Entity Extraction

Game design documents are full of named entities: characters, locations, items, factions, abilities, and mechanics. These entities are referenced across dozens of documents, and keeping track of all references manually is impractical. When a character gets renamed or a location is cut from the game, finding every reference across the entire document set is tedious and error-prone.

Entity extraction uses natural language processing to scan documents and identify these named entities automatically. It builds a cross-reference graph that shows which entities appear in which documents, how they relate to each other, and how references change over time. This is particularly valuable for large projects where the design documentation spans hundreds of pages.

The practical benefit is impact analysis. When a designer proposes renaming a character or changing a key mechanic, entity extraction shows every document that would be affected. This prevents the common problem of updating the main GDD but forgetting to update the quest design doc, the dialogue script, and the character sheet.