XNA Game Studio 4.0 Details Emerge
Posted by Brett in BasicEffect, Michael Klucher, press, Shawn Hargreaves, Visual Studio 2010, Windows Phone 7, XNA, XNA 4.0 on March 11, 2010
The XNA team has released details of what the next iteration of XNA will look like. Major features include:
- Windows Phone 7 platform added
- Visual Studio 2010 integration
- Dynamic audio input
- Improved BasicEffect
- Improved portability
Some questions still remain to be answered though. When will XNA 4.0 be released? What will be the approval process for WP7 apps be? Will there be cross platform play?
It looks like we can expect to hear much more in the coming weeks with GDC and MIX’10 right around the corner. In the meantime more information can be found on Shawn Hargreaves blog, as well as Michael Klucher’s
Joint Strike Future: post-mortem
Posted by Brett in Dream Build Play, Joint Strike Future, Uncategorized on September 23, 2009
Looking back at the JSF project, a lot of things went right and a lot of things went wrong. This can serve as a warning sign to those embarking on their first indie game project.
What things went right with the Dream Build Play competition?
The timing of the project happened to line up with Microsoft’s Dream Build Play (DBP) competition. I was able to get a beta version done in time to submit. It was a working game with a UI and an ending. It wasn’t very polished though.
What went wrong with it?
Unfortunately, there was not enough time to create a good video for the DBP so I ended up submitting a video of a play through the first level. It did not get the viewer excited to see what it felt like to play the game at all. Also, the UI was ugly. It was redone for the release but you couldn’t tell what was what in the DBP build.
The whole project was one big learning experience. I leaned hard on the few tutorials on Ziggyware and examples on the Creators Club website. I knew what I wanted to do, but implementing it was a whole other thing. It was hard to add new things in the end because the code was not modular enough.
What happened after that?
By then I was exhausted with the game. I just wanted to be done for a while. Instead of taking a break, I patched some holes and put it up for release. There was not enough time spent on art at all. The JSF engine has the capability to incorporate props such as buildings and trees but I didn’t take the time to actually build them. Ground based enemies like tanks were also possible. Every enemy used the same hull texture as well. Very sloppy.
What I should have done was take a break after DBP and recharge.
What could you do differently?
I would spend more time playing classic shm’ups like Raiden and Raptor: Call of the Shadows. I didn’t playtest enough to make sure the gameplay was engaging for any long period of time. I would have also invested more time into a good particle system. As it stands, there isn’t enough happening on the screen at any given time. Most importantly, I would spend more time playing the actual game and refine the gameplay. If I get tired of what you are doing, take a break and come back to it.
New Avatar Content at the Creators Club
Posted by Brett in Avatar, Dream Build Play, project update on July 21, 2009
3 new samples have been added to the creators club content catalog. First is an animation pack. I plan on incorperating these into my avatar project to speed up development. Second is a couple of rigs to use in Maya or ModTool for creating custom animations. Finally, there is a sample on how to mix this all together.
My current progress has been slowed down by the sudden breakage of my laptop LCD. Anyone know of a good deal on a mid-range laptop? Let me know in the comments. I am going to be working like a mad-man to make the Dream-Build-Play submission deadline (August 9th).
[Update:] The rigs and animations mentioned in this post will not work with the AvatarWrapper mentioned earlier from user zygote.
Avatar Usage
I have to hand it to the XNA team. They made Avatar usage extremely easy. It essentially works as a self contained model with easy to use parameters to translate, rotate, and scale. All the predefined animations are built right in and easy to play and loop through. This was a smart decision on their part because it will give the avatars a consistent look and feel throughout the community games.
It was really easy to get my ideas coded up because I didn’t have to worry about loading meshes, updating animations, etc. Screenshots are forthcoming but I first wanted to thank user zygote from Ziggyware.com for his excellent Avatar wrapper that allows developers to view avatar skeletons when they are running on a PC. More to come.
Gear Shift
Posted by Brett in Uncategorized on June 19, 2009
Microsoft released Game Studio 3.1 earlier this month. At first I wasn’t interested in any of their improvements. Avatar integration, movie playback, fire-and-forget sound playback all seemed useless to me.
Then I thought about what I could do with that.
Newfound Power!
Posted by Brett in Uncategorized on May 12, 2009
Collected the first payout for JSF this week. It makes it worth all the hard work put into the development when you know that people liked your game enough to buy it.
That said, development of the new game has been really slow because of a lack of motivation. But now I am ready to get back to work. Look for new updates coming soon.
Self-Plug: Joint Strike Future
Posted by Brett in interview, Joint Strike Future, press, shooter on April 22, 2009
Check out these interviews about JSF on The Examiner and The Gaming Dead. I was pleasantly supprised when Erik contacted me for an interview. I appreciate him taking the time to give Hall Entertainment a little exposure.
Current Projects
Posted by Brett in adventure, project update, puzzle on April 22, 2009
I have two current projects. First, is a simple arithmetic puzzle game. Players arrange falling numbers and operators to make valid expressions. Valid expressions disappear and earn points based on their complexity. This project has taken a back seat to my second one. It is a 3rd person adventure game set in the future. It is pretty ambitious for a one-man operation so I am trying to build a very basic framework that I can expand upon easily. We’ll see where it goes from there.