If the title was enough to catch your attention the first thing you may be asking is what in the heck is 'Source Control'. Well, Source Control remains one of my biggest regrets for not implementing early on in the project as the Team Lead.

Something that can be very easily overlooked when looking to make a game is just how many people need to look at or work on a game to bring it all together. Programmers need to bring interactions and functionality to life with their code. Artists add their models, help decorate the environment and so much more to make the game look how it should. Audio Technicians ensure all sounds are in the game to add that extra level of immersion and the list goes on. The point being that a game is much easier to work on if multiple people can work on different parts at a time so that production isn't bottle necked at a single developer.

Enter 'SOURCE CONTROL' a system that allows different members of the team to 'check out' parts of your game so that ONLY THEY can work on it and make changes to it. The only way for anyone else to make changes on that particular piece is to wait until it is checked back in. The main game is stored on a server or some type of other storage location while the team checks out pieces of the game to work on as they need to. This helps ensure steady and constant progress is made on the game; while also allowing a number of people to work on the game at the same time.

So now why is this such an issue for our game? Well this comes back to using the Unreal Engine being a learning curve for our entire team. Not all the features of the engine were known in-depth by everyone so simple things or even more effective/efficient tools were overlooked. Alas this will now be left to a learning experience, but still one that I will always look back on and wish it could've been added when we started this project.

-Samwise