[gameprogrammer] Re: 1 and half year project

Hey Sushi!

Some advice if you want it about running / organizing your team.

I'm workin on a game right now myself where im the single programmer,
there's 2 scripters (lua is great!) and like 6 or 7 artists.

anyhow... what i did to start up this project

#1) get an SVN server set up (my buddy is hosting mine) so everyone can
check in / check out work, and SVN keeps histories of all the files which is
really nice.

#2) I went to freelists.org and got a mailing list for my project (seriously
its easy to get one its really nice) this way we have all of our
conversations on the mailing list and we are all on the same page about
design, art, code, etc.  It really is great for keeping everyone in the loop
and keeping everything organized

#3) We have a wiki set up to put all the ideas we want to keep around.
people havent been using it as much as i'd hoped.

#4) I made one person head of design and art while im head of tech.  It's
really nice to have one person being the head of the creative stuff because
I've worked on games in the past where there were just too many chiefs and
nothing got done (seriously thats whats killed all of my solo game projects
up until now).  You may say that sucks because everyone should get to
design, and that is really true.  You want to pick someone who has good
ideas, but is also fair and able to recognize good ideas in others (and
isn't going to ego or power trip!).  I think the best way to come up with
design is to get the basic design figured out with just the main designer
before the project starts (well too late in your case!) and then from there,
once the "skeleton" is built, then all the other people working on the game
have an idea of the direction of the game and can work on the details and
improve the core game ideas, but everyone has a direction and can stay
focused towards a defined goal (very important!)

#5) Break tasks up into milestones.  Even if there is no time limit for
reaching a milestone (our milestones are done when they are done - no time
limit) you want to break making your game up into bite sized chunks and make
sure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.

For instance, in our game we are making an RPG.

Our first milestone was to make a mine/cave with enemies in it.  You could
walk around and fight with a very basic combat system and there are a few
scripted events.  We've reached that goal and the cave/mine is about 90%
done (lots of game features still missing so we are leaving it 90% done for
now) and we are moving onto the next goal.

If you have a lot of people working on a game, even if you have a clear
design, it's a very daunting task so milestones are great for breaking it
into bitesized, do-able, organized peices to make sure you can get to the
finish line (:

anyhow, you didn't ask for it but there's my 2 cents, i thought i'd share
some things i've learned (:


i still have no clue what we'd do about dividing money if/when this game
sells... i think that is something we should have figured out early on but
we are leaving it til the end lol.


2009/5/26 ®£$ǖ"v@M$Ħ ¢© $. <theamericansushi@xxxxxxxxx>

> I'm located in india...And to all of you have have responded positivly
> let's get started right away...I would like to knowwhat kind of game would
> be realistic and something out of the box and also wat game engine would we
> be using or how we would go about it..Please reply and we can get started
> ...It would be nice if we could have a group chat sometime...If ou all have
> yahoo ids can you please give it as well...
>
>
> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 11:32 PM, shiqiangchen chen 
> <violinchen@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>> Could you give me more information, such as where you are location. How it
>> works. Have you had any IP... etc.
>>
>>
>>
>>  2009/5/26 ®£$ǖ"v@M$Ħ ¢© $. <theamericansushi@xxxxxxxxx>
>>
>>> I would like to start a project ... Obviously a game...I would like to
>>> know about any interested people....Hopefully for about 1 and a half
>>> years..... I would like to discuss about what game ,what engine and
>>> everything else..Yes i understand this looks a little general....But i would
>>> like to improve my game development skills so i would lprefer to work ina
>>> group where i can create a game and get help from others who cna help me
>>> create this game....Please reply and hopefull we can have fun.....
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Reply,
>>> ???£   ®(((Ŝǖ"v@ˉ˘MśĦ ¢  ???)))©
>>> www.garbagetech.co.cc
>>> Garbage Tech: Technology You Can Only Dream About
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Reply,
> ???£   ®(((Ŝǖ"v@ˉ˘MśĦ ¢  ???)))©
> www.garbagetech.co.cc
> Garbage Tech: Technology You Can Only Dream About
>

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