Design Doc Software

#1 Ghantt Charts handle this quite well...that's what I used at least. These are usually made in MS Project.

#2 I don't know of a software, but I know a good book that will help you.
Book: Game Design Theory & Practice (second edition)

Richard Rouse III

#3 I'm not usre if this is what you are looking for but have a look at webcollab - its more for task coordination rather than creating a design doc although it could be used for this. It's web based (php/mysql) and is open source.

The screen shot looks very similar to your example.

#4 @ michael Perry: I know gantt charts well but this is a more simplified list. I find with gantt charts I more or less make a timeline for the sake of it when I would rather just have completion dates. Its a personal preference thing.

@ morrie: I actually went to college for game design believe it or not. But thanks for the info.

@ chrisG: Thats exactly what I want but without the messyness of web based.

#5 Although theres a high learning curve, Adobe products like InDesign (or any that support pdf) will give you that kind of navigation using a table of contents with sub trees, though it's also expensive. iWork for the mac does everything you could want to organize long documents. There is also open office, an open source project aggressively aimed at microsloth office that will do all sorts of table, flow charts and navigation menus. It's a little bit complicated in some instances, but the documentation is superb. Those are the application based, but there are also plenty of project manager that are both web based and single app oriented that can help with workflow and documentation, like dotProject. Oddly enough, i use pen and paper and a basic word processor most of the time :)

#6 @Jason: I havent used InDesign or iWork but I have used open office and I have found that basically end up dong the same as yourself. Although I tend to just jump straight to the word processor bit.

The usefulness of these apps tends to get lost in the clutter. Php collab in a downloadable form is all I want.

#7 I use an app called OmniOutliner from the Omni group.

Omni Software

I believe it's OS X only though....

It's fantastic for any "list" oriented planning.

#8 That was the other app i was trying to think of, I kept getting it mixed up with OmniPage which is text recognition software.

Although it's true that you get lost in the clutter of open office and it's learning curve, it's hard to get software that does exactly what you want it to unless you're well versed in it's functions. Some of them like omni and iwork are a bit more straightforward for what you're looking for, but still require a few hours to sit down with it and figure out what you want to do and how it's done in those apps. All the ones mentioned (including Word) will do the TOC building in quite a few different formats including branched menus with hyperlinks for navigation, omnioutliner happens to be oriented more directly for it, sadly it's mac only.

There are plenty of php based (many with mysql functionality) that you can download and serve locally very easily on a windows machine. Then you can use those for the functionality and operations, making it easy to transcend to an online guideline for a dev team to follow. I really wish i would have done that before starting neophagia, now I'm sort of working backward to get all my notes and design documentation into dotProject, doubling my labor.