Choosing A Project Management Tool For Game Development

So you’re making a game! Congratulations!

Now you have to manage how you’re going to actually make it!

Uh oh. Didn’t think about this part?

When you’re working as part of a team, if there’s two of you, one of you, or two hundred — you need a way to track your progress. Whether you’re tracking individual assets, entire projects, team development or all of the above, you’ll soon find that without the ability to categorise and control your development, things start to fall between the cracks and often, the game just ends up never getting made.

Below is a small smattering of some of the most highly recommended project management (PM) tools on the market for game development, with pros and cons sourced from developers on Twitter as well as personal experience, online opinions, reviews and discussions across multiple forums. With so many different programs to choose from, it’s important to be able to narrow down to a few options prior to even starting to create those sweet assets for your #NEXTBIGTHING.

We won’t be discussing the methodologies behind these tools (kanban, agile, waterfall etc.) but instead trying to take a top down view of how easy it is to get started in game dev project management, what sort of projects it can suit well, and where the gaps are within these tools. You can skip to a specific tool by using the links below— this is a lengthy one!

Disclaimer: I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of every single tool used. I highly encourage this as a starting point for further discussion and would love to hear your thoughts on individual tools and will happily update any errors.

Production Tools Discussed:

Asana:

<iframe title="Embedded content" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/nrzMJ2IssvI?rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamedeveloper.com" height="100%" width="100%" data-testid="iframe" loading="lazy" scrolling="auto" class="optanon-category-C0004 ot-vscat-C0004 " data-gtm-yt-inspected-91172384_163="true" id="452533367" data-gtm-yt-inspected-91172384_165="true" data-gtm-yt-inspected-113="true"></iframe>

 

One of the most popular tools used by game developers, Asana has a number of features that make it lightweight and great for game development planning and production. With a team-oriented approach, it allows users to sort tasks in a multitude of different ways, including a calendar view, project sections, statistics, & attachment sections which can be extremely useful when dealing with team members working across the same assets.

Asana allows you to assign a task to a user, creating accountability across the team for specific tasks within your project. Entirely cloud-based, you can have consistent discussions without items getting missed. There are a set number of different templates you can use to set up each section, or even send questionnaires to team members if you need clarification on where a project is at. Asana’s UI is easy to understand, letting you jump in and get started very quickly.

If you’re an indie team, Asana could be a great fit. With no credit card requirement for a free trial, you can test if it works for you over a sprint (or however you manage your dev cycle) and get some strong feedback from your team. The ability to add multiple tags to items, and link a single story/item/task to more than one project or tag means producers and team leaders can categorise assets, bugs, levels and more in a way that works for the entire team.

However, Asana provides no clear security features, doesn’t allow you to edit comments, and the section split within projects can be average at times. You can also only assign one individual to a task, which if you have more than two artists working on a number of specific assets for example, can mean an awkward and often unnecessary splitting of workload. There are also a huge amount of features on display, which while making the app straightforward, can be overwhelming if your team isn’t gung-ho on engaging with digital boards.

Good For:

Probably Not Worth It If: