Thoughts About Indie Game Project Management
I've been trying to optimize my game development process and I have some findings that might or might not be obvious to you.
For my personal projects now I'm completely separating my design and code process. Design in a google doc. Technical design on paper or directly in code. I used to just sit down to code whatever as soon as I got an idea for a game, don't bother to write it down in detail. Which sometimes led to me simply forgetting what the original vision was, or just losing time coding things that project doesn't really need. Now I actually try to be two separate people.
When I'm the designer I try to make sure of all the features the project needs. I also try to write down all the small quirks that I should put in the code that I might forget while I'm in the zone coding. And when I'm the coder I sit down and try to engineer the technical design. Maybe I'm just a easily distracted person, I don't know. But I find it very useful to go back to my documents and see "what the designer wanted".
Benefit is being able to get more people on board. I've found that whenever I think I'll be the only person ever to touch this code or design, I'm usually wrong. Write code that you're happy with!
I have to treat every project as a more-or-less documented professional project.
In a lot of small-medium scale projects you will need help, contractors, or in my case, a super talented programmer (Tarik) might hop on and off during development.
Project needs skyrocket through the end, but for especially the pre-production times, one person can be enough.
There was a twitter thread by a smart person that contracting is the best scenario for an indie studio, which I agree. Because until the vision and the mechanics are there, you are like a kid in a sand pool, trying to find your castle. Having 10 other people with you might be a waste.
But then it's the production times, and you suddenly need 10 characters and 25 levels designed or whatever, and that's the real work where you might need a lot of help. This is the best time to get some art/design contractors in your project. Because now you know what you need.
And then there is the end of a project, where you probably have some technical debt, held off on some boring UI, game needs to be optimized for a specific platform, or whatever. This is the best time to get some coder contractors, because it's extremely easy to get overwhelmed.
So yeah, project management is an interesting problem, especially because you are throwing man-hours into a pipe to solve it, and it should definitely be optimized, and the answer will vary from project to project.
Another specific challenge that my projects face is that they are part-time gigs, so something that should take 1 month can take 6 months. So time is even more valuable. I'm looking forward to get more experience designing/leading/managing so I can see if theory fits the practice.












