XNA Notes 003

Another week and another whirlwind of wonderful works coming from the XNA Community. I find it crazy just how hard it is to keep up with everything going on and knowing just how big the community has gotten recognizing just how much I’m missing as well. But here are the things I DID manage to catch…

XNA Developers

• @Chounard ponders whether he should port sfxr to XNA
• http://twitter.com/Chounard/statuses/27029053395439616
• And showing just how awesome the XNA commmunity @Chounard DOES (and in a day!)
• http://twitter.com/Chounard/statuses/27231943355535360
• http://xnasfxrsynth.codeplex.com/
• @Chounard says that along with feedback from the community on xnasfrx he would also like some feedback on Demina, his 2D skeletal animation thingamajig
• http://demina.codeplex.com/
• Simon (Darkside) Jackson (@DDReaper) gave an XNA session at NxtGenUG Manchester on Wednesday.
• http://nxtgenug.net/ViewEvent.aspx?EventID=367
• Kris Steele (@kriswd40) is wrapping up his humor filled Trivia Game for XBLIG
• http://www.funinfused.com/TriviaOrDie.aspx
• XBLIG Developer Interview with Christopher Hill of Zombie Monkey Games
• http://vvgtv.com/2011/01/16/xblig-developer-interview-with-christopher-hill-of-zombie-monkey-games/
• The current state Zeboyd Games, their decision to release a PC version of their game and their fundraising efforts
• http://zeboyd.com/2011/01/17/kickstarter-fundraising-efforts-for-enhanced-version-of-cthulhu-saves-the-world-for-pc-360/
• http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/744735150/cthulhu-saves-the-world-enhanced-version-for-pc-an
• Justin Johnson of SindicateX shares what he’s been working on
• http://syndicatex.com/projects/whirlygig-building-collision/
• Going to GDC? Want to meet up with some fellow XNA developers? Then get in touch and let people know you're going to be there by posting in this thread.
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/72931.aspx

Xbox LIVE Indie Games

• Want to get an Xbox LIVE Indie Game mentioned on Joystiq? Now you can!
• http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/06/xbox-live-indie-gems-cthulhu-saves-the-world/
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72605/443003.aspx#443003
• Somebody needs to start emailing this guy games to play…
• http://kotaku.com/5736038/xbox-live-indie-clips-the-charge-is-only-briefly-sexy
• Iridium Studios and their game Sequence got noticed and got an article on Kotaku. Congratulations!
• http://kotaku.com/5733939/this-xbox-indie-combines-rhythm-and-role+playing
• http://www.playiridium.com/sequence/
• Graeme Boyd (@AceyBongos) - Xbox Community Manager for Europe asks “How many of you play Xbox LIVE Indie Games regularly; and how many of you actually use or know how to use XNA?”
• http://twitter.com/AceyBongos/statuses/27028395976032256
• Definitely a good idea for Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers to look through the replies to that question and get to know what your consumers are saying!
• Xbox Indie Games Roundup for January 16th posted on Gamergeddon
• http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/01/16/xbox-indie-games-round-up-january-16th/
• Everyone should be reading 8Bit Horse, not only do they cover XBLIGs but they talk about all things 2D. Love that site.
• http://8bithorse.blogspot.com/2011/01/astroman-xbl-indie-games.html
• XNA Game released for free on Reddit for a limited time only
• http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/f3vls/im_an_indie_game_author_and_today_im_releasing_my/
• @mikebmcl reports The Joystiq 2010 Buyer's Guide on the US dashboard includes an XBLIG section. Go Xbox LIVE Indie Games!
• http://twitter.com/mikebmcl/statuses/27422669678845952
• Mommy’s Best Games is working on pumping up the difficulty in Explosionade. Read about the progress from Nathan Fouts himself!
• http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/01/pump-up-difficulty.html
• Jean Snow posts “Just Gimme Indie Games” where he talks about XBLIGs, shock that Microsoft hasn’t pushed the service more (we’re shocked too!) and the one man indie gamed development machine that is Luke Schneider of radianGames
• http://snow-mag.com/2011/01/just-gimme-indie-games/
• Chester getting some press and attention for it’s upcoming XBLIG release.
• http://www.destructoid.com/indie-game-chester-has-a-signature-style-191770.phtml
• http://www.extraguy.com/2011/01/xblig-alert-hand-drawn-platformer-chester-in-the-works/
• http://videogames.rsscrawler.com/2011/01/15/indie-game-chester-has-a-signature-style/
• Sequence gets a Kotaku mention
• http://kotaku.com/5733939/this-xbox-indie-combines-rhythm-and-role+playing

XNA Game Development

• Christopher Hill (@Xalterax) posts some great XNA Community Tips
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/72512.aspx
• @SpynDoctorGames releases another round of updates and bug fixes to the Global HighScore component (it’s now been converted to XNA 4.0!)
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/60475.aspx
• http://spyn-doctor.blogspot.com/2010/12/global-scoreboard-component-for-xna-40.html
• Indiefreaks Gameframework milestone one should be reached this week!
• http://indiefreaks.com/2011/01/17/indiefreaks-sunburn-indiefreaks-game-framework/
• If you’re interested in XNA and in New York...
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72753/443905.aspx#443905
• Need a cross-platform XNA compatible vector drawing library? @TehGrumpyDude has you covered with Agg.XNA , his AGG Lite port
• http://bnoerj.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Bnoerj.Labs&referringTitle=Home
• It’s an older tutorial, but I hadn’t seen it before noticing Joel Martinez recommend it in an answer on StackOverflow. Pretty sweet if you’re new to doing splitscreen in XNA!
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4722038/xna-creating-a-instance-of-a-game-in-viewport
• http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/viewports-split-screen
• Mr. Gooodcast posts XNA Essentials for Silverlight Developers Part 1
• http://www.pitorque.de/MisterGoodcat/post/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-1-Fundamentals.aspx
• (and don’t forget to go back and read Part 0)
• http://www.pitorque.de/MisterGoodcat/post/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-0-Why-should-I-care.aspx
• Helmut (@mrhelmut) is giving away a license for Toon Boom Studio
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72817/444378.aspx#444378
• John Defenbaugh (@SigilXNA) had a fantastic discussion about particles and collision on Twitter. Here are two of the more key tweets on the subject.
• http://twitter.com/SigilXNA/statuses/27418787791765504
• http://twitter.com/SigilXNA/statuses/27419925219905537
• and the link to the GDC presentation he was talking about
• http://www.bungie.net/Inside/publications.aspx#pub15938
• Interesting post on thinking low level when you’re writing high level code. Doesn’t really apply to C# developers that much, but it’s still an interesting post and exposes one of my major weaknesses (I barely understand what they’re talking about in that post!)
• http://altdevblogaday.com/think-low-level-write-high-level-0
• In fact that whole blog is a fascinating read for game developers!
• http://altdevblogaday.com/
• New article/tutorial on using the scene editor of Unity 3D in other non-visual environments to create 2D or 3D games.
• http://lucjose.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/articletutorial-use-the-scene-editor-of-unity-3d-in-other-non-visual-environments-to-create-2d-or-3d-games/
• XNA Tower Defense adds Tutorial 12 - Adding a New Tower Type to it’s ongoing series of making a tower defense game using XNA.
• http://xnatd.blogspot.com/2011/01/tutorial-12-adding-new-tower-type.html
• Microsoft Press announces that Rob Miles new book “Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0: Learn Programming Now!” has shipped to the printers and will be available for purchase in February
• http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/mspress/b/press/archive/2011/01/13/rtm-d-today-microsoft-xna-game-studio-4-0-learn-programming-now.aspx