What version control system (VCS) did you use before switching to Plastic SCM? Why did you decide to make the switch?
At first we used Bitbucket, but then switched to Unity Teams because it was closer to Unity. As our team and project grew, we switched to Plastic, as it was the most performant solution.
What was implementing this version control system like?
Git was kind of wonky – we found it wasn’t suitable for game development, and Git LFS created further problems. With Plastic, we have a lean solution for large files. And the integration was really smooth. We were quite surprised it was that easy, especially [because] we were integrating in the middle of our project.
The Players Guild is such a unique approach to refining your game. Why did you decide to democratize the development process?
Our game is heavily story-driven, which makes it very difficult to have a demo or early access. However, feedback from the player base is vital, so we tried to find a way to get the feedback we need, without spoiling the story. Different opinions in the right soil produce the most beautiful flowers – we wanted to get as much valuable feedback as possible, and by valuable, I mean every kind of feedback.
The first time we got Players Guild feedback on our very first feature (you can imagine how nervous we were reading it) was really devastating. We had forgotten to disable one of our testing switches [for] enabling our protagonist to jump as high as a skyscraper. This broke immersion for that member – he asked if this game was going to be a “Dwarven Flight Simulator.” Taking feedback like this seriously and actually getting in touch with the people behind [it] fostered a sense of unity (pun intended). This person is now one of the most active members on our Discord, and has taken on the responsibility of introducing newcomers and even managing our public bug board!
That’s what I love the most about our unique approach. We’re building an Arafinn Universe – we’re not just “having” a community but we “are” the community.
What’s been the most surprising thing about working with the Players Guild?
To me, the fact that people have actually started to speak and greet each other in Hìlduir – our dwarven language – and that they’re always working to decipher new words, searching for clues and hidden Easter eggs… It feels really amazing to have strangers around the world gathering together in our Discord ‘tavern,’ sharing digital Bordjal (dwarven beer), and having a good time. We’ve only had minor issues with trolls – the vast majority of our community is kind, helpful, and actually willing to gift us (sometimes a lot of) their time to help improve our game.
How do you utilize this feedback for an iterative development process? What tools do you use to help facilitate that?
We have different tools we work with when it comes to feedback. First, we have a survey linked to each component test, where we ask the players for feedback and give them Aruin (our Discord currency) in exchange.
There’s also a lot going on in our Discord: Many questions, suggestions, pieces of feedback, bug reports, and so on are submitted each day. To filter these, we have Luca – our “Bugslayer” who collects all the information and summarizes it on our public Trello (which is linked to our internal Jira). From that point on, the actual work starts:
- We define [any] amendments to the features that need to be made.
- We gather the amendments in working packages.
- We distribute the tasks.
This is where Plastic SCM comes in.
As our team is spread all over the world, Plastic helps us work together, even if most of us are working remotely. We have a standardized workflow, where the first thing in the morning is either checking emails or if there’s a commit on Plastic.
If there’s a problem with a version, Plastic makes it really easy to reproduce earlier steps. It also boosts iteration and collaboration, something that’s crucial when trying to provide agile, fast updates.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced during Return to Nangrim’s development?
How fast the tech stack developed during production. This is always difficult to tackle as a smaller team, but thankfully Unity did that job for us. We were able to neatly update from Unity’s 2017 version to Unity 2021 without issue.
Something that’s also difficult to manage on a daily basis is the growing scope of the project. On the technical side, this is where Plastic SCM jumps in. To us, Unity and Plastic SCM are the perfect match.
Source: Unity Technologies Blog