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Myself and 4 other coders have been working as a modding team for the past 7 months. We all have a very good grasp on our preferred language (C#), and also use versioning (GitHub / BitBucket / Assembler) to organize our code, and updates.

We want to now get into developing our own game. We have an idea, and have a very basic engine in place.

How do we project manage from here?

Obviously we dont want to dive into adding content, but how do we manage the project from here? Should we assign tasks to each person? How do we manage the project do that each person gets a fair share of work? Once we have a game, how should profits be split?

Any advice on this is welcome.

Thanks Twitchy

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    \$\begingroup\$ You should determine how the profits will be split BEFORE you have a game. That should be in a written (preferably) agreement determined and agreed to by all parties. Then you won't run into issues down the road where one person says "We should all get equal shares." and another person says "But I did way more work than you, so I should get more money." Determine ahead of time if you're going to pay based on amount of work done, or some kind of split, or a flat rate, or whatever other scheme you come up with. \$\endgroup\$
    – Richard Marskell - Drackir
    Dec 16, 2011 at 16:40

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How to manage a project remotely

Establish communication channels

and routines for how to communicate so that information is never lost, and so that it is shared between everyone who wishes to partake in that flow of information.

Communication is the pillar your project will stand on, if it isn't rigid and sturdy, your project's downfall is inevitable.

Suggestions:

  • IRC - setup a channel for your communication and let the words flow.
  • Skype - weekly conversations among yourselves, get to know each other!
  • Forums/Bulletin Boards - this is good to keep information stored for future reference.
  • GitHub's issue tracker - I love this feature, you can discuss/vote/peer-review everything.

Use a project management tool

to keep a transparent view of your roadmap, how it's going, what needs to be done and what is planned for the future.

Pick a development methodology
There are several different methodologies for how to manage your project, I'm personally in favor of Agile/XP. Here are some moar.

Suggestions:

I personally like Trello the most, you can assign work there based on the tasks you create, and it's very versatile, so you can use it for lots of different needs!

How to handle the profits

If you are serious about your passion and project, you should create a company, but this is a bit over my head, so I can't give you more advice on this except that it will be easier to determine ownership at the end of the month if everyone have their ownership stated and signed on paper witnessed by lawyers.

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    \$\begingroup\$ My two cents: my team has been using Assembla for managing our project/code. It does come with a price tag but it's only $9 a month for a basic setup and that includes bug tracking, a wiki, SVN/Git, etc. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mike Cluck
    Dec 16, 2011 at 16:35
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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 "Communication is the pillar your project will stand on, if it isn't rigid and sturdy, your project's downfall is inevitable." This is so key. I worked on a remote project for a demo that shipped, and the number one thing that held it together was the fact there were status updates coming in from each and every team member almost every day, often multiple times a day if they were getting a lot done or hashing out a problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – michael.bartnett
    Dec 16, 2011 at 20:38

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