tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28832627369646993642009-11-10T10:58:40.671-05:00Tips, tricks, and resources for game development with XNA.thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-70542355081817515532008-07-10T21:54:00.002-04:002008-07-10T22:18:18.352-04:00

I just finished my most recent project, a version of Othello for the iPhone. No, it's not the flashiest game on the iPhone, and it doesn't take advantage of the accelerometer or other cool features on the device. But it's a solid strategy game that I hope will appeal to people wanting a game they can pick up and play on the subway, or waiting for an appointment, or, uh, you know, other places

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-1258453289162410082007-09-23T21:48:00.000-04:002007-09-23T23:07:23.995-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I took over a project in July that had several challenges and consumed my time for the past couple of months. Not that I was spending every waking hour at work, but after putting in 10-12 hour days coding and dealing with the responsibilities of being a team lead (schedules, status meetings, interfacing with the customer, and all of that other fun stuff),

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-16687963425786483642007-08-09T23:47:00.000-04:002007-08-09T23:52:38.055-04:00

CoDe magazine has an in-depth article on XNA titled, Microsoft XNA: Ready for Prime Time? It looks at XNA's strengths and deficiencies, and how it is being used and viewed by professional game studios and programmers. Definitely worth a read.

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-12915674917989381402007-08-03T16:53:00.000-04:002007-08-03T19:04:09.052-04:00

The DBP results are in, and the only surprise for me is that so many of the entries had been made available to play. I had expected there would be more "surprise" entries that had not been shown publicly. I also expected more pro entries so it was good to see the list dominated by small teams of hobbyists, many of whom are regulars in the XNA forums. For those who haven't played all of the

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-34557887782086727882007-07-13T00:38:00.001-04:002007-07-13T00:50:18.742-04:00

David Johnston (aka Deajay169), the creator of Shuggy (one of the absolute best of the Dream-Build-Play entries), has created a sample project that shows how to create a basic platformer. This is very good stuff and the code is well-written and easy to understand. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Mario Brothers (or Shuggy!) works.

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-16991765433662205292007-07-10T00:56:00.000-04:002007-07-10T13:46:02.071-04:00

Most game developers these days know of the A* (pronounced A-star) algorithm as the preferred method of finding a path around obstacles on a map. A* is actually a general-purpose graph-search algorithm based on theories presented by Hart, Nilsson, and Raphael in a 1968 paper for the IEEE Transactions on Systems Science and Cybernetics entitled, "A formal basis for the heuristic determination of

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-22545769492845897092007-07-02T14:57:00.000-04:002007-08-11T10:37:15.820-04:00

The following is a list of Dream-Build-Play entries, with links to web sites, videos, and installers (where available). I'll edit this post as I learn about more. Aquattack ZX360 2D Action Windows / Xbox Baby Gamer - Musical Rain Baltico X Screenshot Bathtub Navy Galactysis 3D Action Website Video Screenshot Windows Xbox Battle for the Seas Joopsy 3D Turn-based Strategy

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-8493556197371683912007-07-02T14:28:00.000-04:002007-07-02T14:34:18.319-04:00

Uploaded the latest build of Snowball Fight! to the Dream-Build-Play website this morning. There's plenty more I plan to do with the game but it's nice to have this milestone passed. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on the previous release. And, of course, thanks to Microsoft's XNA Team for providing an excellent product with amazing support (for free!) and to the XNA Community for

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-83060973561734005832007-06-20T03:19:00.000-04:002007-07-10T13:48:53.265-04:00

I'm happy enough with the progress on my Dream-Build-Play entry that I've decided to put a beta out for public release. Snowball Fight is a 1-4 player party game where you try to knock your opponents out by hitting them with snowballs before they knock you out. Of course, you can only hold so many snowballs at a time, so don't wander too far from your snow pile when you are getting low. Also,

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-39161586398098605892007-06-05T23:38:00.000-04:002007-06-06T00:09:51.095-04:00

Thanks for the comments. It looks like there is some interest in an article on implementing the A* pathfinding algorithm. I have an implementation in my Dream-Build-Play game, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to turn that into one or more articles. The biggest problem is that spending time writing articles and putting together these blog entries takes significant time that otherwise

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-67837606780796442832007-06-03T17:55:00.000-04:002007-06-18T21:21:49.721-04:00

I originally intended to write this article for Ziggy's XNA Article Contest. Unfortunately, real life got in the way in the form of a few weeks of crunch-time at work followed by a much-needed (and fabulous) vacation in Paris. Between those things and spending the little free time I had last month on my Dream-Build-Play entry (and not as much time on that as I'd have liked), I didn't get the

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-48797588773441871152007-04-18T23:11:00.000-04:002007-04-19T00:53:15.734-04:00

In the first two parts of this series, I discussed the difference between optimizing a design versus optimizing implementation, and showed how to use prototyping to benchmark key algorithms. This part will look at how to use a profiler to find performance bottlenecks. The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-62308942845805064902007-03-25T15:04:00.000-04:002007-03-26T02:53:35.241-04:00

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed the importance of understanding game design tradeoffs and introduced the concept of Big O notation for comparing the efficiency of different algorithms. However, as I said, Big O notation tells us nothing about how fast an algorithm will actually run, it just tells us how efficiently it scales when operating on greater numbers of objects. "That's great", I

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883262736964699364.post-78380557115721951472007-03-23T02:11:00.001-04:002007-03-26T02:44:28.088-04:00

Software efficiency and optimization is a frequently recurring theme in the XNA Forums. It invariably involves questions about the C# foreach construct, garbage collection, and whether value types should be passed by reference. While those are all valid concerns, and anyone developing XNA games needs to be aware of these issues, it's clear from many of the posts that some XNA developers were

thomas h aylesworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14202055419168981709noreply@blogger.com5