@IssamKhalil Technical Strategy for Indie Studios

@IssamKhalil

Technical Strategy for Indie Studios

What We’re Going to Talk About…

• Intro• Why we need to talk about this• Technical Debt• Technical Strategy• Examples• Q&A

Introduction

Trouble Impact, LLC• Started in April 2012• Games:– Amelia vs. the Marathon– Crush– Color Thief

Issam Khalil

Why I Left

Why we need to talk about this

Most indie talks focus on business or design

Technical talks are extremely focused

Problems this creates

Technical Debt

“Technical”

Debt

• Interest!• Who pays the debt is not always the

person that created it• Cost of a technical debt is higher the

smaller your studio is

Technical Strategy

Technical Strategy

• Helps you make technical choices that work best for your studio

• Does not remove technical debt!• It does not have to be complicated,

you just need to think about it

What to think about

• Know your team• Your studio’s high level goal• Technical studio goal

Trouble Impact Examples

Unity Asset Store

• Studio goal: Port to as many similar platform as possible

• Optimizing code is one of our technical strengths

Source Control

• Unity Asset Server / Plastic Scm• Asset server (Don’t do it!!!)• Amazon AWS + Plastic Scm

Subscription software

• Not just an accounting decision• 3ds Max, Photoshop, Premier, Office• No obvious technical debt

(accounting: rent vs own)

Engine Choice

• 2012 -> Unity• 2014 -> Color Thief

Q&A

@IssamKhalil