recomendations?

does anyone have any good to do apps for coding?

Since it’s free and trivially easy to get started with, I suggest starting out with something like Trello. It’s a bit more than a “to do” app, but you can use it for that if it’s literally all you want. It can also handle kanban / sprint / agile super easily should you decide to try other approaches out.

If / when you outgrow the free version I suggest looking around at other tools, as the market is packed with these. There are others which offer more, whether free or paid. So when you know what limits you run into re-evaluate and make a better informed decision at the time.

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thank

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hacknplan is made specifically for games, and is free. Much better than trello. Very easy to use also.

After using Trello for a long time, I switched to Notion.

It’s free for personal usage now. It’s like Trello, Google Docs, and Google Sheets all built into one app. I’ve imported all my Trello todo cards, and I’m currently in the process of moving all my game design docs over to it. The included database functionality is great for a variety of things, too. Having todo lists, game design docs, and databases all in one place is much better than how I had it before, spread out over multiple apps.

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The thing is, whenever someone says something like “project management for games” I cringe. There is nothing about making a video game which requires project management to be fundamentally different to managing any other kind of project, and from what little I’ve used of HacknPlan I just don’t feel that it solves any problems.

I agree Trello is limited. I moved away from it myself. But for a starter its limits are specifically why I think it’s great. It just does customisable list boards, and you can be up and running in under 2 minutes, and there’s no other stuff to sidetrack you. None of the other stuff matters until you’re in good habits about using your board, and having extra stuff to distract you might make initial use harder and less likely to stick.

Not criticising here… I see a lot of people listing this as a benefit for their tool of choice, but I’ve never understood why. What’s the benefit you get out of tying your GDD or other design documentation into a specific project management system? Or, what’s the disadvantage to having it across different apps?

Personally, my design and/or tech documentation is in whatever tool is best to manage or work on the relevant style of document, and we just link to it from our task cards.

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Hacknplan has the game-design section, thats the main difference. It makes it very easy to keep track of all the game design details and link them to project management details. Its not solving a problem for everyone, but if your in a team with a designer it is very useful. If you just use it as a normal agile tool then yes you wont notice a difference, but if you use it as intended and fill out all the game design stuff and link that properly, it makes it much easier to keep track of stuff. But again, its built to be used with a designer on the team, not just someone doing production.

Whenever I go on holiday, I find it much easier to get back into knowing what has changed in the actual design due to it all being within the PM tool and linked to tasks etc. It also is great having direct links within the app that go from the task I am working on to whatever elements are referenced, makes working out what your tasks are for the day that much easier if you lose track of details for whatever reason

I also like that it has all the features I need whereas in trello I would have to add lots of powerups to get it to do everything I need without extra work.

No problem, I can understand the questions. For me, having a ton of todo stuff on Trello, some on Google Docs, others on Google Sheets, and some in Articy Draft made it a little difficult to remember where I had put down notes for what. I often had to go clicking through folders in Google Drive trying to find specific things, or wait for Articy Draft to load through Steam just to check other things. Having all of that accessible in a more organized way in one place has made things easier for me and saved a little time as well. Also, some of the drag and drop layout options in Notion means I can fit more information on one screen than Google Docs, rather than having to scroll through a long doc. Features like that and others make it a better tool for me than some of the other apps I was using, and it’s great having it all in one free app, where I don’t have to remember shortcuts/hotkeys/workflow for 4 different apps. I I already have to use a ton of different programs for game development, so I’m always looking at ways to make my life more simple.

My young son even started using it to play around with building a document/website, so it’s pretty easy to use. It has its quirks as well and things I’d like to see different, but the devs seem to be pretty active and responsive.

I used Trello for quite a long time, but after a while I realised I needed something with a bit more power, and something that would have reports, such as time spent on tasks, costs etc

I tried out a few tools then eventually decided on Paymo.

It’s $9.99 a month per user, to unlock all the features, but well worth it IMO, and more cost effective than a lot of the other tools I tried, which started at $35 a month for 1-5 users.

It also has task lists, tables and a board view of tasks to get that Trello look, but with all the additional functionality.

It also doubles as a great tool for invoicing clients when I do contract work, and has a variety of PDF reports that can be generated, as well as invoices etc.