Nazeeh’s Little Corner on the Web

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!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA GS team?

I’m a programmer on the XNA Framework team. Along with my colleagues Eli, Ito, and a couple of shady characters you haven’t yet got around to interviewing (hi Tom!), we are responsible for implementing the APIs for things like graphics, sound, and input: all the cool stuff you need to make your game.

In my spare time, I write some of the samples for the creators.xna.com site, and spend way too much time answering questions in the forums.

What did you work on before joining XNA GS team?

I worked for an independent developer called Climax in the UK, where I was lead programmer on the MotoGP series of bike racing games. I also worked on engines and tool chains (we wrote an entirely custom modeling package, which the artists used to construct the bike and track models) and did some prototyping for various original game ideas.

Before that I worked on the Extreme G games on the Nintendo 64, and back in college I started the open source Allegro game programming library. That was my first experience of building an API for a whole community of game developers, and I found it so rewarding, that was actually one of the main things that made me want to work on the XNA Framework.

How did you join the XNA GS team? Tell the story!

In between MotoGP and MotoGP 2, Climax made a special MotoGP demo version that shipped alongside the first release of Xbox Live. That was a crazy experience: we had very little time to put it together, and Live was totally new at the time, so we had to figure everything out as we went along. Microsoft gave us loads of help (they needed us to finish on time so they’d have at least one game ready on day one to demo what Live was capable of!) and I got to know some of the Xbox guys pretty well. I thought

they were cool people, and Microsoft seemed like it would be a good place to work.

I later met Chris Satchell (now the head of the whole XNA organization) when he worked for Microsoft Game Studios and we were pitching a game idea to them.

A couple of years later I was looking for a new job, so I got in touch with Chris to ask if there was anything interesting going on in the Xbox group. XNA was only a vague glimmering of an idea back then, but it was interesting enough to get my attention, and has been steadily getting more interesting ever since.

At first our mission was pretty much just “figure out something cool that will help game developers, then go do it”. Things got a bit more solid when we decided this meant managed code on Xbox 360, and even more solid when we decided it meant indie and hobbyist developers, all leading up to the recent arrival of community games on Xbox Live. Exciting times!

What features did you work on for XNA GS 1.0 and 2.0?

For 1.0, I mostly worked with Eli on the Content Pipeline.

For 2.0, I mostly worked on the networking functionality.

I’ve dabbled and fixed bugs in many other areas: graphics, sound, input, security, performance optimizations.

I was thinking the other day that of all the lines of code I’ve written in my lifetime, the default shader used by SpriteBatch has probably been executed the most times. Although the blit() function from Allegro must come in a close second.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

Figuring out how to let unsigned games access the Live servers was a real challenge. The Live system has some interesting security features aimed at reducing cheating, which mostly center around signing game executables during the certification process, and then preventing anyone from modifying the game code. But if we want indie developers to use the Live service without having to go through certification, how can we make this possible without just bypassing or turning off all the security stuff? (we would never have been allowed to ship this feature if it hadn’t been properly secure). This was a fun, juicy technical problem, especially on Windows.

What’s your favorite part of XNA Game Studio, and why?

I love the C# language. You could argue this is not strictly part of XNA Game Studio, but hey, we are standing on the shoulders of giants, right?

I’ve used a lot of languages over the years, and C# is my favorite so far. It hits exactly the right balance between power and simplicity, elegance and practicality, performance and productivity.

What is your favorite Xbox 360 game?

My dirty little secret is that I’m not actually much of a gamer. I’m passionate about the technology that goes into making games, but for some reason just not that interested in playing the end result (this is one reason why working on framework technology suits me so well).

When I do play games, I usually spend most of my time examining the graphics and trying to figure out what shader techniques they are using!

Every now and then I do get stuck into something, usually because of quirky or unusual gameplay. I’m currently about halfway through Portal. Before that (by which I mean a year before that - I did say I’m not much of a gamer!) I really enjoyed Shuggy, and before that Elasto Mania.

And of course the original Monkey Island remains by far the greatest game ever created.

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA GS

Start simple. Write a game. Finish it. Give it to your friends. Rinse, lather, repeat.

This is the only way I know to become a great game programmer.

If you get bored or stuck along the way, check out some of the samples on creators.xna.com, or post on the forums. But don’t stop making those games!

Last words?

How’s this for a curious coincidence? I thought I’d look in a dictionary to see what the last word actually was. This turns out to be “zymurgy”, which means the science of fermentation. And as it happens, I have a batch of beer fermenting in my spare room even as we speak. If you haven’t tried making your own beer, you should give that a whirl sometime. It’s great fun: a proper mad scientist combination of cooking and chemistry, with alcohol thrown in for good measure.

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.

Shawn sent me this interview that he had with his cat on my behalf…

Look… this is silly I know, but if I had to live with seeing that cat EVERYDAY at work in some form of a picture or sound, you’re gonna experience some of this with me!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA GS team?

I’m Rhys. I’m a cat. I like to purr.

I don’t actually know what the “XNA GS team” is. I did hear Shawn talking about XNA once, and I thought he said it was for hobbits, but I later figured out he really said hobbyists.

I like hobbits. They are fat and lazy and they eat a lot. Like me.

What did you work on before joining XNA GS team?

I don’t much like to talk about this, but I used to be homeless. I had a bit of an alcohol problem, so I lost my job, and then they repossessed my house. I’ve been clean and sober for over two years now.

How did you join the XNA GS team? Tell the story!

Oh, that’s a funny story. I was in a pretty bad way, thanks to living on the streets. I had tapeworm, and lungworm, and toxoplasmosis, and also I have FIV, and I had a nasty cold at the time too, and my hair was falling out. I was a poorly kitty, but those MEAN NASTY people at the animal shelter PUT ME IN A CAGE and then they were too cheap to run proper tests on me, so they didn’t even know about all my parasites. When Shawn and Tracy came to visit, I purred and purred until they decided to rescue me. It wasn’t until later when they took me to their vet that they found out how much medicine I needed. SUCKERS! I’m all better now though.

What features did you work on for XNA GS 1.0 and 2.0?

In GS 1.0, I mainly contributed my photo for Shawn to use in the Sprite Effects sample. Since then he put it in lots of other samples, and Eli started using it too, so I’m everywhere now.

For 2.0, I was supposed to provide some sound effects for the Audio 3D sample, but I got stage fright, so my friend Boo (Tracy’s cat) had to step in at the last moment.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

Some of the samples on the creators.xna.com site do not include my photo. I’m really not happy about that.

What’s your favorite part of XNA Game Studio, and why?

I love the Content Pipeline. It makes it so easy to drop my photo into Visual Studio and have it automatically built into an .xnb file, so you can put me into all kinds of different games and samples!

What is your favorite Xbox 360 game?

What’s an Xbox 360?

My favorite game is fighting with Boo. First I pretend to be gentle and lick his head, but then I bite his neck, and when he swats at me I jump down and look innocent, like nothing happened.

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA GS

I don’t like it when people use XNA GS. They should be petting me instead! Sometimes just meowing is enough to distract them from the computer. Other times I have to stretch up and lean my paws on their leg, or if that doesn’t work, I might jump up into their lap.

Last words?

Purrrr.

Note: This was Shawn’s idea :) Flame him!

Hey everyone! Back again with yet another interview with one of the XNA GS team members. Today I bring Scott Darnell! Scott has worked on some very key areas of the product and has gone down to areas of the code where the sun really never shines :) Check out what he had to say!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA GS team?

I am Scott Darnell the developer in charge of maintaining the source code for XNA Game Studio Connect and the Device Transport code base for XNA Game Studio.

What did you work on before joining XNA GS team?

I worked on Small Business Server 2000/2003 and before that I was on the MSN Passport team.

How did you join the XNA GS team? Tell the story!

I’ve always loved video games (who doesn’t!?), and I worked with someone in SBS that moved to this team.  That woke a spark in me, and I started to teach myself graphics programming techniques.  I didn’t really know what XNA was going to be, and didn’t think it would have anything as cool as what it is today. 

XNA needed somebody to deliver their Setup feature for V1, and I had happened to be the senior setup developer on the SBS team.  I decided to apply for the position, and I got the job!

What features did you work on for XNA GS 1.0 and 2.0?

In XNA GSE 1.0, I wrote Setup for the Windows components.  

In XNA GS 2.0, I started working on the XNA Game Studio Connect component.  Currently I also own the integration with the .NetCF on the Xbox 360, and the networking transport layer that is used to deploy, launch, and debug games on the Xbox 360.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

Since I own the integration between XNA Game Studio Connect and the .NetCF, I end up doing a lot of debugging into other people’s code.  This usually takes me down to the assembly level, or back and forth between user mode and kernel mode.  This can get really tricky since you don’t always know the assumptions of the code you are debugging.

What’s your favorite part of XNA Game Studio, and why?

My favorite feature of XNA Game Studio is the Content Pipeline.  In the past the one most annoying problem with writing games at home for me was finding ways to create content or to get content into my game.  It seems like all the super nice content creation tools were really expensive, and all of the free or cheap options were hard to get access to from code.  I have a ton of options available to me, and the object model for them is right at my finger tips.  This has made my “uber” programmer art much easier to consume in my games.

What is your favorite Xbox 360 game?

Worms.  This game has always been a favorite at the office with coworkers.  I introduced my family to it, and we spend time daily blowing each other up. :P

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA GS

Learn all about extending the Content Pipeline with content processors.  Doing as much one-time pre-processing at build time as you can will save your players the heartache of real-time calculations!

Hey everyone! I am back again with yet another interview with a member of the XNA GS team. Today I bring our very own Aaron Nonis! This dude is actually responsible for me being on this team in the first place! My wife worked with him in his previous team and through him I moved to the XNA GS team. Anyway, I’ll save that for another post! I am really excited to bring you Mr.Aaron NONIS!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA GS team?

Hello, I’m Aaron Nonis aka Ajonis Jackson aka SideBiter.  I’m a developer lead on the XNA Game Studio team.  In general I lead the tools effort, as opposed to the framework/API effort.  I’ve also chipped in some code here and there for each release.  I’m also in charge of the internal build system used by the developers.

What did you work on before joining XNA GS team?

I’ve been in the software industry for a little over 11 years.  Immediately before joining the original XNA team, I worked in the Small Business Server (SBS) team at Microsoft.  There I was in charge of the admin tools, mostly MMC snap-ins and wizards.  Before that I worked at a smaller contract studio (Microcrafts which became Vanteon).  There I was a contract developer on multiple projects such as the stationery and landscape products for Sierra.

How did you join the XNA GS team? Tell the story!

It’s a pretty funny story, really, on how I became the first developer on the original XNA team.  I have always been a passionate UI developer, and so I was prodded into interviewing for the Xbox LIVE UI team by a friend.  They were working on the alpha Xbox 360 at the time, and Boyd Multerer was the Dev Manager for the Xbox LIVE team.  So I was first in line to interview for a very popular job position.  I got told a week and a half later that someone with more experience narrowly beat me out.  I resigned myself to another 2-3 years with Small Business Server while I waited for more Xbox positions to open.  Well, it just so happened that Boyd was moving on to become the Product Unit Manager for this new upstart team, XNA.  He called me up and offered me the first developer job, which I promptly took!

What features did you work on for XNA GS 1.0 and 2.0?

As a manager, I mostly work behind the scenes, arranging schedules, making sure that the developers are happy and making good progress.  I did, however, implement some of the networking layer that allows the Windows PC to talk with the Xbox 360 console in XNA Game Studio Express.  I also implemented the new out-of-VS (Visual Studio) XNA Game Studio Device Center application and wizard for managing multiple Xbox 360 consoles. (Ed: I tested that feature for him!)

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

There were a few!  Trying to achieve the Vista look-and-feel in our application while still supporting XP turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined.  We scaled that back a little in order to give a more consistent XNA Game Studio feel.  Also, the Big Endian nature of the Xbox 360 console and the Little Endian nature of the Windows PCs made some of the networking layer particularly tricky.

What’s your favorite part of XNA Game Studio, and why?

This is pretty tough to pin down, but I’ll be completely honest:  My favorite part isn’t a part of the product itself, it is what the product means to the industry.  I am excited to come to work every day because I know that we are truly making an impact on game development throughout the whole industry; be it professional developers that use XNA Game Studio to prototype their games, or amateur enthusiasts (like myself) that have always had a barrier with DirectX and the Win32 Game Loop to making their games.

If I had to choose a particular feature in XNA Game Studio, it would be the templates, starter kits, and tutorials that we put out that make it really easy to get your feet wet.  They provide a fantastic bread-crumb trail to lead you towards that game you always wanted to make but never had the time to figure out the details.

What is your favorite Xbox 360 game?

My favorite Xbox 360 game, currently, is Rock Band.  I am a music nut, and the completeness of the band experience in this game is incredible and incredibly fun!

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA GS

Did you know that you can connect both a desktop PC and a laptop to the same Xbox 360?  On the Xbox 360, you can select “Connect to Another Computer”.  This will issue a new 25 character key for your second Windows PC.  However, once the second Windows PC has successfully added the Xbox 360 console, both the first and second Windows PC can communicate with XNA Game Studio Connect.  This can make it convenient to develop your game on the laptop while you are in the living room, but also use your desktop to download others’ games and deploy them from another room.

Last words?

If you’ve ever wanted to make a game… ever…  You owe it to yourself to download XNA Game Studio 2.0.  It is a free kit with free tutorials, free sample code, and free forums that can allow you to freely develop your game programming skills.  It is amazing to see the games that have been made, and I look forward to those that are still twinkling in the eye of budding game developers.

Yep! Yet another team interview is done! Today I bring you Eli Tayrien, the dude that drove me NUTS with his choice of music (we shared an office for a while). I guess I drove him nuts with mine too… he’s not into Metal (pfft). Eli is a super fun person to work with and I am very happy you guys will get to know him a little more. On with the interview!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA?

I’m Eli Tayrien, a developer for XNA Game Studio. I focus mostly on the framework and content pipeline areas of things. I’ve also worked on some of the educational content found on creators.xna.com. Hmmm.. what else do I do at XNA? Try to drive Nazeeh and Klucher as crazy as possible with weird music.

What did you work on before joining XNA?

I was hired by the XNA team directly out of college. I went to school at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where I got a B.S. in computer science. I spent a lot of my time in the IT department’s area, working on games in the lab. ( shameless plug! http://games.rit.edu/ ) I did two internships with the IT department. The first was at RIT, working on a shooter called Wings of Megaira. For the second, I worked on M.U.P.P.E.T.S, which is a really cool experimental 3d multi user programming environment.

How did you join the XNA team? Tell the story!

Pretty standard fare, I guess. After I graduated I applied for a job at Xbox. Boyd told me what his goals for the project were, and we had a fit. I still get a really big kick out of seeing my product help students and hobbyists just like me.

What features did you work on for XNA 1.0 and 2.0?

For 1.0, I worked on the content pipeline with Shawn and Klucher. I focused on the importers, mostly. For 1.0 refresh I worked on the SpriteFont code. For 2.0 Stephen and I worked on the processor parameters feature, and Shawn and I worked on gamer services.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

The hardest thing for me for so far has been knowing when to say when. There’s always more work we can do, and more features we can implement, and knowing where to make the cuts is difficult for me. Also, it was difficult to get fonts to 100%. There’s so many edge cases that can cause letters to be off by just one pixel or two, you testers are just so thorough!

What’s their favorite bit of XNA, and why?

My favorite bit? 1, probably. I’ve always been a fan of that one.

What is your favorite Xbox game?

That’s a hard one. I tend to play more casual games lately, but I played through Gears of War twice. I just beat half life 2 for the second time. That’s a great game – the levels are paced perfectly! Just when I start to get bored of one thing, they completely change it up. I’ve been playing a bunch of rock band with my friends, too. I’m a really big fan of making a lot of noise, so singing and drums are right up my alley. My roommate and I have just gotten re-addicted to Lego Star Wars, too. I love how you can jump into and out of that game as often as you want.

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA

Keep it simple. This isn’t an XNA framework thing specifically, but more general advice for students and hobbyists: making a game takes a lot of time. When you think about what kind of game you’re going to make, start small! In my opinion, you’re better off having a really polished small game than you are having a kludgy big game, with lots of half-done features.

When in doubt, check the creator’s club website! The community in the forums is really helpful, and we’ve got a lot of samples covering a variety of topics.

Learn your trig and vector math. This is true even for 2D games! It’s not nearly as hard as you think, and dot products will become your best friend J

Last words?

Thanks for your support. I’ve got a pretty cool job, and you guys make it possible.

For today’s team member interview, I am very happy to give you guys Stephen Styrchak! When it comes to Visual Studio, no one on the team knows half as much as Stephen does. I mean, this dude REALLY knows Visual Studio inside out. I asked Stephen if he would agree to being interviewed for my series, he very kindly agreed and got back to me with the answers pretty quickly. I hope you all enjoy reading the interview as much as I did! Without futher ado: I give you Stephen Styrchak!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA?

My name is Stephen Styrchak, and I’m an XNA Game Studio developer. I try to make the process of game development easier.

What did you work on before joining XNA?

I’ve worked at Microsoft for 8 out of the last 9 years, working on various developer tools (the 1 other year I was back in Canada finishing school). I’ve worked on compilers, debuggers, script engines, script hosts, code generators, visual designers, project systems, and both sides of developer tools extensibility – customizing and making things customizable.

Basically, I’ve been building programs that let other people more easily build programs, customize existing programs, or make their own programs customizable.

How did you join the XNA team? Tell the story!

Toward the end of the Visual Studio 2005 development cycle, a friend of mine on the XNA team, Christina Storm, called me up and asked me to talk to Frank Savage about a team he was assembling to work on a hush-hush project. I thought, “Christina Storm? Frank Savage? This must be the secret Microsoft league of American Gladiators!” So I put on my Spandex tights and here I am!

What features did you work on for XNA 1.0 and 2.0?

“XNA” is not a product… You must mean Game Studio! :-P

For XGSE 1.0, I worked on parts of the XNA Game Launcher on Xbox 360, and parts of the project system in Visual C# Express. Mostly, though, I worked on everything in between (build, deploy, remote debugging, etc).

For XGS 2.0, I redesigned the project system to simplify a number of development scenarios that were difficult in 1.0, and laid the groundwork for some cool new things in the future. Content projects, Content Pipeline improvements, and cross-platform development were the big ticket items. The last was adding extensibility for some new things on the way.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

I really wanted to have XGS 2.0 support VS 2008. Joe and I fought hard for it, but it wasn’t in the cards. After all is said and done, I think we (as a team) made the right choice at the time. Other than that, the two biggest problems I had to deal with were: 1) not enough time, and 2) not enough people.

In XNA CGP (Community Game Platform), there’s like fifteen people – total – and everybody is booked for every minute. The only way to put more people on one feature is to cut another.

Because of the restrictions, I have to be careful to design features that can be implemented incrementally. We never have enough resources to deliver everything we want; usually that means doing fewer features, but sometimes it means doing partial features. As an example, today you can only have one nested content project. You should be able to have as many as you like, and re-use them in other game projects. You should be able to download starter kits for content and add them to your existing projects! That was the idea behind the design, but we didn’t have enough time to do it all. The functionality in 2.0 is pretty close to what you had in 1.0, but it’s halfway to something a lot more interesting!

Moving from a giant team (in Developers Division - aka DevDiv) to a small team (XNA CGP) feels like when I first moved out of my parents’ house. Nothing is free. Suddenly I am vividly aware of costs, and I have to choose carefully the things I want because I most certainly cannot afford them all.

What’s your favorite bit of XNA, and why?

I really enjoy seeing the cool games that people have made. When I was a kid, I started programming because I wanted to make my own video games. Nowadays, I don’t make games, but I think it’s cool that XNA is providing the opportunity to others to do it.

What is your favorite Xbox game?

I really enjoyed Oblivion. I definitely spent the most hours playing that game (literally hundreds of hours). LEGO Star Wars 2 was loads of fun, and I thought BioShock was terrific (even though I usually don’t like FPS games).

I’m going to say BioShock, since I finished it most recently. It had an awesome style and compelling storyline.

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA

I’ve just started sharing tips through my blog. I’m still trying to get my head around the idea of blogging. The problem for me is that Game Studio users want to read about making games, and I know less about that than they do. I know about making tools to make games.

Last words?

People usually don’t think about their tools unless they fail or reach their limitations. I think the most limiting factor today is complexity. It’s too hard for people to get the most out of their tools, so they feel more limited than they are. That’s something for me to work on. Eventually, when I do things right, nobody will know I did anything at all.

Interview Comments

I just wanted to take a minute to thank Stephen for answering all my questions. If you guys have any other questions you want to ask him, go ahead and I am sure he’ll answer them pretty quickly.

So this is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and just got around to getting it done now. XNA Game Studio has been brought to you guys by one of the hardest working and most dedicated teams I have ever had the honor of being a part of. You already know some of the team members through the forums and such, but it’s time you really get to know them! With that said, I want to kick off the “Team Interviews” series! I ask questions, a team member answers them, and I publish the interview here for you to read. I am delighted to start this series with one of our framework developers: Yuichi Ito

Who are you and what do you do at XNA?

My name is Yuichi Ito. XNA Framework developer.

What did you work on before joining XNA?

I’ve start working for Hudson when I was 18 year old and my first title was Bomberman `94 on turbo graphics.

After that, I’ve worked for Sega and did some work on the Dreamcast system library. Then I moved to U.S to work for Digital Anvil at Austin Texas (yee-hah!!). I worked on a particle system with editor for Freelancer, then on porting the particles system to Xbox. I also worked on XML based data system, physics based character movement, and animation for Brute Force.

How did you join the XNA team? Tell the story!

Unfortunately, Digital Anvil studio was shutdown at end of 2005. I’ve been working for game industry for more than decade and notice that it getting harder and harder to make game you want. Most games spend a couple years in pre-production and are then rushed into the production phase. And I’m not going to tell you about more details because I think you guys are already know about such realities.

But one day, one of junior programmers at studio told me “I’m not sure what I’m doing anymore. Because what I suppose to be doing is game programming but what I’m doing is tool programming.” And that’s when it struck me. When I was working on first title, it was so fun to work on it because I could concentrate on pure game programming the entire time.

Why did game development become such a boring and painful job? I’ve already had some (but not enough ;D) fun but seems like young people mostly suffer from that pain. I asked myself, how could I make them happy?

Then I met Boyd Multere and heard about XNA. I was so excited about his plan that I was practically begging him to join the XNA team.

What features did you work on for XNA 1.0 and 2.0?

On 1.0, I designed and implemented the math library. I also worked on BasicModel, BasicEffect, and XACT build.

On 2.0, well, I was not working on 2.0 stuff that much. I was working on other thing that I can’t tell you right now…

What’s their favorite bit of XNA, and why?

There are so many things!! But my most favorite feature of XNA is networking.

Networking is so simple and the  API is easy to use, and of course it works as expected.

What is your favorite Xbox game?

There are so many things!! Especially last holiday season. I bought game for almost every single week from thanksgiving to Christmas. (E.d hmm…looks like we pay our devs too much)

But most favorite game is COD4. Why? Because I beat it and got 1,000GP.

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA

Back in the day, when I was working on any kind of game, I usually have game dev environment that is a game editor that runs on Windows and talks to the target platform. For example, you can change parameters on windows and that apply to target platform in real time. On XNA 2.0, you can use networking to achieve this. The trick is XNA networking only connects to applications that have the same assembly GUID that typically in AssemblyInfo.cs.  So, easy way to let your game editor talks to the game is set same GUID value to editor side GUID.

Last words?

As I mentioned before, my goal is make game development easier and more fun. So if you feel that anything you do is too hard, not fun on XNA, let us know about it. We happily work for you.

Oh, and if you find any bugs, blame Nazeeh, he is Tester, all his fault. (E.d. While true, we can’t neglect the fact that HE put the bugs in there in the first place!)

Interview Comments

I wanted to thank Yuichi Ito for taking the time to answer my short interview. Now I ask you guys and gals, do you like this series? If so, what other questions do you feel I should ask? This is your chance to really get to know the XNA Game Studio team more personally. The people on this team are amazing and I am honored to do the introductions :)