Between 3 & 5 People Might Be the Perfect Team Size

Ever heard of the Ringelmann Effect? As team size increases, individual effort decreases. A person working alone does 100% of the effort, but in a group of eight, that drops to just 49%.

 

For our four-person game development team, this is our secret weapon. Our biggest trick the: "Is there anyone online to test something right now?"

That question consistently sparks impromptu screen-sharing sessions where more progress happens in two hours than in a week of planned meetings.

 

Our official policy: one meeting per week, one playtest per week. But our real work happens when two people spontaneously jump into a voice channel and dive headfirst into a problem together.

Whether debugging code, refining art, or testing mechanics, having someone else's brain on the problem transforms both quality and speed. The key is creating frictionless environments for these moments.

 

Our Discord serves specific needs:

• Dev channels for technical discussions
• To-Do channels for full async feature requests
• Family channels because we're people with lives
• Resource channels for code snippets, documentation & a future Patreon
• Player Feedback and bug report etc

 

This lets us compartmentalise without creating barriers. Need help? You know where to ask. Need to vent? There's space for that too.
Come see for yourself. 

 

Here's the uncomfortable truth: when creative work becomes your primary coping mechanism for life's hardships, you have a recipe for disaster.

Remote work amplifies isolation. For creatives pouring souls into projects, the line between passion and escapism blurs. We've learned to recognise when team members use work to avoid life and made it okay to call that out gently.
 

My biggest discoveries from this project.

• Embrace "anyone wanna chat?" culture
• Make it safe to admit when you're not enjoying a task
• Trust spontaneous collaboration over forced meetings

 

Small remote teams have a superpower larger organisations can't replicate: genuine human connection.

The goal isn't perfect communication… It's sustainable, compassionate communication.