[Agent]

As work has progressed on my latest game, I find myself getting worried that a pile of text documents might not be the best choice for the design, bugs and todo documents.

When I've worked on team projects, I've used different tools, but I never really liked them. If anyone could give me some tips, that would be great.

[Rainer Deyke]

I've tried a bunch of different tools - bug trackers, wikis, flowcharts - and always went back to text files. The fancier the tool, the more time I waste on making a pretty design document when I should be working on my game.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I use mostly pen and paper... seems to work best for me.
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www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[RampantCoyote]

I agree - simple is good. A text file or a simple spreadsheet works best for me. Also pen & paper, especially if you are playing your game full-screen and it would be inconvenient / distracting to tab out to input information.

I've found that this system also works pretty well for small teams - you can just cut & paste each person's bug, or whatnot. When I was making AAA games for SingleTrac (Twisted Metal, Jet Moto, Warhawk, etc.), that's all the producer used internally, and it worked better for us then than other, more advanced tools I've since had to work with.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Malignus]

A yellow legal pad. I forget to update text files; I lose track of them; but there is that yellow legal pad, sitting right on my desk. It's accessible; it's always right there. It just fits my particular brand of ADD, I guess.

Also, I have an extensive thread on my forums where people post bugs. That helps out a lot too.