XNA Notes 002

This past week (much like every week in the XNA community) was filled with things happening and people doing cool things (and getting noticed for doing cool things!). You can definitely tell there are some Xbox LIVE Indie game developers starting to make some names for themselves. Can’t wait to name drop them at bars. Me- “Oh you played Game X? Yeah, I know the guy that made that. Pretty cool guy.” Yeah, I’ll be THAT guy.

Time Critical XNA News

• 30 days left to submit XBLIGs made in XNA Game Studio 3.1
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xna/archive/2011/01/08/30-days-left-to-submit-xna-gs-3-1-games-to-app-hub.aspx
• Jeromy Walsh wants you to know his XNA 4.0 Winter Workshop starting soon, go get signed up! And the forum is now LIVE on GameDev.net
  • http://gamedevelopedia.com/
  • http://tinyurl.com/4gg2cfv

The XNA Team

• Per Nick Gravelyn, Aaron Stebner’s blog post is a must read for icons on Windows Phone
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72022/439597.aspx#439597
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2010/10/01/10070507.aspx
• Shawn Hargreaves writes about Sprite Billboards in a 3D world
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/01/12/spritebatch-billboards-in-a-3d-world.aspx
    

XNA MVPs

• Andy “The ZMan” Dunn wants YOU to come to the MVP Summit and run a 5K
  • http://www.indiegameguy.com/blogs/zman/archive/2010/12/26/come-to-the-mvp-summit-and-run-a-5k-yes-you.aspx
• Jim Perry updates his forum signature just to make it clear that he’s not speaking for Microsoft or giving official information (LOL, thanks Jim, now if only people will take the time to read that...)
  • XNA MVP | Please use the Forum Search and read the Forum FAQs | My posts are not official info
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/70849/439613.aspx#439613
    

XNA Developers

• Robert Boyd (@werezombie) working hard at converting his RPG engine used to make Breath of Death VII and Chtulu Saves the World to XNA 4.0. If you haven’t done the upgrade yet yourself, might be useful to read back through his tweets and recent forum posts to see the problems/solutions he’s encountered.
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71834/438099.aspx#438099
  • http://www.twitter.com/werezompire
• SpynDoctorGames is in the final phase before the release of Your Doodles are Bugged for the PC! Going to be interesting to watch as more XNA game developers explore the PC game market for their games.
  • http://twitter.com/SpynDoctorGames/statuses/24503173217521664
  • http://www.spyn-doctor.de
• @DrMistry shares some details of his next title YoYoYo
  • http://www.mstargames.co.uk/mistryblogmain/35-genblog/177-a-new-year-a-new-game-and-maybe-a-new-approach.html
• Travis Woodward (@RabidLionGames) has a blog post coming this weekend on Farseer and Mario-like platformer movement.
  • http://twitter.com/RabidLionGames/statuses/24992762021548032
  • http://www.rabidlion.com/
• S4G Interview with Radiangames
  • http://n4g.com/news/679492/s4g-interview-with-radiangames
• XBLAratings.com interviews Steve Flores (@DragonDivide) developer of Alpha Squad
  • http://www.xblaratings.com/developer-qaa/3621-alpha-squad-developer-interview

XBox LIVE Indie Games

• If you haven’t been reading the roundups on IndieGames by NaviFairy on GayGamer, you’ve been missing out!
  • http://gaygamer.net/2011/01/xbox_indie_review_roundup_1112.html
• Armless Octopus posts the Top 20 Games of 2010 Part 1
  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/01/10/top-20-xbox-live-indie-games-of-2010-part-1/
• Armless Octopus posts the Top 20 Games of 2010 Part 2
  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/01/12/top-20-xbox-live-indie-games-of-2010-%E2%80%93-part-2/
• Xbox LIVE Indie Game Reviews
  • http://www.gamemarx.com/
• Don’t forget to be following @XboxHornet . That’s a great way to snag free copies of Xbox LIVE Indie Games
  • http://twitter.com/XboxHornet/statuses/24471103808208896
  • http://www.xboxhornet.com/wordpress/
• Xbox LIVE Indie Game Review posts the top 20 Xbox 360 LIVE Indie Games of 2010
  • http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/top-20-best-xbox-360-live-indie-games-of-2010/
• VVGtv to Stream #XBLIG Again! Help out if you can.
  • http://vvgtv.com/2011/01/07/vvgtv-to-stream-xblig-again/
• Indie Gamer Magazine Issue 14 has a look at the Xbox LIVE Winter Indie Game Uprisiing
  • http://www.indiegamemag.com/issue14/
    

XNA Game Development

• Andrew Russell announced and asked for help in his development of ExEn: XNA for iPhone, Android and Silverlight
  • http://rockethub.com/projects/752-exen-xna-for-iphone-android-and-silverlight
• App Hub forums letting you down? Don’t forget about StackOverflow and the game development specific version gamedev.stackexchange
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/xna
  • http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/xna
• Transmute gets an update from Aaron Foley (@slyprid) and you can now add and visually edit parallax layers to your 2D tile game.
  • http://twitpic.com/3nudj0
  • http://twitter.com/slyprid/statuses/23418379574448128
  • http://forgottenstarstudios.com/Transmute/default.html
• Webcomics Weekly #75 touches on some feelings I’ve seen people try to express (myself included) when talking about game development and what types of games should be released for XBLIG
  • http://www.pvponline.com/2011/01/05/webcomics-weekly-75-sour-oats/
• Setting up a new PC for XNA development? Here’s a site that helps you quickly build a installer for all the most common applications developers use.
  • http://ninite.com/
• Fun wew thread on the XNA forums asking XBLIG/XNA developers just what their Top 10 favorite video games of all time are.
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/107.aspx
• Christopher Hill (@Xalterax) stumbled across an entire community that does nothing but create box art. This is a great potential resource for Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers to get some awesome box art for their games.
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/46582/441451.aspx#441451
  • http://www.vgboxart.com/browse/plat/360/
• Don’t forget about the XNA Wiki, fantastic community resource (and roll up those sleeves and contribute already!)
  • http://xnawiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page