Cellar Door Games has published the early design notes for its game Rogue Legacy, though these might not be like some of the other design documents out there. Creative designer Teddy Lee warns that the set of early design notes shared to the developer's blog today aren't "your standard design notes," nor are they really even legible.
But, thanks to the detailed breakdown accompanying every roughly handwritten page, the collection of early Rogue Legacy ideas provides fellow game developers with a look at how the action-platformer evolved from its earliest concept to eventual release.
For example, Lee explains that the game was originally called Rogue Castle and, at first, was planned to include an experience point system that was eventually dropped for being too downright confusing.
Another page explores gameplay progression, and how the procedurally generated game would introduce features as players progressed and eventually died within the roguelike's halls.
The other notes offer similar insights into the early game, with Lee dutifully translating the handwritten scrawl and explaining why certain features were changed or left behind through development
The correct order of the notes themselves have been lost to time, but the nine pages themselves and Lee's very informative explanation of each can be found on the Cellar Door Games blog.