Tools of my Trade

A fantasy of mine is to start my own game studio. Aside from having total creative freedom and control, part of the appeal is being able to design the office space and hire the best possible people. But a more realistic and short-term goal is to create a small team of 3 or 4 -- maybe in a local office or maybe virtual -- working on a small but rewarding project -- maybe for Metaplace or maybe PC/XBLA.

My first real experience managing a team was for a mod back around 2002. I was 17 or 18 and making it up as I went along. The only reason any work got done at all was because I was lucky enough to be able to work with a brilliant young artist/programmer who was as dedicated as I was. Of course, our dedication waned after a while as we became occupied with University and moved on to different things. It was a fun learning experience but nothing that was going to get us a job, thus not worth our time.

Five years later now, and I feel like I'm ready.

The number of mods or indie projects that never reach completion is tremendous. There's a reason almost every single indie game that has been released in the past few years has been made by a single person (Braid, Audiosurf, Everyday Shooter, etc). Coordinating a team over the internet is hard. The only indie games made by more than one person seem to come out of game development classes, where there is structure imposed by the professors, and the team members not only see each other every day, but are more devoted than a hobbyist with a day job and social life.

But I don't want to spend over $40,000 and give up a full year of my life to enroll in the game design program at the Vancouver Film School. I would rather invest that money in my own company.

When I'm not fantasizing about how to design a workspace that encourages creativity or the kind of qualities would be most important in a potential employee, I think about the tools that would be used on a daily basis.

Personal Design Tools
OmniOutliner Professional ($69.95)
OmniGraffle Professional ($199.95)
Gimp (free)
TextMate ($64) - Scripting
OpenOffice (free)

Project Management (Intranet)
TWiki (free) - Internal Wiki
activCollab ($399, $199 a year; first year free) - Milestone Tracking, Task Assignment, etc.
??? - Bug Tracking

Community (Internet)
Wordpress (free) - Company Blog
phpBB (free) - Forums

This list doesn't even include tools for the Artist, Programmer, Audio Guy, Producer. Would the artist be able to work with Gimp and Blender, or would a few thousand dollars have to be spent on Photoshop and XSI? activCollab is easily the most expensive piece of software there, but probably the most crucial. If the project can't be coordinated and managed properly then it really doesn't matter what assets end up being created. The web is littered with websites featuring gun models and character skins, with the project they belonged to long forgotten.

The Omni tools also add up to quite a bit, but are indispensable. OmniOutliner is something I use every single day. I currently have Outliner files that include a grocery list, bicycle touring item checklist, game design vision document, board game rules, and Wolfmother song lyrics, among others. It's incredibly versatile and probably the best piece of software currently on my computer. OmniGraffle would come in when it's time to actually visually map out elements of the game design. It's cheaper than Visio and other similar products, and if it even comes close to the quality of Outliner then it's probaby a hundred times better than the competition too.

This was an interesting excercise that has shown it's definitely possible to set up a professional computer work environment for relatively little money. It's still a lot for me at the moment, however, but the more expenses I eliminate, the closer I get to making my own company a reality. But finding software is easy and something I could do on my lunch break -- finding talent that won't bail is a whole other story.