Hello all, I'm here to talk about a very important, and not very frequently discussed, aspect of making a game: The team.
Before I get into that, however, I'd like to bid farewell to our dear friend Paul. He's found himself an industry job, and unfortunately doesn't have time to dedicate to a second project. We're, of course, happy he found employment doing what he wants to do (Congrats, Paul!) and wish him all the best at his new employers!
Back on the subject at hand, now. Teams and team-building are things that, in my experience, often fall by the wayside in project planning. Obviously a game (or any large scale project, really) needs more than one person to make it succeed. And therefore, a good, strong team is ideal. The two biggest components of this are: Skill sets and personalities.
Skill sets are the aspect of teams I see neglected least, simply out of necessity. If none of the team members have a specific, needed, skill, then the team can't complete that part of a project. So if you need, say, a programmer and none of your team members can program, your game isn't going to get very far.
Personalities are where I have seen many teams struggle and fall apart. It can be difficult to work with someone who clashes strongly with your personality, and this problem is compounded if only one member of your team doesn't fit. It's not to say that you can't work with someone you don't agree with, or even get along with outside of work, merely that I find that teams are stronger and work goes smoother if everyone gets along. Nor is it to say that everyone on a team should have the same (or even similar) personalities. The important aspect is compatibility: Can the individual members of a team get along and get work done without regularly having serious conflicts of personality, minor conflicts are to be expected and perfectly acceptable so long as they aren't so constant that morale and production are hindered.
As a result of these two things, when Ryan and I first began discussing Project Kassa, and the potential of making the jump from idea to product, one of my first concerns was finding team members that not only fulfilled the required skill sets, but could get along well. Before actually joining the team, we tried to have what were - essentially - informal interviews for each member. Both to give them an idea of what the game we wanted to make would be like, and to gauge their personalities for potential compatibility with the team. After the informal interview, next step was to introduce them to the team as a potential team member and look for conflicts there, since neither Ryan nor I can be 100% certain of how well a person will do with a team without seeing them with said team. And then, finally, officially have them join the team.
Prior to all of this, though, was the real hurdle. Finding people. Ryan and I were (and are) in the fortunate position of having gone to a school where the majority of our peers also wanted to make games, so we had a good start there at the very least, as well as already personally knowing and being friends with several potential members. We already knew and were close friends with Frank and Paul, so they joined up quickly. We tried using Craigslist, though got no serious responses from it, as well as relying on our connections to friends and peers from DigiPen, which proved to be much more useful. Unfortunately, the programmers we knew at the beginning were either uninterested in the game itself, or were far too busy to take on such a time-intensive project. The same problem occurred with concept artists, and an animator. I then was fortunate to meet and work with Branden through a friend's senior projects team, and he was interested and would have the time after the semester was over. Through him, we found Danny, which brought our team total up to six.
We, fortunately, have yet to have any serious issues with disagreements or conflicts of personality, so we haven't had to actually solve any of that sort of thing yet.
Since this has already turned out a fair bit longer than I anticipated, I'll discuss team-building and morale in a future post about teams.
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