Fire Rune [items, combat] (empty)
...

Tags help the chat understand domains — "suggest improvements to the economy" filters sections tagged economy.

GDD Analysis#

Runs heuristics + AI to highlight:

• Empty pages that should have content
• Broken refs (a skill points to a deleted modifier)
• Inconsistencies (attribute defined but never used, currency without an economyLink)
• Structural gaps (has enemies but no XP curve)
• Specific suggestions to improve coverage

Prose improvement#

In any richDoc, the "Improve with AI" button sends the current content plus a refinement request (more concise, more technical, more visual, etc.) and returns a revised version. You compare side by side and accept or discard.

Connecting to other AI assistants#

GDD Manager can be connected to other AI assistants that you (or your programming team) already use — Claude Code, Cursor, and similar tools. When connected, those assistants can:

• List and read the content of your pages
• Create new pages and add addons
• Update specific values
• Generate the export JSON on demand

A common scenario: your game's programmer opens their assistant, asks it to read the balancing table you built here, and generates the code that consumes those values in the engine. You don't even need to export manually.

Privacy#

• API keys: stored only in your browser (localStorage). Never sent to our servers.
• Content sent to the AI: goes directly from your browser to the provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Groq). GDD Manager's servers never see or store it.
• History: we don't store any AI usage history.

See also#