Advice for starting a team project
Hello Polycount!
A group of friends and I are trying to make video games together. We just finished our first one and are getting ready to try again. I've noticed a small problem with communication and I was hoping some professionals could give me advice - how does the art team usually communicate with other departments? (especially design and programming) When art assets are handed off, how can I best lay out for programming how they need to work?
I've also noticed that the programmers have a different development cycle than I do. Is that normal or should we try and sync up our timelines better?
I guess any advice about how to best communicate with the team would be appreciated.
A group of friends and I are trying to make video games together. We just finished our first one and are getting ready to try again. I've noticed a small problem with communication and I was hoping some professionals could give me advice - how does the art team usually communicate with other departments? (especially design and programming) When art assets are handed off, how can I best lay out for programming how they need to work?
I've also noticed that the programmers have a different development cycle than I do. Is that normal or should we try and sync up our timelines better?
I guess any advice about how to best communicate with the team would be appreciated.
Replies
Tools like those lets you organize your docs and project messages (to-do lists, task assigning, etc).
Google drive to hold images and refs.
Twitter helps too.
Good luck.
Personally my team is about 5 people, relatively small, but we use Trello which seems pretty good for organizing tasks and to do lists. We have this in addition to our SVN were we host the project + other things like designs, concept art, etc. We then try to do one weekly meeting on skype, sometimes lasting up to 3 hours or more, simply writing down everything we need and planning out stuff for the upcoming tasks.
And yes, programmers work differently than artists in cycles. Or at least I've had that experience too. Keep in mind that your also collaborating with these people, not only in work but ideas and such, so you always need to keep a clear mind and be very informative/descriptive in things you want to see or create.
2. use scrumy or something similar.
3. make sure your team is not unmanagably big... for a team that's completely remote, try to keep it around 5. any more than that will just become painful.
1. Do not run it like a pure democracy, you need somebody in charge, and the rest need to work to his or her vision. People need to be able to feel that its theirs too, but you DO need somebody calling the shots.
2. You need an environment where everybody leaves ego at the door when it comes to discussing the work amongst yourselves. Brtually critique all of the work together, do not take it personally ever. Compare yourself to AAA. If you're going to say something isn't up to scratch, have a potential solution or at least something worthy of discussion to fix it.
End of the day, its about producing the very best work possible and not about blowing smoke up each other's arses.
3. Plan for the future of the team. Example: not all earnings go in the pockets at this point. Perhaps you need to consider next year/project's costs etc.
4. CONTRACTS. get it all on paper and very clear from day one and there will be no problems. It's not shifty, its business. do it right.
5. Milestones. work to them.
6. Design, don't make it up as you go along. And lock in your features at some point, don't keep adding or it'll never get done.
7. Start very, very small. PROVE you can tackle even a typical indie game AFTER you've proven you can tackle the smallest of small games to absolute completion and at a proper high standard. Do an AAA version of Flappy Bird, if you can do that, you've proven you can then move on to say, a platformer. Getting to call of duty and Halo take years, you cannot skip this. Get 5-8 tiny projects under your collective belts before you start tackling something bigger.
7.1. NO, you cannot do an MMO at this stage no matter what you think.
8. Marketing a game is an entire full time job in itself, if you think you can cram it in at the end, you're wrong and you will earn 5k instead of 200k. Have the most able person scheduled to take that on full time months before launch, and make sure they're able to do it for at least a year after launch for at least 30-60 minutes a day.
8.1. Treat the press with respect, do not try to fuck with them. They aren't there to promote your game, they're there to write about games as professionals. Respect that.
And exclusive MEANS EXCLUSIVE. Don't tell one journalist that they have exclusivity and then go and give it to someone else.
9. just like your game needs to start small, so does your team. you DO NOT NEED 10 PEOPLE.
Have nobody around that isn't absolutely vital - don't care if they're your friend or whatever, if they arent VITAL, get rid of them NOW. it's business, do it right. they will drag you down later. If you want them involved but cannot justify their employment, bring them on later when you can afford to, or have them sign NDA like everybody else and function as an unpaid helper with a unique contract.
5 people maximum team size, i would say. Nobody without 5 years experience can manage a team bigger than that effectively without things beginning to start to slip.
Team management, much like marketing, is very difficult and requires a lot of time to do it RIGHT. Give it that time. you cannot just make things up as you go along and you cannot just expect everyone to self-manage. Do it right.
10. Your programmer is in a good position to design and also maybe team manage, he or she is going to be the one actually making it, and if they're any good they will have the mental tools to see things a few steps further than the rest of you. This is just a side effect of the kind of brainwork it takes to be a good programmer, take advantage of it.
Can't think of much else at the minute
edit: forgot to say, good luck and i hope to see what you all get up to!
Otherwise, it will become someone else's direction.
You need a way to keep track of what everyone is doing, when they are doing it, when they have done it and what they are going to do next.
Also have one person who's sole job is Marketing. It may not seem like a big task at the start but it is vital and extremely busy towards the end. Many small devs neglect this, it's no good making a great game if nobody plays it.