title: Writing functional specifications for games
body: <p>I've been reading Joel on Software recently and so I've become pretty sold on the idea of <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html" rel="noreferrer">writing functional specifications</a> before getting too involved in development.  </p>
  
  <p>I'm about to have a go at creating a simple 2D game (not too simple mind), and I can really see the gain - in the past I've just jumped into writing <em>extremely</em> simple games and I've found myself getting stuck or rewriting the same bits over and over again as I suddenly realise I have no idea how my level should be defined, or I realise that I want to be able to jump but that means completely re-thinking my collision detection.</p>
  
  <p>Anyway, so I've started coming up with a functional specification but I'm struggling a little - I can see and understand the point of it, but I've not really written many functional specifications before and so I don't really know how to start.  The examples that I've found on the internet are great, but they are mostly process-based (user submits form A, then form B) etc... which doesn't really apply much to the structure of a game.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have any advice /examples on how to strucutre / write specifications for games?</p>