# Full COG Game Design Guidelines **URL:** \ **Category:** Game Development\ **Created:** [November 2, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608 "2016-11-02T16:03:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mary\_Duffy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/mary_duffy/32/5311_2.png) [@Mary\_Duffy](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/Mary_Duffy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/1 "2016-11-02T16:03:55Z")
Just wanted to open a new discussion thread about game design. Since we [announced our contest](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/announcing-the-choice-of-games-contest-for-interactive-novels/21578/). we’re also [releasing our design doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/17MxymBbcIal4vh_k2w7A1vbd-H6dAorQ9O-Q5zLjCsc/edit?usp=sharing). Any revelations/thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Eiwynn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/eiwynn/32/221334_2.png) [@Eiwynn](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/Eiwynn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/2 "2016-11-02T16:09:44Z")
Is this document the same as the outline you released earlier? ---
**Author:** ![Mary\_Duffy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/mary_duffy/32/5311_2.png) [@Mary\_Duffy](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/Mary_Duffy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/3 "2016-11-02T16:10:24Z")
No. This is our full game design doc. ---
**Author:** ![Eiwynn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/eiwynn/32/221334_2.png) [@Eiwynn](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/Eiwynn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/4 "2016-11-02T16:11:12Z")
Ok. Thank you I’ll be going over it today then. ---
**Author:** ![grrozny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/grrozny/32/19905_2.png) [@grrozny](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/grrozny)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/5 "2016-11-02T16:12:20Z")
I’m excited to see this! I dunno if I’ll be entering the contest, but I’m going to be writing a Hosted Game in between working on my non-COG WIP and this will be super useful. ---
**Author:** ![tw1stedmind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/tw1stedmind/32/23821_2.png) [@tw1stedmind](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/tw1stedmind)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/6 "2016-11-05T05:45:00Z")
Do authors have to follow all of these? If so, that’s kind of disappointing. Makes more sense to me now why Hosted Games publishes the best games, feels like with all these rules you’re almost handicapping your own games. ---
**Author:** ![Ramidel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Ramidel](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/Ramidel)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 5:56am UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/full-cog-game-design-guidelines/21608/7 "2016-11-05T05:56:43Z")
Some CoG authors color outside the lines a bit. The hard rule is gender and sexual orientation inclusivity - if there are romances, there are romances of multiple sexual orientations available, and if the player has a gender, they have the option to select their gender. (The Fleet has neither, but it has no romances and gender is completely irrelevant - the PC is kind of a Non-Entity General.) For example, Choice of Robots feeds the guidelines regarding stat use into a wood chipper, but then Kevin Gold is a good enough writer and game designer to get away with this. If you’re writing for the contest, you’ll be judged on how well you fit the guidelines, of course.