Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time
Stone Librande, a renowned game designer, presents at GDC about the design methodology behind SimCity (2013), showcasing how his “one-page design” paradigm shaped the game’s development. Building on his earlier “One Page Designs” GDC talk, Librande demonstrates how constraining design documentation to single pages effectively communicated complex ideas across teams and generated immediate stakeholder buy-in.
For SimCity (2013), Librande pushed this concept further, utilizing both “one-page” and “one-wall” designs to manage the intricate systems required in a full city simulation. His GDC presentation walks through the entire design process from initial conception through production’s later stages, illustrating how this methodology could scale to handle the game’s complexity.
The approach’s core value lies in its simplification of communication and team alignment. By enforcing single-page constraints, designers were forced to prioritize essential information, making documentation more effective at conveying ideas and achieving consensus across departments. Librande’s work demonstrates a practical strategy for managing large-scale game development complexity through disciplined design documentation and streamlined communication.