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herman.tulleken
19-01-2011, 10:41 AM
Hi All,

Short Version
Dev.Mag starts publishing content today :-) You can read Diorgo Jonker's 11 Tips for making a fun platformer (http://devmag.org.za/2011/01/18/11-tips-for-making-a-fun-platformer/). (Among other things (http://www.gep-comic.com/v1/), Diorgo (Dipso) was the design lead behind The Harvest). You can read the boring bits below later; go read the article now!

Long Version
There is a new site. We changed it so that it would be easier to include features such as threaded comments (http://devmag.org.za/2009/04/02/flash-for-free/#comments), automated related posts, beautiful mathematics (http://devmag.org.za/2009/04/13/basic-collision-detection-in-2d-part-1/), author bios, and (have mercy on our souls) social bookmarking. In addition, it also makes it easier to publish, allowing us to use tools such as MS Live Writer.

The RSS feeds changed as well, so if you were subscribed before, you will have to update it. Sorry about that :(

(And yeah, the design is somewhat clunky and bloggy, but it will be improved over time. Don't sweat it. :)

For now, Dev.Mag will concentrate on game making content - game design, programming, sound, art (if we can find out where artists hide!) and so on. As FuzzySp00n explained at one of the community events, local stuff will mostly be published on the IGDA site, where they can benefit from the more official branding and international attention. And there is also the GameDev.SA site, which has been keeping a nice account on local developments.

International news, reviews and interviews are kind of in the long tail of our traffic, accounting for less than 15%, while making out 70% or so of the content. In addition, as exciting as running news is, it takes a lot of effort and energy to keep on the ball all the time, therefore, :( we are gonna cut it.

On the upside, we will be playing around with some new formats: game dissections, "tech" interviews, collaborative insight pieces, and so on. I can't wait to get these to you!

What this means for our publication schedule is that we will be publishing a feature once a week; at least initially.

Up to this point, I had a lot of help and insight from many, many people. Thank you all! Jacques Jurgens (not a forum member, can you believe it, but some hot-shot instructional designer!) has been my right hand, not only editing the articles we have "in production", but also giving valuable feedback in many of the choices that have to be made.

I'll tell some more about our shadow team as time goes on :)

Getting involved
If you want to share some ideas with the world, you can. Writing for us is simple. Send me a cool, unique idea for an article at [devmag at gmail dot com], and we will take it from there :) If a full article is perhaps too involved for you, you may be interested in taking part in one of our group articles. Drop me a mail and I will tell you more.

The biggest help you can give is to tell everyone!

Feedbacks is always welcome, here, or in a mail.

ht

xyber
19-01-2011, 12:04 PM
Cool :D
and very interestingly article by Diorgo.

Luke
19-01-2011, 01:56 PM
HermanAndCo++;