Yes ladies and gents. Today I want to talk a bit about my favorite new OS, Windows 7. I am not coming to you as a loyal Microsoft employee trying to sell our newest iteration of Windows. I am here as a dude just excited about a new OS (and I just happen to get paid by the company making it – but we’ll ignore that ok?). So why am I excited? Read more...
A bit of a belated “Happy New Year” to everyone! I decided to do some maintenance work on my blog that I’ve been putting off for a while. The visible part is the new theme I got going on here. Next on the list is getting some more content on! I am working on it :) Read more...
So… looks like according to Kotaku, StarCraft II is going to be released on 3 parts. I was just wondering what you guys think of that? I am a huge StarCraft fan (who isn’t?!) and am waiting anxiously for that game to ship! I was a bit bumped that they will release it as a trilogy, but then I realized that I really don’t play the single player portions of most of the games I buy. So it won’t matter as much. Speaking of RTS games… what do are you guys playing out there? It’s still by far my favorite genre even though I SUCK at them :/ Read more...
This week I am very excited to bring you a really fun team interview! Tom Miller is one of those people that needs little introductions if you’ve been following the world of Managed Game Development at all. Remember all that stuff about Managed DirectX? That was Tom’s work, he brought that to reality. So I asked him to spare some of his time to answer my interview questions, and here’s what he had to say. Read more...
With the upcoming release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 (it is currently in Beta), one of the big features of the release is the ability to write your own games on a Zune device. This is a very exciting prospect for a lot of people as well as the XNA Game Studio dev team. When we first released Game Studio Express, we didn’t know what to expect as far as the type and quality of games people would make. I remember sitting in a big room with a Xbox hooked up to a nice TV about to see demos of games from the first Dream.Build.Play contest. Boy… seeing games like Dishwasher and others totally took us by storm! So now that we have Zune as another platform, I want to make sure you guys have as much as you need to blow our minds again! So… what’s the deal with developing a game for the Zune? Read more...
You know… I still remember when I first joined this team back in 2005. Back then, the entire team could fit around one conference table and leave a few chairs open. Most of what we knew was that we were called the “XNA Team”. What are we going to do? Still not sure. We had a lot of things on the table and had to pick the most strategic one. Finally we decided to go after XNA Game Studio. “Let’s open up game development to the masses! Let the beginners/amateurs be able to write their own games!”. Hell…it’s about time (name the reference!). Fast forward to today, and we start seeing games like this one being made with our stuff! Read more...
Today I want to talk to you about one of the important subjects of game development. Creating your world. Your game lives in some world (usually), how you design and build that world is something you want to think about early on regardless if it’s a 2D or 3D game. Since we’re still learning, let’s focus on 2D first. This will be a mini series of posts that will walk you through creating a 2D world, the tools you can use and how we can code it up in our game. We’ll even touch on some semi-advanced features of XNA Game Studio such as custom content pipeline extensions. Don’t be scared now! It really sounds way scarier than it actually is. So let’s get started! Read more...
Hey guys! Quick post as I am on my way out to the airport for a quick family trip. Check out the 3D Beginner’s guide video tutorial that was just posted on creators.xna.com. It is really neat! It will serve as a really good introduction that I hopefully will follow up myself with some 3D material once I get off my lazy butt and blog some more :/ Read more...
After tormenting you with an interview with Shawn’s cat, it’s only fair that we talk to the man himself. Today, we are going to know more about "teh Shawn" as he’s known to us now at the office. Shawn is the man responsible for quite a few of the nifty parts of the XNA Game Studio product in general. Hate it or love, Content pipeline was one of his first contributions, one of many many to come. The man needs little introduction, so … I give you, Shawn Hargreaves! Read more...
So… after a while of inactivity, busy at work, got a new baby girl, I am back with yet another team interview! This one is a bit different though. You see, this interview is not with an actual team member, but with a legend that lives within our environment. A legend that I’ve come to HATE. Shawn Hargreaves, one of our developers, owns a cat. He loves this cat. So naturally, he puts that DAMN cat in every sample he possibly can. I’ve seen that cat so many times, I can’t stand to see it anymore. That’s when he added her to his Audio3D sample with sound. Today… we talk to that cat. Read more...
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