Nandrew: Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present to you our second Dev.Mag Collaborative Review Thing™, partially because the first one was so fun and mostly because Rock, Paper, Shotgun have not yet sued us for stealing their idea. Chippit: … and because the Wolfire guys were nice enough to unexpectedly drop a copy of Lugaru in our inboxes. [...]
This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 26, released in October 2008 Interested in making your own sound effects for videogames? This month we’ll be looking at Audacity and a few of the common effects that can be used to turn your humble blink-blonks into fantastic kaphwooms.
This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 24, released in August 2008. One aspect of game creation that constantly seems to stump the average hobbyist developer is the matter of sound creation. Nowadays, experienced players can go onto the Internet, download a few indie games and easily pick up on what one may call “stock [...]
Today’s game market is, by all accounts, saturated. There’s simply not enough time for people to play everything that’s on offer out there, even if everybody dedicated their lives to hunting out – and playing through – as many titles as humanly possible.
In the game development world, a lot of beginners have a rather intense hatred for game prototyping. After all, it usually produces a rushed product that’s full of bugs and crappy graphics – a far cry from the uber-sweet, kill-yo-kitten-with-an-axe MMORPG system that they had in mind with all the coolest items, characters and groundbreaking [...]
The other day (and by that, I mean “some undetermined date a really, really long time ago”) I was having a typical gamer’s discussion inside a typical gamer’s forum. The topic: piracy and all the pain, chaos, death and homeless devs that it brings about.
Disclaimer: Please try not to be scared of Angry Joe – he’s only a stick figure. In fact, he doesn’t even really exist. Steel yourself, read on and ride the storm. It’ll all be over soon. There seems to be a lot of ideas held by new developers which, quite frankly, are leading them in [...]
Glum Buster is a special game, in more ways than one. The core gameplay mechanic might be simple enough – a side scrolling platformer with puzzle elements – but the presentation of the game and the world of Glum is where the magic lies. The game utilises the concept of “charityware” – a certain percentage [...]
The way I see it, modern indie development is imbalanced. Not in the way that a foul-tempered DotA player would scream “IMBA!” after getting killed for the fifth time in succession – no, I’m talking more about exposure, attention and who is playing what out there. I’m talking about everyone’s tendency to play the same narrow [...]
To many developers, the fine art of game creation lies strictly within the domain of the first world. Europe, America and Japan have all been sitting pretty with a very well-developed industry for a while. Other territories have recently hopped onto the bandwagon, of course: we have high-profile offerings such as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series from [...]
If there’s one thing that I take pride in when I offer humble slices of gaming pie to oh-so-hungry colleagues, it’s my ability to carefully consider the difficulty level. Whether I’m making a run-and-jump platformer or a purely cerebral puzzle game, I always live by the same basic mantra: give the player a helping hand.
Hello there, dear reader. Welcome to the super-duper guide to art games. You’ve made a good choice in bringing your eyes to these pages, we promise. Settle down, pull up your favourite comfy chair and make sure that your eyes are at a respectable distance from the computer screen. Ready? Let’s go. We’ll start with [...]
How does one treat a new game developer? I’m not strictly talking about the greenest of the green: the term “new” is very subjective, and may even incorporate those who have been attempting the craft for years. But whatever your understanding of the term may be, the question still stands: how do you react to [...]
Earlier this year, three noble South Africans participated remotely in the annual Global Game Jam in a quest for truth, glory and really rapid game development. Teams all over the world were given 48 hours to make a game using a handful of keywords and whatever tools they could get their hands on. Local developers Danny [...]
Being part of an active game development forum, I often stumble across works in progress from fellow enthusiastic devs. This in itself is pretty great. The problem – and I’ll confess to this openly – is that I often skip over projects which are only in the concept stage: you know, those ubiquitous walls of [...]
This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 28, released in January 2009. Many of you have experienced it. You go online, log into your instant messenger or e-mail account and receive a link from some excited friend saying, “ARARRRAARARR PLAY THIS GAME ASBFLARGAFAG www.insertrandomlinkhere.com!!!!!” Chances are it’s either an Internet booby trap (if you have [...]
{ I find that the essence of great indie games comes from knowing their core rules. If all gameplay adheres to the core rules, then emergent... } – May 11, 9:11 PM
{ Insanely detailed, well written and an interesting read 
Being in the process of developing a game that has a web of interconnected rules and... } – May 11, 5:17 PM
{ Great article! Very informative. } – May 08, 9:51 AM
{ Nothing to beat a simple tutorial with Actual Screen shots. } – Apr 26, 9:44 PM
{ Thanks for the feedback Ben, max and cool math 
Glad you found it useful. } – Apr 23, 8:56 PM
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