All HacknPlan Reviews
1-25 of 28 Reviews
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Vincent
Verified reviewer
Computer Games, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed October 2023
Made for Game Development
It's been great. We've tried a lot of different approaches to task tracking (which was possible due to the flexibility of the tool) and always found a good fit for each project/team.
PROSI really like the Design Model. We have all our game design in the Design Model and all the tasks connected to it. This system makes it much easier to communicate information to all team members working on a feature simultaneously. The Kanban board is also very clean-looking and can be customized to fit each project's pipeline.
CONSI've had a few bugs with the software, but they were fixed within a day after contacting support.
Reason for choosing HacknPlan
It seemed more focused on game development and had great E-Mail support when I wrote them.
Reasons for switching to HacknPlan
They were great for programmers, but HackNPlan works better for diverse teams with multiple disciplines.
Marcelo
Verified reviewer
Entertainment, 2-10 employees
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
2
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed May 2022
Powerfull but frightening tool
It was simply too much, half the way when i was setting up everything i just surrendered and think to myself "i ratter go to clickup or Jira"
PROSHack n' Plan is really a complete tool, it has every function you wish you had in your hand.
CONSIt has for me a great fault, it is a huge overkill for an indie dev like myself and it is very expensive also, and if i was a Big Triple A dev i would simply use Jira. It is too big for a indie and too small for a big company, it stay in the valley between two possible target users and doesnt get suit and focus on one.
Reason for choosing HacknPlan
I experimented Hack n' Plan because it sell itself as a Game Desvelopment orientated tool, and as a indie company without a proper Scrummaster i thought it was for me.
Reasons for switching to HacknPlan
I wanted a more in depth tool for managing a team, i really loe codecks, but when the scope gets too big the codecks managment becomes kinda messy.
Anonymous
Used less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
2
Reviewed July 2018
So nearly great
We found this software slow, and clunky to use. Although it's absolutely bespoke to games development and has naming conventions we can all understand and get behind, sadly it's not well enough developed to be a truly reliable and useful system.
PROSFor many years, games developers have had to suffer the wrath of the "project manager", the traditional ways of software development rules and law. Waterfall this, and MS project that. Because games development is such a creative environment, traditional methods of tracking progress simply don't work. Tasks can repeat, tasks can simply disappear because they are no longer relevant, when you start you simply don't know where the end point will be. Nine times out of ten, you're not sure what you're actually doing. This all sounds like chaos? Right? So what you need is a really simple way of tracking the things your team are doing, broken down by discipline, with a centralised way of keeping everyone on the same page with the current ideas and concepts of your magnum opus. Along comes hacknplan, created and used by games developers, that should be perfect right? They've made games before so know "how it is" and will be able to make a software system that is bespoke to games development. They almost get there too, there's a central design repository that is great for keeping your projects latest and greatest documentation in, and then tasks can be easily managed per discipline. Overall it's nearly right, but see my cons section for where it all falls a bit short.
CONSMy biggest problems with Hack N Plan is that the trial / base version of the software is far too lightweight to be useful, and then the gap to the paid tiers, simply is too big. It's expensive for what it does, and we found the website to be slow and unresponsive (at best) without any mobile app integrations. But also, we found it has a problem with "mouse click verbosity" (for want of a better term) - it literally does *nothing* for you automatically on the lower tiers. Want to set a start and end date for a task? that'll be 7 mouse clicks to you kind sir, want to copy a task and rename it? Okay, we'll append the world "CLONE OF original task" to the name of the task and you'll have to manually edit this out every single time. There's so much right with this software, but you can easily tell it's not made by a team of 100 software developers in Southern California. It's made by a small team who aren't implementing features or fixes anywhere near fast enough for professional games development teams to have full confidence in it's platform. It's project reporting tools are also, not good enough for the amount of effort that is required to on-board the entire studio onto the platform. The output is simply not equal to the amount of effort it requires to do even the basics.
Giacomo
Entertainment, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed December 2023
[FREE VERSION] An awesome tool for Game Design
[FREE VERSION] Absolutely advised especially for a first-time implementation of Agile mindset in a project, more advanced managers may find the paid version more complete but I found all I needed, and all my team learned to use this tool very quickly, even those with no interest or past experience with team management.
PROSAlmost everything is user-friendly and quick to learn, the interface is clear and the features are perfect even in the Free version. As a GD student, I found extremely useful the fact that the tool is already fully configured to develop a videogame using the Scrum methodology, with Tasks, User Stories, Velocity calculation and so on. Just Awesome, saved us a whole bunch of time.
CONSHonestly, nothing worth mentioning so far.
Reason for choosing HacknPlan
Because HacknPlan presented the exact features we needed to work using Scrum, or at least it was the only one to show them in a clear and accessible way, so that even "novices" like us recognized them and learnt how to use them properly in no time.
Jacob
Computer Games, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed October 2023
Very slick project management tool
Very pleased with this software so far! Highly recommend for smaller teams. Great pice point.
PROSSimplicity is it's strength. The GUI interface is very friendly. It might be overwhelming first time but it's nothing compared to overpriced jira for example. It has all functionality you need to run the project and schedule it properly.
CONSStill need some improvement with for instance Discord integration which is very crucial in game development community. Wish it has app version as well.
Reason for choosing HacknPlan
Overall accessibility and design of the product gui.
Wiktor
Verified reviewer
Computer Games, 51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed May 2022
Gamificated kanban board
It has great colors, it seems to be cut right for games. It also has design document section which comes in handy.
CONSIt's hard to track categories of tasks/issues created on boards.
Reasons for switching to HacknPlan
Trello is too simple and lacks a lot of collaboration features.
Matthew
Verified reviewer
Entertainment, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed August 2019
A very useful workflow tool
The learning curve seemed relatively smooth. It's designed with a fairly natural flow, particularly if you've used organizational and workflow software before. Buttons pushed do what you expect, and navigating through certain hierarchies move you to screens you expect.
CONSIt almost seems sometimes there is too much functionality, ie different ways you can navigate to the same thing. Althought I imagine in the game development world these are probably all necessary.
Reasons for switching to HacknPlan
Our boss switched us over because he said HackNPlan was better designed for game development.
Teemu
Verified reviewer
Computer Games, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed October 2023
Game production planning finally easy
Hacknplans customer service is top notch and fast!
CONSSoftware is still work in progress and needs new features
Anonymous
2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed October 2018
A game developer oriented task manager
Task management that is Game developer oriented and easy to use, so developers can focus on developing the game.
PROSThis software is focused on game development task management, that means it allows you to track tasks, resources committed to each task, milestones, performance, create custom items type related to specific game dev features/mechanics. It also lets you create specific categories to anchor tasks, but it comes with a base layout that is good enough to start.
CONSIts easy to use but its basic, can work well for small companies/projects and the customization of Design objects is limited to a fixed list of item types.
Nils
Health, Wellness and Fitness, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2017
When use to using those kind of tools, it was easy to get into
Flexible boards, gantt, milesones, autosave, several assigned to one task, sub-tasks. It is also great that you can integrate several third-party services.
CONSLike it or not, I'm not a big fan on how the game design model is. We don't have our design documentation in hacknplan, but use google docs for convenience and because people that are not part of the dev. also needs to read and review them. Hacknplan seem to be very based around the game design model, but it is a feature that we don't really use. A normal wiki (with the ability to limit some pages to only a few w. access) would be more useful.
Julio
Computer Games, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed October 2023
Excelente herramienta para gestionar proyectos de videojuegos, aunque demanda cierta familiarización
Lo mejor es la capacidad de conectar diferentes tareas a través de un Design Element, lo que se puede analogar con una Épica. Adicionalmente, la posibilidad de gestionar varios proyectos en paralelo y la flexibilidad para incorporar usuarios a los distintos proyectos son los puntos más fuertes.
CONSLa navegación y la interfaz gráfica podrían ser más intuitivas, ya que a veces cuesta distinguir entre User Stories y Tasks.
Reasons for switching to HacknPlan
Por ofrecer mayor flexibilidad para proyectos de mediano alcance y por una mejor relación costo-beneficio.
Ole
Computer Games, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed October 2023
Great tool, sometimes overwhelming
Hacknplan is a fantastic tool for organizing indie game dev projects. It is very powerful and still simple to use. It's multitude of features can become overwhelming at times and some features still need some love. Overall a clear recommendation for small to medium game dev endeavors.
PROSIt is powerful, yet simple to use. With hacknplan I plan, manage and track all my game dev projects and even private things. It has a beautiful front end and the integration of tasks with a structured game design document makes it ideal for game development. The project planning and metrics tools make it easy to keep track of progress.
CONSWorking with a larger team can become rather expensive. The calendar, Gantt charts and burn down charts feel a bit awkward at times. With many features that overlap in their purpose, it can become tricky to find the right workflow. Tasks, Stories, subtasks, milestones, design nodes. There are many systems to structure tasks and it is easy to be overwhelmed by this and lose the core purpose: structure.
Reason for choosing HacknPlan
The integration of tasks with a structured design document seemed very powerful.
Anonymous
2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2023
Orientado a proyectos de videojuegos
Me ha gustado la implementación de la documentación con la organización del proyecto
CONSRealmente no encuentro ninguna desventaja
Reasons for switching to HacknPlan
Porque se ajusta mas con los tipos de proyectos que llevo a cavo
Anonymous
1 employee
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2023
Hacknplan para desarrollo de videojuegos
Es intuitivo y ayuda en mi flujo de trabajo.
CONSEl timer no está disponible en la versión gratuita.
Judah
Verified reviewer
Consumer Goods, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed January 2018
Great tool for organizing my game project with both tasks and outlining.
Higher productivity and organization. Highly recommended if you are using Trello and need more.
PROSThe tool for task management with categories, stages, and milestones. I was using Trello before but I was having issues organizing everything on a giant board. With HacknPlan I split the tasks up between the milestones but the the Game Design Model keeps the bigger picture available. Overall, this tool has made me more productive and organized in my game projects.
CONSI'm really hoping for more updates. Everything works for the most part but some features such as dragging and dropping don't work very well in Firefox. And it needs more integrations. It just barely added support for Bitbucket but it has had Github support for much longer. They have a lot in the roadmap so it's not like the they don't know we want more, just it's still a young tool and still growing.
Anonymous
11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2017
I love the software and it fits our projects perfectly
What I love the most is the way I can customize the data in the task list making it fit our projects and work style perfectly.
CONSWhat I like the least about the software is the notification system. We have turned it off because if floods email/slack with notification that don't really tell anything. For example if another user adds a comment, then the comment given should be included in the email/slack notification, but I only get a notification that there is a new comment available on a given task. When you get between 10 and 50 of these a day, it get a bit annoying.
Millan
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed December 2017
Keeps me organized and focused on sprints. Agile meets game development, and it's awesome.
I love the agile workflow, particularly milestones and time estimation. The integrated time tracker is really nice too.
CONSIt could be a little faster/I'd love a native desktop version. The GDM could use improvements, mostly because it houses high-level aspects of the game which don't really utilize due dates or things of that nature.
Marco
Verified reviewer
Insurance, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2023
Tienes que darle una oportunidad a HacknPlan
La facilidad de su uso y las facilidades en la gestión de las tareas que ofrece, son suficientes para los pequeños proyectos que trabajo hacen de HacknPlan el mejor recurso para pequeñas y medianas empresas
CONSNo he podido utilizar todas las características porque estoy usando la versión gratuita
Reason for choosing HacknPlan
Un amigo me introdujo a la plataforma y me gustó tanto que continué utilizándola incluso para un proyecto distinto al que me embarqué con dicho amigo
Carlos
Computer Games, 1 employee
Used weekly for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2020
Project management for game development
Managing the game creation process can be very complex but with this tool it is much easier and more likely that you will complete your games.
PROSIt has a modern and intuitive look and structure. Even a beginner can use it. Free version has basic tools to manage your first projects. In addition to the free plan, it has some growing plans adding more advanced features.
CONSit only has an English version, which can be a difficulty for some people. There is no integration with version-control tools in the free version.
Esteban
Verified reviewer
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2017
An improvement to our workflow
Improvement in the workflow and communication in the team.
PROSIts game development focus and kanban implementation has making it very intuitive to use for all members of the team.
CONSThat it doesn't have a public API. This is relevant for us as we work in Unity3D and we would love to have tasks completed from the editor itself.
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed December 2017
Initially it meets the requirements for our project, but it's missing key features.
Nice overview and kaban usage. Easy way to organize tasks. A bit expensive, but the customer support is spot on.
CONSNo notifications of overdue tasks! No logical breakdown of hours invested for individuals for shared tasks. There should also be discord integration as HnP is for game dev, and discord is as well.
Anders
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2018
Works reliably and help us plan and track our project
Ease of use, fairly easy to add and manage tasks and milestones. It is an easy interface for our developers to use daily.
CONSWe lack the support of having sub-milestones within a longer milestone. Within a 3 month milestone we might want to have 1 demo milestone for 3-5 weeks. with separate sprints.
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2017
Helped us a lot to link what we're doing (through GDD) and what we must do to make it happen
GDD linkage to tasks, export of GDD, easy and fast task creation, good overview of where we stand in terms of each milestone.
CONSNothing in particular comes to my mind, since drag and drop has been improved it works OK on small screened mobile devices now (this was my only gripe before).
Anh
Verified reviewer
Entertainment, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed January 2019
Very promising but the development is always slow and delayed
The unique one for game development Game design model
CONSHigh price comparing with current features Slow development
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2018
Perfect for small private game projects
Fast, can access from anywhere, easy to use, streamlined for game development, also includes game design model
CONSPretty basic features locked behind studio license, which I won't get for my single developer purposes