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[stevesan]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate board to post to, but I thought it'd be good to start a discussion on collaboration experiences. As indie devs, this is particularly important for us, since we can rarely count on money to work with others reliably (even then, it doesn't always work out). So, could we share some past collaboration experiences and lessons learned? Some things I've learned:

- Having a concrete schedule helps people plan their time. Be as clear as you can about time requirements. "After you send the assets over, you should still plan on spending one hour every other night tweaking and polishing, since things will rarely be perfect the first time."
- Scheduled "game jams" can also help. If everyone is together, even just remotely, it's much easier to work and get stuff done quickly.
- Give people a second, and maybe even a third chance, but if they keep slipping on the schedule without a good excuse, drop em. You deserve better (like dating advice..lol)
- Sometimes if a person is really lagging, you may just wanna go in and do it yourself. This may prompt them to get back on track..not something you should have to do a lot, but as a last resort.

These are all just things to try. They don't always work, cuz sometimes, people are just unreliable and there's not much you can do about it.

Some things I will try next time:
- Get at least one personal reference. "Have you worked with people before on an indie game? Could you just have them send me an email speaking to your reliability?"

Not sure if good or not:
- Split profits, if any, based on time-spent working. Every one should keep a log of how many hours you spend on what.

[Fallsburg]

Let's see the things that I have learned:

-Meeting people in person is big.  It might not be necessary, but in my experience it has been.  I don't know if it's a corollary of greater-internet-fuckwad theory, but people are more inclined to be responsible if you actually have met them in person, in my experience.

-Make sure everyone is on the same page.  Not just in terms of what they should be working on at any given time, but in terms of the scope and vision for the project.  If you have someone whose heart isn't in it to the same degree that other people's are, it leads to bad feelings all around.  The person who isn't into it won't make it a priority, leading to everyone else being frustrated with that person, leading to that person disliking the project more, ad infinitum.

[TeeGee]

- Sometimes if a person is really lagging, you may just wanna go in and do it yourself. This may prompt them to get back on track..not something you should have to do a lot, but as a last resort.

I would rather replace the person than to do myself what someone else has promised to do.

Schedules and all are important, but what really matters is finding the right people (may take a long time). Most folks will lag, get demotivated and leave the project no matter how well you have scheduled your milestones or how big of a percentage you offer them (and even if you outright pay them in some cases).

But there's also this rare breed of people who will stay with you and work hard to the end, even if your schedule is a bunch of post-it notes on the fridge and serious money is years away. They will genuinely get as excited for the game as you are and treat it as their own. When you find someone like that, treasure them!

[wg/funstorm]

It's a good list but I also don't agree with just picking up the slack. Sure, if it's something minor towards the end of the project it's no big deal but if large chunks of work don't get done I prefer to confront the issue head-on and professionally. Just a simple 'hey we're behind on feature x. Is everything ok on your end? Do we need to re-schedule the feature, are you going to put in some extra time to make it up or do we need to cut something?'. If you keep doing the other person's work, aren't you just teaching them that it's ok?

Surprised nobody has brought up regular communication yet. If you're not talking every 1-2 days, I find it's hard to keep the team motivated and it's easier to forget about the project.

One more I would add is to talk about how an asset is going to work in-game before it gets built. Sounds like common sense but if you have a team member (both programmer and artist can be guilty of this) who just goes off and builds things without talking about it, guaranteed there's going to be some changes that need to get made which is frustrating and extra work that could have been avoided with a quick 5 minute conversation.

what really matters is finding the right people (may take a long time). Most folks will lag, get demotivated and leave the project no matter how well you have scheduled your milestones or how big of a percentage you offer them

Just quoting for truth.

[stevesan]

Yeah, I think you're all right that finding the right people is the end goal. I do "fire" people when it's pretty clear they're not keeping up, but I should probably do this sooner than later. Like, unless they have a good excuse, give them no more than 1 week of grace time.

[Mamma Pixel]

Resume matters less than your gut feeling about a person.

Folks can pick up skills pretty easily. And you never know what the hell will come up on a job.

What you can guarantee though: if you don't like the cut of someone's jib now, you're going to HATE IT when you're in the middle of crunch or when shit hits the fan and something totally unplanned stalls production (which always happens on every project anyway).

So getting the Star Talent or Perfect Mix of skills isn't nearly as critical as finding the people you do your best work with.

I've seen artists learn scripting and eventually turn into freaking impressive programmers because the team needed it.

My best project manager was hired originally as a junior 2D artist.

Trust your gut. Work with folks who inspire you, push you to do better and can do what you CANT do. You'll figure out the rest as you go.

Be VERY PICKY about who you work with!!

[Moczan]

Resume matters less than your gut feeling about a person.

Folks can pick up skills pretty easily. And you never know what the hell will come up on a job.

What you can guarantee though: if you don't like the cut of someone's jib now, you're going to HATE IT when you're in the middle of crunch or when shit hits the fan and something totally unplanned stalls production (which always happens on every project anyway).

So getting the Star Talent or Perfect Mix of skills isn't nearly as critical as finding the people you do your best work with.

I've seen artists learn scripting and eventually turn into freaking impressive programmers because the team needed it.

My best project manager was hired originally as a junior 2D artist.

Trust your gut. Work with folks who inspire you, push you to do better and can do what you CANT do. You'll figure out the rest as you go.

Be VERY PICKY about who you work with!!

Sounds corporate, you don't really see junior/senior positions, project managers, resumes etc. when it comes to indie.

[Lynx]

While you may think corporate software engineering is irrelevant to indie game development, what happens when your game is a success and you have to figure out how to deal with more than four or five people?  Or, what do you do if your game is popular enough (in development) that many people want to help work on it?  Project organization is a perennial problem, there's no reason not to study what has worked for others if you ever plan to work with anyone else.

If it's a volunteer effort coordinated over the Internet, you can't expect people to submit resumes and cover letters, or come over for interviews...  But at the same time you should have a good idea where their skills lie, how much time they're willing to commit, and what their working patterns are.  Do they work better when given a feature and told to go nuts?  Or do they want clearly defined start and end points and specs?  Do they just want to add this or that thing they've always wanted in a game, or do they want to be equal partners contributing over the lifetime of the game?

If you sign someone onto your project assuming they work the same way you do, and it turns out their expectations or methods are totally different, then you have a problem.  Maybe it can be worked out, or maybe it's best to part way.  Either way, that's not "corporate", that's a problem that happens to any project with more than one person working on it.

[stevesan]

Resume matters less than your gut feeling about a person.

Folks can pick up skills pretty easily. And you never know what the hell will come up on a job.

What you can guarantee though: if you don't like the cut of someone's jib now, you're going to HATE IT when you're in the middle of crunch or when shit hits the fan and something totally unplanned stalls production (which always happens on every project anyway).

So getting the Star Talent or Perfect Mix of skills isn't nearly as critical as finding the people you do your best work with.

I've seen artists learn scripting and eventually turn into freaking impressive programmers because the team needed it.

My best project manager was hired originally as a junior 2D artist.

Trust your gut. Work with folks who inspire you, push you to do better and can do what you CANT do. You'll figure out the rest as you go.

Be VERY PICKY about who you work with!!

Sounds corporate, you don't really see junior/senior positions, project managers, resumes etc. when it comes to indie.

You best have a website portfolio though.