Up in the cloud
The most important tools while creating Triff, hasn’t just been our minds and imaginations, but also cloud computing.
To get over the need to send lots of files to each other all the time and share diagrams with each other, we decided to set up accounts with sites that let us collaboratively share and view files and mind maps.
Box.net is the site we used for file sharing. It let us collaborate on Triff anywhere where we decided to work. By the end of the journey, we had over 100 files uploaded and shared with each other.
This service worked wonderfully, and was completely free. We only wanted to share small files as is the nature of our project and so the size limitations on how much we could upload wernt an issue.
The other site that played a huge role in making triff work is Mind42.com. This is a mind mapping site that let us collbarotively work on the plot and narrative of the game. More importantly, it gave us a visual basis for how the game is laid out and let me be able to link everything together and find the correct slide we needed to change with minimal fuss.
Apart from the zoo stage where that had been started on another mind map and my numbering labels were never transfered over due to Gary not liking me naming the slides and my laziness.
When working in a group like we did, being able to share files and thoughts is the most important thing. We needed a better way to discuss things, preferably through skype or some other system, but that never got put into place.
But working in the same room or in different houses, these sites let us work effortlessly together. Fantastic.
