Fell back on Subversion which really isn’t that bad if you use it through TortoiseSVN. I suspect the problem with the Gamemaker integration is at the Gamemaker end, as I’ve been keeping my Gamemaker projects in SVN on assembla.com for years now without any problems (just import the whole game.gmx folder).

Also, version control and backup are very different things.

Backup should be taking timed snapshots regularly, whereas Version Control should be taking named snapshots only when you’ve achieved something significant, otherwise you’ll get version controlled copies of your game in the broken state it’ll be in 99% of the time.

http://danielkummer.github.io/git-flow-cheatsheet/

The reason I stopped using Dropbox will sound really stupid but it does bother me. I was happily using it to back my stuff up and I never needed more space than what you get for free. I used it for documents and stuff that doesn’t take too much space. But then it started gifting me more space and then some more and more and more… and it’s all temporary! stuff like 100GB for free during 6 months because I liked DP on facebook, or whatever. I have no idea what happens if I accidentally use more space than what I have on my free plan and I run out of time on these extra spaces. It’s probably safe to assume no data will be lost, just not accessible, but I still don’t like it.

Call it nitpicking but I would prefer having the option to not accept these gifts, and not having that made me switch to a different service.

It works very much like Dropbox and data is completely encrypted, both in transit and when stored. The client is a bit clumsy on Windows 7 and 8 but with Windows 10 they’ve changed how it works.

I store all my Visual Studio projects in a folder in OneDrive and as soon as I change something it syncs to the cloud. Still not version control though, just a backup.

– Dropbox is expensive and does not encrypt your data, but works well. Alternatives that *do* encrypt your data locally are SpiderOak and Wuala, so if you’re not an American, or care about the privacy of your data (might be particularly relevant if you’re a freelancer uploading your client’s data to a cloud system), these are good alternatives.

– Services like CrashPlan are good, but it might be an even better idea to divorce your data storage from your backup system, so you’re not dependent on a single provider. For example, if you install Arq, you can then pick one (or more than one) data storage provider (Amazon, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc). If another provider offers a cheaper option, you can switch at any time, without changing your backup system. Arq also encrypts your data locally, so there’s no chance of anyone getting access to it.

– Local backup. Cloud backup is incredibly useful, but if your computer dies, you don’t want to have to download 400 GB of data just to get your computer back into a working state. Buy a NAS and back your data up to it (the aforementioned Arq allows you to use storage systems in your local network as backup targets).

– A bootable disk. This is super important if you want to minimize your downtime. On a Mac, use something like SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to clone your computer’s internal disk to an external disk once a day, in the evening, before shutting your computer off. That way, if your internal disk dies, you can boot from the external backup, and immediately be back up and running, never losing more than a day’s work (which you can get back from your other backup system). Then, when you have time, replace the internal disk, and clone the data back to it.

TortoiseGIT – as mentioned above – is a way around this, it doesn’t hide the complexity, but on the other hand it doesn’t hide the complexity.

Atlassian – more famous for Jira – have a git GUI for windows that Just Works, and is a balance somewhere between the two. It’s also free. https://www.atlassian.com/software/sourcetree/overview

If you’re on a mac, though, Git Tower is great.

As for all the other things, I wish to lobby for every game developer in the universe to follow the OS standard and put saved games in Windows’ Saved Games location, instead of somewhere deep in Steam (Dreamfall, I’m looking at you) Your own directory in My Documents (Bioware) or inside a badly named directory, inside a hidden folder, in the root directory of my user account, behind a sign saying Beware of the Leopard (Minecraft).

Step 1 should always simply be another external harddisk. Step 2 is a microsd card or usb stick that you carry around on person with your most important stuff (encrypted of course). This will keep you safe from most data disasters. Step 3 maybe a harddisk at a family/friend’s place that you update every now and then, just so there is a truly external backup.

I’m aware from Twitter over time that you’ve got a VCSless workflow that you’re happy with. I will nevertheless reiterate that git isn’t really a VCS; it’s a toolset that Linus Torvalds and his fellow kernel monsters can use to create a VCS for any conceivable project size and ecosystem of trust levels and policies. If you ever try again I’d go Mercurial (Hg). It throws out support for nutso edge cases in order to have sensible defaults so you can start with Just Check My Blasted Stuff In With A Note Right Now. It too has a GUI by the Tortoise folks, and the most popular GitHubalike for it is Bitbucket.

Also whoever told all the version control designers that they all had to make up their own vocab terms for the same actions was clearly an evil genius with some kind of nefarious scheme in mind