GIT in Game Development

By juegoadmin | Game Development | January 18th, 2022

GIT and How to Use GIT in Game Development

GIT is an open-source command line version control system that is widely used by many developers. GIT provides you with a highly flexible version control system that is easy to set up and is free. It is very popular among college pass outs, solo developers and equally beneficial when working in a team.

About GIT

Having origins from the Linux community, GIT is used worldwide and is incredibly famous in gaming studios. Though there are a few limitations, those can be addressed with certain tools and techniques. If you aspire to become a programmer and want to understand why GIT is a wonderful tool and why many developers use it, please read on.

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Why is GIT a Best Tool to Use in Game Development?

1. Security

GIT management tool provides various levels of security ranging from restrictive to full access for security and confidentiality reasons. With very basic security you can provide access to all or none. This way users can access either all the files or none of the files of the project.

2. Access

With restrictive access, you can isolate various modules and who can access those modules. You can also gain visibility of who is trying to access which file. The granularity of the security can be broken down into various components as well. Access control can be normalized on users, groups, IP addresses, modules, directories, or files. Additional protection enables protecting GIT from external threats by rejecting all the commands that are not associated with the software being used.

3. Undo and redo your work

One of the best features of the GIT in game development is, it lets you take the snapshot of your work directory on demand and you can restore those snapshots anytime. This undoubtedly is a more refined approach to back up your work rather than make copies of the folder or keep the code in the email. With the help of snapshots, you can undo or redo even when your project has many branches. Each branch can have a separate snapshot and you can remove features, apply bug fixes. This helps you in creating snapshots of the branches along with the entire project. The purpose of branching is meaningful when multiple developers work on a single project. So instead of committing changes to the master copy, each developer can work on their branch and merge the features or changes only when it’s ready.

4. Comment the changes and not just the code

GIT in game development not just allows you to comment on the code but also encourages you to comment at different levels of development. While you take a snapshot, you can provide a comment to describe the changes made since the last snapshot. This way you can maintain an audit trail and help you in building virtuous development habits. You can combine multiple subtasks and describe the amendments in one single comment as well.

5. Access other projects

You can host your GIT software on your own local server and on web-based apps like GitHub. Though there are many other web-based sites that can host GIT. GITHub is commonly used by developers to host not just the snapshot but your entire project online. GITHub fosters many games development tools publicly, e.g., Tiled and Starling Framework. You can download the entire folder and integrate into your project and keep it up to date automatically whenever there is a change. If you want to contribute to a project, you can work on a local copy of the project, take a snapshot and submit it to the owner. If the owner finds those features or fixes useful, the owner may consider integrating them with the main version of the project. It also features an issue tracker that allows you to report bugs or suggest new features.

6. Easy to collaborate with other developers

GIT as we learned is a software tool that keeps track of the changes made to the software and is treasured by solo developers.

Inherently, there are many benefits when you work in a team. They are

  • A transparent audit trail that enables easy tracking of the changes. You can identify the changes and the author. Each snapshot is commented with the underlying changes. Hence, any developer working on the project can easily figure out the changes and who made them.
  • Accepting a team project and communicating with team members is very easy through GIT. Multiple developers can collaborate on a single project and each time the version changes, you can get complete details of what, when, and who changed.
  • Each developer can work in a silo on their piece of the project and integrate it with the main project when it’s complete. Merging features avoids any sort of clashes or breaking the system unknowingly.

7. Scalability

Though GIT is perfectly suitable for small teams and projects, the moment a project grows, it becomes clumsy to handle the project with GIT. Each repository needs history to be downloaded and this increases the processing time.

If you want a scalable solution, then you need to combine GIT with some other version control solutions that can handle complex environments with large teams and large codebases. Perforce is one of the version control solutions that can handle binaries and graphics. If you want to use GIT yet want scalable benefits, Perforce can do that for you. You can use both GIT and Perforce with Helix4GIT. This is a unique solution that is reliable, fast, and stores GIT repositories natively. Helix4GIT makes GIT 80% faster and you can integrate it with the main project at any point in time.

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Conclusion

Designed for technical experts, GIT is highly suitable for small-scale organizations. New enhancements and developments are being designed to create hybrid GIT management tools. This hybrid design allows GIT to work in parallel with other version control solutions. Management gets better visibility of the entire development cycle across distributed and central version control systems. If you are looking forward to game development, GIT is undoubtedly a great choice for the version control system.

Takeaway

If you are a beginner, a startup, or a small organization, Juego Studios is one of the best game design company can help you integrate version control solutions for you. Juego Studios is an innovative company specializing in mastering breakthrough technologies offering solutions for game development, VR & AR apps, and more. Browse through the portfolio of Juego Studios to scroll through the viral game apps created by them. If you have any interesting game ideas, approach Juego Studios to make it a reality. Submit your queries or requirements if you have any to get convincing answers shortly.

 

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