Happy 21st Birthday id Software

It's that time again! The good news is that the company is still intact and working on projects (DOOM 4 for sure).

The bad news is that id laid-off a batch of people earlier in January, probably because they didn't need 100 people to sit on a brand-new team.

Also, it's unfortunate that this birthday hasn't been recognized anywhere, not even on id's own blog. They're probably too busy dealing with the massive success of Skyrim. Grats!

Xcode For Beginners

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was written before new, amazing SDK's were released such as Corona SDK. Other posts will address Corona as a better place to start.

I believe anyone wanting to learn programming should start with the basics, and that means the C language. It also means no graphics so the focus is on the language itself and understanding just the language, and not an IDE or environment like Flash. You can do plenty of good learning just by using text mode.

Here is a step-by-step walkthrough of how to get Xcode set up for programming simple console apps like you would find in any basic C book.

STEP 1: Install Xcode 4

It's in the Mac App Store. Search for Xcode then get it. I believe it's free. Next, after it's downloaded, you need to run the app called "Install Xcode" (if you're running Lion, you can find it by clicking the silver rocket ship dock icon). That is what will really install it. When that's done, you can move on to step 2.

STEP 2: Create a New Project

This is the first thing you will see. Make sure you choose "Create a new Xcode project".

 

Next, choose "Mac OS X", then "Application".

Then choose "Command Line Tool". Click Next.

 

Now choose the options for your project, and where to put it.

Click Next.

 

Make sure to UNCHECK the option to create a git repository. You're just starting to learn to code - source control can come later.

 

STEP 3: Set Up The Project Window

Now the project will start up in a window that will look confusing since you're not used to this kind of information. Don't worry — you don't need to know about this yet, and you can get rid of it so you can focus only on your code.

First, select your main.c source by clicking on the name in the left pane.

 

Next, let's get rid of all the bothersome info. Click on the View buttons so they're all off like this.

 

Now you should be looking only at pure code.

Click on the PLAY button at the top-left to run the simple main() code that was generated for you. It will open up an output window at the bottom of the edit area.

Now, make the output area fill the screen from left to right by clicking the View buttons like so:

 

There! Now you have pure code and pure output!

To clean up the output and make it only show you your code output and no compilation messages, change the pulldown menu from All Output to Target Output.

Finally, I don't like coding with a solid white background blasting my retinas all day, so I always choose a dark scheme.

To do this, press Command-, (comma) to bring up Preferences. Choose Fonts & Color. On the left pane, choose the theme Midnight. Your screen would look just like this...

 

That's all there is to setting up a new console-only C project in Xcode with a simple environment! This is the view that my girlfriend Brenda prefers because it's easy to just focus on her code.

Latest Update & DOOM Post-Mortem

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote anything here... thank you very much, Facebook. Most of my updates happen over there, but not really anything important or game history-related. I use Twitter as well, but don't do much. I'm just very busy running my game company, Loot Drop, and forgetting to update my site.

At GDC 2011, Tom Hall and I did a DOOM Post-Mortem, which basically talked about the complete development of DOOM in a month-by-month format. You can watch the video and the slides right here.

Tom Hall has been working with me and Brenda at Loot Drop for an entire year, and it's been a blast! He's been designing and running his own game team, and his game is turning out great. Brenda is busy with her own game, designing and running her team (the game is COOL!), and I've been working on keeping the company running smoothly. My game, Cloudforest Expedition, is on a temporary hiatus.