The Mailowl Scrolls

Issue #9 of Dev.Mag is out and you can get it from the website (http://www.devmag.org.za) (make sure you subscribe to the email notification!). In this issue they cover the devLAN down in Durban where they managed to fly Danny Day and Miktar Dracon (2 well respected game developers in the community) down to give them a 2 day workshop. There’s also a piece on Game Design and then the regular Blender tutorial, mobile java development and tech wizard.

This issue is a little short due to half the writing staff writing school exams and the second half pressing to finish work projects before the end of the year. The next issue promises to be bigger though because of the break taken over the Christmas period.

In other community news, Comp 12 is in full swing (although you can’t check out the entries because the NAG forums are going through an upgrade) and the theme for this one is to build a single PC multi-player game. The kind of game where players must share a PC’s input to play against or with each other.

This idea took me back to the late 80’s and early 90’s with games such as Double Dragon, Golden Axe and Star Control 1; where my friend and I were fighting for space at the desk to see what’s on the brightly coloured VGA screen and to hear the pop’s of the built-in PC speaker. I fondly remember playing the single player Tie Fighter missions with myself on the joystick and my friend manning the keyboard and its myriad of functions.

I’ve decided to make something reminiscent of Golden Axe with the 2 players playing co-operatively. While I’ve already uploaded something for my peers to review I’m not going to share it with you just yet as I’ve ripped graphics from the original game to test my ideas and I’m waiting for my own original graphics (an artist on the forums has kindly offered his services). As soon as I can’t be sued for infringing on anyone else’s work I’ll give you all a link to play the game yourselves.