Gareth's Dev Log #1: Embarking on the Career Quest Adventure

Introduction

I'm in the final stretch of my game development bootcamp, and the due date for the final project is fast approaching. Initially, I planned to tackle this project solo, but my game jam group suggested adapting our jam concept into the final project. At first, I was hesitant about working in a group. Working independently can be easier—you have complete control over the project's direction, mechanics, and design, and you save time by avoiding group discussions and decision-making.

However, group work also has significant advantages. Each team member brings unique ideas, experiences, and skills to the table, sparking creativity and opportunities to learn from one another. For example, one of my teammates, more experienced in art, has taken the lead in creating game assets—an area where I lack expertise. Meanwhile, my years of experience in software development and project management have allowed me to contribute by setting up our GitHub repository and organizing our work using GitHub Projects.

A few weeks into the project, I’m glad I chose to work with my group. But as expected, we’ve faced one common challenge in collaborative development: conflicting changes.

Goals

• Divide the work effectively among all team members.
• Implement a branching strategy to reduce code conflicts.

What We Tried

• Categorizing work to avoid overlap, such as assigning player controls, level and art design, animations, and audio to specific team members.
• Starting with a simple branching strategy: working directly in the main branch without creating individual development branches.

Challenges We Faced

• Despite dividing tasks, we still ran into issues where multiple members were editing the same files simultaneously.
• Resolving conflicts, especially in Unity scene files, proved to be particularly challenging.
• Incomplete and untested changes pushed to the main branch broke the game and slowed progress.
• Lack of communication about file modifications further compounded these issues.

How We Are Adapting

• Better task allocation to avoid overlapping work on Unity files.
• Establishing a rule that all changes must be complete and tested before merging into the main branch.
• Switching to a branching strategy where each contributor works in their own development branch before merging. This approach allows for frequent commits into our own development branches without risking the stability of the main branch.
• Increasing communication within the group to track progress and coordinate changes more effectively.

By addressing these challenges, we aim to enhance our workflow and ensure smoother collaboration moving forward.