Talk: Technical Direction for One
Speaker: Alex Holkner
Regardless of whether you’re the sole developer on an indie game, leading a small group of programmers, or the technical director overseeing multiple engineering departments, you will face the
same problems and decision points in the choice and use of technology on your projects.
By the time your game has shipped, you will have made hundreds of decisions around coding standards and best practices, use of testing and automation, continuous integration and deployment, release processes, client and server technology, and middleware selections. As the technical expert on the project you will likely have also had to make decisions around IT issues such as version control, backups, hardware and software purchases, and security.
Besides developing a game, you will find yourself building bespoke tools for engineers, designers, artists, producers, QA and customer support, and processes to go along with them.
If you’re a solo developer or head of a small team, ideally your decisions are setting up your studio for growth and sustainability; whereas if you’re already leading a large team you are already well aware of the difficulty in maintaining high productivity with so many hands on deck.
Drawing on his experience leading both large and small teams, Alex will explore these issues and provide guiding principles for technical directors at all levels of experience, with a particular focus on risk assessment and mitigation, and setting up processes and practices up-front that can scale as a team grows.
Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way
Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.
Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.
Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.