Mad Rantz

I am in the process of researching for a game I plan on starting back up called (for now) Explorers (though Age of Exploration sounds like a good final title). In the process of getting this game ready for development, I’ve been thinking back on my experiences working with remote teams.

I mentioned earlier that I started up a Wiki to contain my game design thoughts, but I think the real benefit of using a Wiki is found when collaborating with remote team members, especially when working on a title such as Explorers. The scope of the game, while small compared to AAA titles, is still larger than what I have for Bethellowed. It will take some time to finish, especially as I am currently working part-time, and it will take a remote team who is willing to work on such a project, slowly, but surely getting it to completion.

To keep a remote team motivated is tough, plain and simple. You want everyone to feel to some extent that this game is theirs, and the best way you can do that is make sure that the progress of the game is well-communicated to all of the team. This is where a Wiki really comes in handy. I can show the latest design notes to everyone quickly and easily. I can allow other team members to update the Wiki pages as needed with concept art, sound effects, and music. I am no longer necessarily needed as an intermediary to pass on this stuff, and even if it doesn’t end up in the final game it doesn’t change the fact that seeing progress is definitely inspiring.

Another pair of useful tools is Skype and a webcam. Text discussions suck. They are slow, and it’s too easy to miscommunicate. Voice discussions are decidedly better, there is no doubt, but when you are not face-to-face with your teammates it is still tough to feel that you “know” them. That’s where the webcam comes in.

Skype is a great voice-over-internet solution, and it now includes the ability to have a free one-to-one video conference with a teammate. The audio is top-notch, and allows telephone-like conversations, unlike TeamSpeak and its ilk, where truly you need to take turns speaking to be heard well. There is a limit to five people on an audio conference, but that’s not a huge problem.

I sparked up Skype recently and tested its videoconferencing and it works well. It automatically recognized my webcam and it was as simple as pushing a button to start the videoconference. You can turn the video off and on at will, all without dropping the audio connection. Although the audio is almost immediate during a call, the video does have a short delay. It’s noticeable, as expected, but really is not that bad.

Being able to gesture and show facial expressions to your teammates goes a long way towards showing who you truly are, and I look forward to using it as I develop Explorers. Even if I’m the only one with a webcam, it will still help, though I’d certainly push everyone to get one if they planned on sticking around for the entire development process. It’s just too valuable to get “face time” with each other.

A scenario I could see where using both the Wiki and the videoconferencing simultaneously is the following:

I call Collaborator Jim up on Skype. We both bring up the Wiki for the game. As we are brainstorming on the design, I edit the appropriate pages on the Wiki, while Jim refreshes the Wiki on his side to check out what I’m writing, help suggest corrections, and possibly edit other portions of the Wiki in parallel. Going back and forth like this seems like it could be more immediate than me taking notes during a call and then writing up a web page or document and forwarding it to Jim and vice versa.

I’m still on the lookout for better tools for remote collaboration, but these two definitely have me stoked to start building a new team.

The second issue of the IGDA Casual Games Quarterly is online now. I didn’t catch the first one during my recent hiatus, but I did find a couple of interesting bits in this one. First is some demo and price point testing iWin performed. Basically they say that (a) people are willing to spend $30 for a casual game (especially if the consumer is already willing to spend $25 for the game) and (b) shipping your game with a sixty-minute demo might not be the best route to take.

With regards to (a), I think their data is a bit skewed because they used a very well-known IP for the game they tested with (Family Feud). It’s tough to say for certain, but it would certainly be interesting if someone else could perform the same sort of testing with a popular game on one of the casual game portals and publish the results.

On (b), I think that this is a very obvious conclusion, one which you don’t really have to make a study to draw. I have seen many examples where sticking to a sixty-minute demo might not make any sense at all. The guys at Bravetree did it differently with Think Tanks, for instance, relying more on nag screens and other restrictions to impress upon the potential buyer that it would be worth it if they’d simply fork out the cash for the game.

Overall, this first article was interesting, but there was something a little annoying about it in the most general sense. It does seem at times that there are companies and people out there making all sorts of “discoveries” about game publishing on the net that actually were discovered quite a long time ago by veterans such as Thomas Warfield. Still, it’s a nice article and the more information you have at your fingertips the better.

The second tidbit in the quarterly I found mildly interesting was the stats that James Smith of Reflexive has been collecting on the RealArcade top 10 lists. James frequents the forums at Indie Gamer and is a wealth of information for indie game devs. Again, the more info you have the better, and it’s nice of James to share.