Are you a budding designer? Got a bunch of friends who want to make a game together? Well Crunchtime games have got something to help you with the essentials - they've released their design documents for Shred Nebula on the Xbox Live Arcade.

Doing a Pitch for a new game idea never gets any easier. It does not matter how much experience you have or if it is your first game idea, selling a concept to others is tough! A major challenge for students and aspiring game developers is finding legitimate reference on how this process works by seeing real design docs from released games. The Game Industry is loaded with NDA's and other secretive philosophies that make it tough for us as an industry to A) Help the future designers/developers have solid reference to learn from and B) Strengthen the trade of "planning/game design" and progress it as a technical art form through sharing and innovation.

I personally have created many detailed design documents and high-end pitches for the games I have worked on over the last 17 years as a Lead Designer, Director and Character Gameplay Programmer - all of which are stuck under NDA blanket and therefore hidden away from those who could greatly benefit from the experience.

There are two documents that have been released - The pitch document,which is officially what allowed Microsoft to give the game the green light, and the "60 seconds of gameplay" document - the equivalent of a storyboard for the game, describing the feelings and actions the player will take in a short amount of time.

Download them all below. Definitely give them a look over - XBLA, PSN and WiiWare alike will benefit from them.

Source: Shred Nebula - Design Documents