@TeaHands
@lemmy.blahaj.zoneThis one goes out to the hobbyists and the solo devs, as I’d guess anyone employed in the industry is already using such basics.
But it does seem to be a particular problem among less experienced game developers, to avoid using version control (also known as source control) and risk losing progress if not their entire project.
Just in the last few weeks I’ve seen a video from a well-known indie dev admitting he got himself into a tangle through not using it, another one with a guy trying to make a game in a weekend only to have his files irretrievably corrupted on the last night. And endless Discord conversations in which someone has lost a significant amount of work and needs to be talked down from a ledge.
Plus it came up in the game jam advice thread, so it’s been on my mind and I thought it deserved its own post.
Why is this so prevalent in game dev? I have a few ideas, mostly around misunderstandings and perceived complexity. But it’s a bit heartbreaking to see people lose such huge chunks of work, not to mention demotivating for the person involved, so a PSA it is!
Why you should be using version control
How to get started
There are two things you’ll need to start, the actual version control software and a place to host your project.
The most popular source control software is Git, and the most popular host is Github. Honestly you might as well learn these first because even if you decide to move to an alternative later, they’re massively popular in the industry and most teams and places of work will expect this knowledge anyway.
This post is long enough already without trying to add an actual tutorial in here but info on the exact process is easy enough to find. You’re smart, you’ll do fine.
You can interact with your project through the command line, but you can also install a more user-friendly GUI. The two most popular tend to be SourceTree and Github Desktop.
You can also find engine-specific help and .gitignore files etc online, so do make sure to search for those.
Before you start your next project. Before you work on that new feature for your work-in-progress game. Before you lose something you’d really rather not have lost. Please, please use version control.
End post.
Hi all! Posting from my alt account on lemmy.blahaj.zone because it's been brought to my attention that we have users here from Beehaw and of course they can't see anything I'm posting with my main account @TeaHands@lemmy.world.
Sorry Beehaw folks, I'm still getting to grips with mod duties here.
Anyway. As part of the "try things and see what sticks" approach to community engagement, welcome to the new weekly chat thread!
Whether you have progress to show off à la Screenshot Saturday, a Monday morning gripe about unreasonable expectations on your team, or a Wednesday win, this is the place to share how your gamedev week is going.
You know game devs, if there's one thing we love more than making our own stuff it's living vicariously through others, so share away and let's see what everyone's been up to!
This was asked a couple of weeks ago and it seems the answer then was that such a thing didn't exist. But given the rate of change in all these apps I figured one might have added it in the meantime. Anyone seen anything promising?
I'm on Android but if anyone knows an option for iOS please leave that recommendation too for anyone else looking.
Thanks!