Painting | Depth Charge

Painting | Depth Charge

Promotional poster for a game by myself and Andy Moore. Watch his site for devvvlog updates. And look out for the poster coming to a game near you!

Painting | sworcery AV jam

Painting | sworcery AV jam 

Submitted a painting to the sword and sworcery art jam. So many amazing entries.

Sublime Text 2 tips

blog post | Sublime Text 2 tips 
Some tips for Sublime Text 2 users. 

I really love Sublime Text. I can’t find any people that don’t - or at least ones that have actually tried it properly and not switched. It is cross platform (Mac, Windows, Linux), it is highly configurable and scriptable - meaning there are hundreds of really useful plugins out there. 

Start with Sublime Package Control

Get this plugin from the wbond website.. It adds some options for installing packages automatically from a repository system with many useful packages already available. Once installed, it will list some Package: options in the Command Palette ( ctrl/cmd-shift-P ). You can choose install packages to show a list of available packages, and select some to install. 





Some of my favorite packages



Sublime-Linter 

Provides real time linting of files as you edit them. Shown below, when selecting a line with a lint error, you are provided with the info needed to fix the problem. This also catches many common syntax errors , making coding easier as you fix stupid mistakes before you hit run. 

Git 

All commands for git embedded neatly into Sublime text. Bindable to commands as you would expect, shows status as a nice neat list (below) , and much more. A definite win. 

FileDiffs

Creates a diff file from files, clipboard, or project files. This is a text based diff and creates them as a new file so you can save them and send the snippet via email (also a package!) to a friend/team mate. 







Something for everything


There are many useful awesome tools for working in almost any language and build system. Find what you need (there are many not on Package Control too) and boost your workflow right from within your work environment. 




Enjoy

Comments now enabled

blog post | Comments 
For some reason I never added comments to my site. Now I did. Feel free to go crazy. err, comment*.

 
   mores   tuff

Game Release | Ice Burgers

Game Release | Ice Burgers
Woo! Our latest game has been released on iOS  
visit ice-burgers.com for more information 

View the trailerGet it here
Collaboration with http://infiniteammo.ca and http://radialgames.com

XCode Tips

blog post | XCode Tips 
Some configuration options some people don’t know about. 

_

While I do enjoy using XCode, some of the default settings are a bit too resource intensive for my liking. Luckily the way the preferences work allow us to tweak some values to speed up the IDE and make builds use a lot less RAM and CPU. The most well known ones
Most XCode users will have googled this by now and found the following commands in the Terminal.app will change the most important performance settings there are for XCode - but remember to write down the defaults before you go changing them ( defaults read com.apple.dt.XCode [setting name] )defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode IDEBuildOperationMaxNumberOfConcurrentCompileTasks 4
defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode IDEIndexDisable 1 DON’T just blindly execute these in Terminal.app and wonder 2 days later what happened to Intellisense. Take note what each option does - and read up the consequences of every configuration change you do make ( or at least make sure you log which ones you did make so you can roll them back if need be ). 

So - the first one is self explanatory, it controls how many instances of ccplus1 will be executed when building files. Turning the number down means a lot less resources used up, and a lot less CPU usage from builds. It might sound counter intuitive to use LESS power - but with close to no RAM your PC will be practically asleep for what sometimes feel like an eternity. Including simple tasks like FORCE QUIT will seem to be incredibly unresponsive.  
Weirdly enough , when I turned my build count down ( I use Indexing still ) my build times decreased drastically - I was able to use Build as an actual ‘Is this syntax correct’ option without my entire IDE and Mac becoming unresponsive. A definite improvement.
You might want to take note of the defaults for this concurrent flag - as the number you use should be relative to the number of cores your CPU has, so a more beefy Mac can use more without it disrupting other use. Other Interesting settings
Save all xcode preferences to a file to explore:defaults read com.apple.dt.XCode > xcodeprefs.json

Show all devices and their information you have plugged in before
defaults read com.apple.dt.XCode DVTSavediPhoneDevices
Building : 
IDEActivityLogShowsAllBuildSteps = 0
        IDEActivityLogShowsAnalyzerResults = 0
        IDEActivityLogShowsErrors = 1
        IDEActivityLogShowsWarnings = 0
        IDEBuildingContinueBuildingAfterErrors = 0 Debugging
        IDEHexEditorByteGrouping = 32 

Enjoy

Art | Vlambeer pixelated

Art | Vlambeer pixel art
I love these guys and their games.  I drew this because of that.
 vlambeer.com

Game Release | GGJ 2012

GGJ Game | Return to a field of flowers
Play our 48 hour game we created for the Global Game Jam competition hosted 27-29 January 2012. 

_

This game was inspired by the difficulty of Dark souls, where learning the levels, the enemies and the character are part of the skill of the game. Understanding your character better, growing your skills each run, getting stronger as a player each time you die - As well as getting new items which make you better.. Items that combine to make you even stronger.
The theme 
The global game jam works with a global theme, and the theme for 2012 was this : From wikipedia : The Ouroboros represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life, the eternal return, and represents the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality, as in the phoenix.

Controls : 
Left click : Attack (When holding a weapon) 
Right click : Block (When holding a shield) 
Space : Roll 
M : Toggle Music 
1 - 4 : Enable/Disable rendering effects (for slower machines) 
Collect all the items, collect the boss statue item and exit the level at the red light gate to finish the game. 

Downloads 

Will add mac/other downloads soon.Download windows version

Have fun! And don’t forget to send us any feedback, comments, criticism and ideas!
email all comments to sven@underscorediscovery.com or twitter @FuzzYspo0N
Credits : 
Duncan Greenwood : Art/Animation | Ideas
Evan Greenwood : Code | Art | Ideas
Sven Bergström : Code | Art | Ideas
Jarred Lunt : Art | Ideas
Built using Unity 3.5
Youtube Video (Embedded below as well)
Obviously youtube hates videos, so watching in HD for good quality, or the big res video can be downloaded here.

GGJ 2012 | Join us

blog post | GGJ 2012 JHB & CT  
Make sure you register and find out more information here.


For [Johannesburg](http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2012/johannesburg) , GGJ plans are well under way. 
If you want to attend : There is still space.
Make sure you do the following :
1) Register on http://www.globalgamejam.org 
2) Email Cell Number and Name to igdajhb@gmail.com
3) Look at this interesting picture below
4) [Visit the Johannesburg site page](http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2012/johannesburg) and Join the group 
5) Come and make an awesome game in 48 hours.
That is all.

PRE GGJ Jam | Join us

PRE Global Game Jam Jam This saturday (21st January 2012) at Alacrity offices, 9am to 12am.

Game Release | Ludumdare 22

Game Release | Ludumdare 22 entry

Entered the 48 hour game development competition to prototype a 4 player, 2v2 coop game based on 0space and battlefield 3 squad play. 


- click to read more -


Read more and download the prototype on the Ludumdare website.

Ludumdare 22 | Join us

LUDUMDARE 22
We are in.

Make a game with us in 48 hours for the quarterly Ludumdare competition. We are joining together in Cape Town to jam and make games!


- click to read more -


If you are not familiar with Ludumdare, it is a 48 hour community based game development competition. If you are unsure still, that means a bunch of people from all over the world make games, in a 48 hour time frame, with the same theme.

The competition is friendly, is voted for by the community itself, and the rules are fairly simple. Make a game, on your own, in 48 hours from scratch. Anything you use that is a library or helper (ie : Unity, Game Maker, etc) you just have to post and announce that you are using the library with a link to the library itself. This allows others to use it if they want.

Cape Town Community Sessions | LD22 Jam

Here in Cape Town, South Africa, we are going to get together at an office nearby and jam together in the same room. If you are in Cape Town, and want to come and jam with us, email me (sven@underscorediscovery.com) and don’t forget to join our mailing list, and visit SAGD for up to date information on events.

There is limited space, first come first serve, so email first!

Cross post | special people

Special People

A fun tumblr blog by Jan Willem Nijman with super special people.


- click to read more -

From http://superspecialpeople.tumblr.com , This site has some amazing photography etc.

superspecialpeople:

CPT Community Sessions

Want to make games (and live in Cape Town?)

_

A wild community night appears!



On Wednesday the 26th October we will be meeting at the Microsoft offices in Cape Town for a great game development community night. We have a few guest speakers from Cape Town and from Johannesburg.



What do you need to do?

Pitch up! Come and meet the people like you, interested in making games. Come and meet the people running successful game development studios. Come and learn how to get there, how to be a part of the game industry in South Africa.

More information

If you want to know more, take a look at the video below for a sneak peak at our meet ups in Johannesburg.





Then, take a look at the community meet ups like rAge, and other community meet up videos and content from all our meet ups.

If you are unsure of anything, send me an email.
Don’t miss out

Bring friends, but note that the meetings are most likely going to be held once a month, with more info when we are there.  So if you do miss out, see you next month!

UNDERSCORE DISCOVERY

UNDERSCORE DISCOVERY

Hobo theme Mike Ballan Mod by me