Game Maker Community: Are You Developing With A Large Team? - Game Maker Community

Seeing there's no "Game Development" forum I'm going to post it here. Feel free to move it.

Okay, you have a large team. You're communicating on IM, email, forum boards, whatever. Some guys are posting bugs, other are wanting tasks to do. It's a mess, half your programmers have no idea what to do while the others are frantically programming. Nobody really knows the direction the game is headed in, when a demo will be released, what graphics need to be done. You've got a different version of the source on everyone's computer. One guy makes a change that crippples the game, you have to redo hundreds of lines of code and nobody has a backup.

Yes, it can be a mess working with a large team. However, there are ways to make things 100x easier. With the free programs and servers I will show you, there's no better way.

SVN: SubVersion (or SVN) is an improvement on earlier Version Control Systems (VCS). With a VCS the newest version of the source is kept on the server, and every single change is logged and backed up. Some silly programmer upload a fatally flawed version? That's okay, you can backup to an earlier revision, completely undoing all changes and restoring it to an earlier state. Also, you don't have multiple people working on the same file at the same time, so that when they upload Person A isn't missing Person B's features and vice versa. VCS lets people check out files, or lock them. (in SVN) This prevents others from working on the source while you are. Then when you're done, just log the changes and commit the file. The logs are stored so you can see the progress of your program. also, when updating or commiting, the whole program is downloaded or uploaded, only the binary difference is! SVN is not a program however - but you can't clients for it. A good one which uses the Windows Shell is TortoiseSVN. You can get it here: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
But what good is SVN without a server? It's hard to get good dedicated hosting for this, and especially with GM games and their backups, total space on the server can reach hundreds of megabytes! Luckily, some college students had provided a solution for everyone to use!

openSVN: OpenSVN (http://opensvn.csie.org) is a SVN server hosted and mantained by college students for research. They provide free hosting for your project, with a space limit of 1,000 mb! And, you can ask for more! The server speed isn't that great, but since SVN only down/uploads the byte difference, it doesn't matter too much. You can make your repository available to the public or only accessible via username and password. (you can create users as a project administrator) Okay, so this is great, but what about keeping organized? Luckily, the openSVN admins provided another free service that is automatically included with your project.

Trac: Intergrated SCM and Project Management - Although initally it is difficult to setup, Trac provides the answer for all your organizational needs. It was made to be used with SVN, so it acts as file viewer and logs all actions. It provides a WIKI - which is great for letting out all your game design ideas. It provides a timeline - which logs all changes, including changes to the WIKI and ticket changes. It has a roadmap - you can set milestones (such as Final Release) and then based on the amount of tickets open/closed, it shows a completion bar! Cool! the biggest thing though, are tickets. Anyone on your team can open a ticket. Say programmer D finds a huge bug in the code - he opens a new Bug ticket and describes the problem. He can also assign a certain person to fix it - but he chooses not to. He assigns it to "Anyone." He sets the priority very hi because this is a major flaw. So now the ticket is added, and everyone who checks Trac knows about it. Programmer B tries to solve it, but doesn't get very far. He makes a few comments on the ticket. "Well, I believe it's a problem with the collison detection code we're using." Programmer A knows the solution, assigns the ticket to himself, fixes it, and uploads the source. he then closes the ticket. The roadmap shows another few % towards completion there are also RSS feeds available and you can even query the database from another site!

A few examples with my project:




http://img214.images...64/trac4oh6.jpg
http://img103.images...46/trac5ev0.jpg


Have fun!

EDIT: Oh, there are alternatives to SVN. You can go back to VCS (or CVS) with a program such as FreeCVS or you can use some different ones such as Code Co-op. However I've found the SVN - openSVN method the best for me

This post has been edited by Thomas: 03 August 2006 - 11:54 AM

Yeah, I'm a developer of The Battlefield, I must admit, this is a really nice system, when diffrent people are working on it. It works perfectly

I'm a developer as well. I agree that the project is very well structured.

This post has been edited by Calle: 03 August 2006 - 12:08 PM

I like the idea and all, but there aren't many large GM teams.

yes, but even my team has 5 people. And it's more than worth it to use this.

Right well... what's the point of this topic? To whore out a couple of programs?

Zee

No, to help with the ongoing struggle of keeping your team organized. Read the topic.

Ah yes... SVN... a wonderful solution!

I have a friend (the same friend I always mention on these forums ) who uses it and I quote him: "I don't know how I ever lived without Subversion."

He hosts his own SVN server and uses it only for himself as far as I know. It doesn't only have to be for teams.

I also prefer using code that gets built on top of your program for it to work seamlessly, under the philosophy for programmers that everything should "Just work". This is another great way to manage your games because you can have everything in a "module" (or engine if you want to call it that)

-Arc

It might be good even though you are alone, but it's true power is released in large projects with a lot of people involved. At least I think so, I can't imagine your friend actually uses all the functions, he can't possible need to when he is alone.

useful

ive never had a team... i havnt even had another person to help me make anything witch is why yet to this day i still have never completed anything because i try to make somthing good... and im not to good...
and i dont like being called noob or anything so there u go i admit it.....

I find it easy to just send games through AIM, but i've never worked with a team of more than 2 people (me and ChIkEn, lol)

i use to work in a team but i found that my team members were unreliable, and not trustworthy so i just been doing my own thing, its much easier.
still we always used msn or yahoo

This post has been edited by FutureCoder: 04 August 2006 - 12:33 AM

It's always easier if you pay your programmers. (like I do)

well when i was making games in gm i wasnt going to pay them, cause all the stuff they were doing i can do my self.(except art) That was one good thing about gm it never mattered if i had a team or not. cause everything in gm one person can do by himself.

This post has been edited by FutureCoder: 04 August 2006 - 01:36 AM

Thats true, and most of the better games at the GMC are made by one person.

OM

Very useful, very useful indeed.

Seeing the replies here I guess it's a hate it or love it thing.

-Arc

I'm in the SodaHertz team and it's working fine. I do my bit (buy the domain and maintain website) and other people getalong with their bits. We use MSN to contact as well, however I've jut finished integrating a mini-forum into the admin CP on the website so we can contact each other that way too.

Just a thought
- Sam

When developing with a large team, communication is all important. Besides web collaboration software, setting staffing structures and development schedules help organise which of your team do what jobs and at what time.

Electing a leader allows a particular team member to distribute and oversee tasks, but of course need to be organised themselves, and have the ability to move projects in the right direction. A staffing position list makes clear which of the team have been assigned to tasks, while if a development schedule, set and agreed to at the start of a project, is kept to, these tasks can be set due dates. Together, by setting realistic "checkpoints", games can be completed quicker and more efficently.

In my experience of project management, I've yet to find a better alternative to Windows SharePoint Services. This is a free download from Microsoft (yes, free) that makes management very easy. At Crash X, Studios, we use the solution to deploy tasks and events, and also to share development resources and discuss issues as they arise over the internet. You all need is a web host supporting ASP.NET 1.1 or higher, although to our advantage, I administrate the Crash X, Studios server network and was able to fully install and setup the software in under 30 minutes.

I'm able demonstrate the product to anyone interested, and would be happy to host solutions for teams in need of improved communication. Feel free to contact me for further information.