Business Tools

Trying to run a game studio carries a collection of complexities. This is a list of things I've used to help smooth out the bumps. I hope something here will prove to be helpful for you. No software or services in this list sponsor me in any way.

Storefronts

Steam

The first target platform for Fracterebus is Windows PC through Steam. This choice was made because I am interested in the huge market it presents, and because exporting from Godot to Windows PC is built-in and straightforward. Steam also provides access to the growing Linux gaming community.

PlayStation

As a longtime fan of Sony's PlayStation consoles, this is my preferred console system. I hope to port Fracterebus to PlayStation with the help of a 3rd Party porting company that specializes in Godot console ports or through the use of middleware.

XBOX

This is Microsoft's storefront for their XBOX consoles.

Nintendo

This is Nintendo's storefront for their Switch consoles.

Documentation

Mantis Bug Tracker

A system for tracking development tasks and bugs. For those with other development experience, think of Jira or GitHub Issues. At the beginning of the project making tickets for everything proved to be more work than it was worth because I was constantly hopping between tasks and concepts. Later on in the project it was very helpful for keeping track of things I wanted to revisit.

MediaWiki

A wildly powerful wiki system that you're looking at right now. I needed a place to describe things to both the public and myself while I was figuring out the design of Fracterebus.

WordPress

Blogging software used for the development/news blog for Fracterebus. I never really found a theme I liked very much, but I also don't imagine a ton of traffic to a blog full of nerdy things.

NFO Servers

This is my web hosting provider. I've been administrating my own dedicated Linux server with them for over a decade and highly recommend them. If your project needs a server, check them out. This server hosts the Wiki, Blog, Main Site, and Bug Tracker.

Internationalization

Google Gemini

I can't claim this project is fully AI-Free because of internationalization. There isn't an especially large amount of text in Fracterebus that requires internationalization, but it needs to be in as many languages as possible to improve the market size I have access to. After consideration of non-AI alternatives, I selected Gemini because it provided support for the internationalization I needed along with descriptions of why things were translated the way they were into various languages. Sorry to any consumers of locales besides en-US if the translation was strange.

Business

LegalZoom

When it was time to create an actual company, I used LegalZoom to help set it up and to help manage the itchier parts of keeping the documentation up to date.

GnuCash

I keep track of the money side of the business (Pixel Refraction Studio LLC) with this software.