Teambuilding!, Post your experience and suggestions

Since so many people want to make "teams" (a.k.a. "I direct you and you do the work."), I thought it'd be cool to have a topic which discusses fangaming teams.


What is this topic?
A collection of suggestions for people who want to work in a team.
A place where you can discuss how a good team must look like.
If you have a successful game-making team (like the Fusion team for example), you can post your experience here so others can also organize good teams. (aka Teams that don't fail after two weeks)

What isn't this topic?
A request topic. Do not request here. Just share your experience.



Let's start off:

In my opinion, if you want to build a fangaming team, you should be able to create the whole game (or at least a good portion of it) by yourself. That way you are not dependant on your team-mates and can continue the work by yourself in the case that everyone else jumps off.

You could aswell be someone who has an interesting idea, pretty good skills in a particular area (such as spriting) or some other quality that is NOT "leading others".

Teams usually fail when there is a person who can only lead but nothing else. (This means *fangaming*. In commercial games, that's different, because everyone on the team gets *paid* for their work, which is not the case in fangaming.
Therefore the team-leader should have skills in almost every department of fangaming (programming, spriting, music probably, ...).



Discuss.

Awesome!

Suggestions:
- Make sure your spriters have similar styles. This way, sprites won't clash, and will look good together.
- Never just pick people who want to join. You may pick someone that has no proficiency in anything. Always ask for a sample of their work.
- I don't recommend asking for programmers. It kinda shows that you aren't capable of coding every aspect of your game.

What a good team looks like:
A good team consists of the four core members, and optional ones.
The main ones:

Leader: Should have the most proficiency in programming. Drawing skills are also important, as it helps them to convey their ideas to their teammates, so they know what to make. If necessary, proficiency in other forms of game creation can be useful also.
Recommended Number: 1-2

Programmers: Should have proficiency in programming. They should be used as a back-up programmer, or if you want coding to be finished at a quicker pace. Programmers should vary in what they can code, so you always have at least one person with the ability to create what you need.
Recommended Number: 1-3

Spriters/Game Artists: Create the artwork for the game. Should be able to do animation that isn't crap. All of them should have similar stlyes, so nothing clashes. Also, spriters of different kinds of sprites are useful also. Eg. A character spriter, tileset spriter, and object spriter would be different kinds of spriters, and have all three would be helpful, as one can focus solely on their own work without clashing into the others.
Recommended Number: 1-3

Composer: Compose music for the game. Should be able to create looping music, and work in various moods and atmospheres. Composers should have similar sounding music (if you make a cute game with cute music, the composers should all be able to make cute music like-wise).
Recommended Number: 1-2

Extra positions (not required, but could be helpful. The core classes can have these as side classes)

Conceptualizer: Creates the story for the game. Should have creativity, with a fountain of ideas, and good story telling/making skills. They must also be good at creating various aspects of the game, such as the items, character personalities, world names, etc.
Recommended Number: 0-3
Core Class Recommend (Which class I feel is most suited to have this): Leader

Level Designer: Creates the world that the players will move around in. Should be creative, with original game level ideas.
Recommended Number: 0-2
Core Class Recommend: Spriter

Game Tester: Tests out the game before it is released. Should be good at spotting mistakes, with a curious mind to be able to explore the levels. They should be able to provide clear details on their opinion on the game, and the glitches found.
Recommended Number: 0-2
Core Class Recommend: Leader & Programmers

Generally, one of each is good, as too many group members may lead to laziness and argument. At a minimum, a team of 3 is good. Programmer, Spriter, and Composer.

This post has been edited by Soiyeruda on Nov 3 2008, 08:44 AM

I'd say do not oversize teams. That's the biggest mistake you can ever have. Hire people who are dedicated and you know personally. Only 1 graphical designer (that's a spriter aswell) 1 programmer (possibly 2 but it gets messy in the long run) and optionally a SINGLE beta-tester (if any), since the other team members are also able to beta-test aswell.

Soi your list is really, really oversized and there's no need for leaders or Conceptualizers.

I knew I'd be nagged about size.

Anyways, the bottom 3 are solely optional. The Top 4 are what I feel are necessary. A leader can be needed, depends on the situation.

If the team is "Project Build This Game", then a leader may be necessary, as he's the one who comes up with the ideas, programming, etc. etc.

If the team is "Game Builders", then a leader is not necessary, as it's a group of individuals who specialize in categories, but share ideas about making fangames, polling their skills together, and making a game.

Keep the team as small as possible.Theoretically you, yourself should be the engine designer or the one who would compile levels and do such with the engine since it would make it alot easier.At most if you want a music person it would be best to have one unless you plan on having a gallery of soundtracks.

Im part of a few teams right now.

Honestly, a little dedication goes along way, but no one is really willing to keep going.

Well this certainly is an interesting topic.

I think most teams are doomed to fail, mostly because of

A. Large size
B. People who don't know each other
C. Lack of experience
D. People are in multiple teams at once

I'm pretty sure it's only best to band together when...

A. You've worked together before
B. You're on good speaking terms or are friends
C. Have experience in your fields, or at least an equivalent amount of it
D. Are small teams broken into at least four people: programming, bugging, visuals and sound. Rarely will you want more (except bugging, because several bug-testers are a better help than a single bug-tester)

This is my own opinion, though.

It's better to stick to one team. Being on more than one will stress you out even more, as you have two different sets of games to dedicate to.

Another suggestion:
- Say on one team. You may eventually find yourself leaning to one than the other, providing less dedication for the suffering team. Even if you're just the storyboarder, stick to one team.

I don't roll with the idea of teams. It just seems like you're over-bureaucratizing the whole process and making it easier for it to fall apart. For what I've been working on I've kept the idea of "I make the game, you help do a certain thing." I've consulted several programmers on things I needed help with, but coded almost everything solo. I've done all the graphical work. The only thing, in fact, I probably won't do... is music.

If, though, you are going to have a team, I agree with Mecha that it should be small. When you have a massive team (like, more than 3 people), you're just waiting for it to gas out in its own drama.

I also think that if you do have a team, every single person should be able to at least make a half-ass project on his own.

This is just my style, though. I'm blessed with talent in most basic areas, so I don't see the value of teams like others do.

I think a two-person team will generally work out if you're working with a friend and both of you have a skill set that you can apply towards the game. One of you may be leading it, but you are not only leading it. More likely you'll both share that role. Most of us are specialists.

I'd also like to add that I hate the concept of a "leader." It just seems like a tension machine, and sort of creates a system where the "idea guy" does no work. I'm not too into it.

idea guy is fine if idea guy is also working on everything but the kitchen sink (and maybe the dishwasher. Because idea guy isn't a plumber, so he has to find a plumber to help him realize the perfect kitchen renovation).

But seriously anyone that comes stumbling in here wanting to just be idea guy (and there's lots of them) needs a swift kick in the ass.

RII, I think you're too narrow-minded. I'm the kind of developer who wants to take game production into new areas. Like the living room, or even the backyard.

But yeah, I'm sick of people expecting to put their ideas into a game without effort or production. Which is why I hate both large teams and Hello's engine.

I don't like Hello's engines to begin with. The first moment I looked at the third installment, I just threw it away. It's unorganized. I can't deal with that. And they aren't that amazing. Make one yourselves people, goddammnit!

IMHO, a team doesn't need a leader. If a team needs a leader it most likely means that the team is very unorganized. And the best way to make a game is to first make the engine for it, show it to others with the ideas for the game and ask them to make this sprite and that sprite and these musics and stuff like that. It's useful to have all the sprites and musics (and of course, the engine) ready when you start to make a game. In a case someone (a spriter, f' example) drops out of the team and you need the stuff he was making (sprites, f' example), you're on your own.

I think this is ONE of the "best" ideas.

Mecha and Neo says hi

I'm talking the fan-game legions here, Mecha. Y'know, the Super Mario Darkstar XVI: Tale of the Mushroom Mushrooms Production Legion made of 11 people, none of which are good at anything except drama.

Besides, you're not a team. You're a married couple.

Well...err...I almost was in a team with somebody.
But the project never got off the ground.

I think that tends to happen alot.