Why Plastic SCM works so well with game development

BetaDwarf is in the business of making games, and today I'd like to go over one of the tools that we use that allows us to keep track of our code and assets in our projects, Plastic SCM. Version control systems are an integral part of game or any software development process. They allow many users to work on the same project at the same time, with minimal conflicts. There are many options available for version control in the world and it can be hard to figure out which is the best to use.

Before we picked up Plastic SCM we were using a private git system, with the freely available software SourceTree. While git is a great version control system for text files (code files), it struggles greatly with binary files, such as models or textures. While using git our project was around 25 GB, and a full download of the project from git could easily take a few hours. Aside from issues with handling binary, managing a private git repository often proved painful, with many hours of troubleshooting when the repository became corrupt, for one reason or another. We also had numerous stability and usability issues with SourceTree.

A screenshot of the Plastic SCM branch explorer, here you can see our latest patch branch.

When the problems with git finally became too much we started to look elsewhere for version control systems, thankfully we stumbled over Plastic SCM. We have found Plastic to be extremely user friendly, fast and stable. The user interface for Plastic SCM is fantastic and it is much more user friendly and feature extensive than SourceTree was. Updates from an empty repository takes half an hour or so for our over 40 GB project. While I would often fight with git for hours in a day when problems arose, Plastic has more or less run without server interaction for over 8 months. Plastic is also very good at merging conflicting changes between team members, we mainly use this for text files and the three way merge supported by Plastic has been rather good to us. Plastics branching system is great, and works very similar to git, so we were right at home with the system with minimal introduction.

A screenshot of the Plastic SCM recent changeset query, we are at over 6000 commits and going strong!

All in all Plastic SCM has allowed us to not have to worry much about version control, and instead focus on making a great game. As source control is used all the time by all members this is quite a blessing. So if you are working on game projects out there, it would be worth checking out Plastic SCM, as it handles the day to day of game development much better than git. If you would like to know more, visit www.plasticscm.com for more information and a download.

Our PAX East journey

Hi everyone,
It’s been a while since we updated the blog, we’ve had a lot of stuff to do these past few months as we prepared for PAX East. At the same time we were trying a new direction for the game, so things got really hectic at the office, but we managed to get all our stuff done with only 2 days of crunch!

Previously, when we went to conferences we’ve usually had to work in overtime (and overdrive!) for a week, but this time we managed to focus enough that people could go home to their girlfriends and complain about all the issues they didn’t get to fix that day :)
Now what does it actually mean, going to PAX East?Well, we were going there as part of the Indie MegaBooth, and we had a 10x20 feet space to exhibit on.The booth fully set up
We spent all of the day Wednesday preparing this, 8 stations in total with 4 using mouse & keyboard and 4 using controllers.And then it started, tens of thousands of people flooding into the halls. Our booth became so packed people had to wait in line to play, and we had so much fun meeting old and new fans of our games!All packed, and this wasn’t even the busiest!
It was so busy we almost didn’t have time to check out any other games, but at least we got to play Overwatch. We had to, I mean, who isn’t a Blizzard fan? ;)


This is Romer, our Audio Designer and Booth Setup Artiste Extraordinaire
But now we’re back, and what did we actually get out of it?We got tons of feedback on the new direction of the game, people love the focus on a Rogue-like with Deckbuilding, but a lot of people also ask if there’s going to be Co-op.We also got a bunch of very flattering articles that press wrote about us.And last but definitely not least; we got almost 700 new people into our Closed Beta!
The community is building up, and we’re going to be taking good care of them, but that’s a tale for another time.

Thanks for reading!-Christoffer

Why humans are important!

Hello, hope you are having a great Wednesday :)

Humans in a sci-fi-fantasy universe like FORCED SHOWDOWN, adds a very important element. Which is that they allow you to compare everything else with something you know. By including humans, you can suddenly relate to the size of all the other characters. Also when hitting a human you can "Easily" relate to the consequence of being thrown 15m across the arena by a scorching-demon-lazer-bolt-of-doom.

 

Human enemies, Banner bearer who buffs other humans, Militia melee fighters and nasty ranged crossbowmen. An evil little group that could meet you in the next arena?

Also FORCED "1" is on steam sale right now and it has indeed increased the number of players currently playing. So if you're LFG - now is a good time: 

Data from: http://steamcharts.com/app/249990