🛠️4 FREE Tools To Collaborate On A Game Jam

Plus an introduction to the community project we're building this month!

Happy September!

This month, a handful of our members have committed to working on our very first community project — a submission for the Halloween-themed game jam Spooktober.

Having finished outlining the story this past weekend, we're now writing the first draft and creating the assets.

We'll keep you updated through the end of the month, but for now we can only share the game's premise and a bit of concept art (subject to improvement, as always):

A grim reaper who collects souls by solving locked-room murders must investigate a Halloween party gone horribly wrong.

My role as the Project Manager is to ensure that everyone on the team works well together and completes the game on time.

Here are 4 free tools that our team is using for collaboration:

1. Discord — For Communication

The most important aspect of team collaboration is always communication.

Every member of your team should always know what they should be working on.

While Discord might seem like an obvious choice of tool for a community hosted on a Discord server, what's more important is how we've chosen to use this tool.

Each member gives frequent updates via text as they make progress.

And we consistently meet at the same time every week to make sure goals are met.

All questions are clarified with each other before proceeding.

But text conversations aren't perfect.

You might misinterpret what the other person is saying, and if you aren't online at the same time, it could take hours before getting a response.

Voice calls are ideal because you can hear the other person's tone of voice and immediately correct any errors in communication.

And for those who are hard of hearing, there are a number of Discord bots that provide speech-to-text transcriptions in real time.

Never assume bad intentions — instead, go into the conversation with a positive and helpful attitude.

Remember: most problems between people can be solved simply through better communication and understanding each other!

2. Google Drive — For Sharing Resources

Google Drive — or any other cloud storage platform — is a simple and convenient way to share files with the rest of your team.

You can create one folder for your project, which then contains subfolders for art, music, and writing assets.

Drive in particular is especially useful for editing text documents, with special features for adding notes and comments that are ideal for proofreading.

You can keep your entire document in one file, using headings to create a convenient table of contents to jump between chapters.

But while Drive is useful for your non-programmers, it's not ideal for hosting code.

Which leads us to...

3. Git — For Version Control

Version control, or source control, is a way of managing changes to a codebase.

The most popular tool for version control is Git, with most code repositories being hosted on GitHub.

Version control allows multiple programmers to work on a project at the same time without causing issues for each other.

It also allows you to revert any changes in case you make a terrible mistake.

Be sure to push your changes often so that progress isn't lost.

When working on a game, you'll also want to use Git-LFS (Large File Storage) to reduce repository size and improve the speed of operations.

And if you have more than one programmer, all code should be reviewed by someone more experienced before being approved.

4. Trello — For Workflow Management

Last but not least, it's important to have a high-level view of the project's goals.

Trello is an online to-do list that allows the whole team to see what needs to be done.

As team members make progress on tasks, they can move each task item from one category to another, such as going from “in progress” to “completed.“

Or, if they forget to make those updates, the project manager should do it for them.

Doing so helps everyone know which tasks are finished and which need more time.

For a game jam with a time limit, you need to know how much progress you've made.

This workflow method is also commonly known as Kanban, and it’s used in professional software companies all the time.

It’s an easy way to measure the progress of every team member at a single glance.

And that's it!

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.

Now that you're aware of these free tools — and how to use them — I hope you feel more confident in your ability to work on a team.

Maybe it's motivated you to start making your own mystery game.

If so, then you'll be happy to know that you'll have more opportunities to work on another community project with us in the future.

But either way, we hope you'll enjoy our finished game at the end of the month!

Until then, be sure to subscribe (if you haven't already) for more community news and exclusive tips on mystery game development!