Posted on October 18, 2009 - by Eric

Virtual Game Development pt. 1 – People

Here at Cavalcade Games we create games in a virtual office setup. Both me and Shikii, live in the same city but create games virtually. With games being a highly collaborative and creative product, this setup has molded our output in more ways than one. In the next year, we will be moving into a physical office. This makes for a good time to conduct a roundup of what we learned during our time with virtual game development. Part 1 – will be about the people component of a virtual game developments setup, part 2 will be about the tools and part 3 will be about everything else.

As a background, virtual office is defined as replicating a working environment – online. This mostly involves substituting concepts and tools found in a physical environment with web or desktop applications. The substitutions starts from the very act of talking to emulating office fixtures such as whiteboards and the conference room.

Virtual Game Development is defined as creating games in a virtual office setup. Virtually creating games is a special case in the sense that, first, the discipline is a creative endeavor in nature; second, it requires participants to be constantly in-step (requiring varied types of communication) and third, game development is known as a huge hard slog to the playable part, much more so when done with less human interaction. So with these characteristics, Virtual game development is much more under duress than the typical virtual office setup. Hopefully, with these tips, other game developers planning to go virtual can get off to a good start. First up! – the people.

PEOPLE

This is the most important component of the setup. Some people are just not incompatible with the whole setup. The goal is how to identify who can hack it so that game development will be optimal and smooth even if you are miles away from each other. Here are 5 factors, that I believe are the most important in determining those rare people.

1. Experience

When determining if a member of the game development team can thrive in a virtual game dev setup, the most significant determinant is work experience. I believe a minimum of 1-year telecommuting/freelance experience is a requirement. These two are very different layers of discipline, one that overlays on top of any type of profession. Telecommuting/Freelancing develops the following important skills;

• Reading Comprehension – i.e. reading instructions, quick research, learn new stuff rapidly, etc.
• Self-starting – to work without any external pressures (supervisors, managers, etc)
• Ability to read between the words.

2. Communication Skills

Doesn’t have to be great but a decent communication skills cuts down on time spent on re-explaining things and blind spots. Communication skills means the ability to explain things concisely and  also in a respectful manner. For example, instead of typing ‘Huh?, a good communicator would type, “Do you mean xxx?. The first one is a bit rude and the latter, is not just polite but goes a bit further and offers a path out of the confusion by implying that you need a reworded reply. Also a good communicator knows that communication online is prone to misinterpretation and won’t react right away when sensitive matters are being discussed.

3. Researching skills

The ability to quickly Google terms and unfamiliar concepts is a great timesaving skill in virtual game development. Consider a case when the typer types a foreign term like orthogonal (view), the bad way would be asking the typer ‘Whats orthogonal view?”, he then explains it in his own words. This has a time and mental cost to the explainer. This sometimes results to more question therefore wasting more time on both sides. A handy website for this particular situation is found at http://lmgtfy.com/

4. Output oriented

Working virtually, everyone tends to get out of sync. That is why there needs to be a syncing point. Output files are the most effective ones so that managers will know that work is being done at the same time check if its being done properly. The more frequent the output is the more in step the team will be throughout the development period. Members need to put out work-in-progess builds/files often so errors and misinterpretations can be checked early/often and wastage will be minimized.

5. Gamer

Games are inherited systems in nature. Almost any feature that a game needs had already been, more or less, implemented in a past game. It is quickest when you just say “do that growth effect like in Super Mario” than typing it out or drawing it. Having members with good knowledge of games is a definite plus. Fortunately, there is Youtube and other video channels to show elements of past games to uneducated members.

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These are the top 5 traits you should look for to determine if a partner/member will fit in a virtual game development setup. Missing any of these will result to delays, frustration and compromises to the game being done. Look out for part 2 for the tools we have used…

Do you agree or disagree? Have anything to add to the topic? Comment below so we can have a discussion…