Howdy! It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been rather busy in the last week finishing up WildBoarders for the competition. It’s uploaded and ready for download now. The game was created with XNA Beta 2 over two months. Go check it out along with all the other cool games in the contest entries section at xbox360homebrew.com. It has been a fun two months developing a game from the ground up....

So this week is the final week of the xbox360 homebrew contest. I can’t wait to see and play all the games to be released this weekend :D. I wrote up the final dev blog post before the due date on Monday. I had an issue getting XNA games to run on typical user machines, but was able to resolve it thanks to another fellow game developer in the contest! It seems rather weird, but fortunate, that my editor and game has kind of hit ‘critical mass’....

That’s how the title of blog entries suffer when I’m caught listening to some catchy tune. I made a new Dev Blog entry for WildBoarders over at xbox360homebrew and I posted an article in my Tutorials section for dealing with large 2D worlds in fast paced scrolling games. On the gaming front, Gears of War kicks major ass. I was skeptical after the initial announcement many months ago. I just couldn’t see how the gameplay would end up interesting, but the graphics were sure a joy to look at....

Seems progress for the game has slowed down a tad over the last week, but I’m getting there :). XNA Beta 2 came out this past week so I spent a little time porting that. I made a new dev entry over at xbox360homebrew so go check it out! I added a new image to the gallery also. On a side note, Adam Stewart, the artist for WildBoarders, launched his new site last week!...

I realize there’s been a delay on my updates on this blog. But if you follow the xbox360homebrew site you’ll know I’ve been keeping up with my weekly updates. You can find my 7th dev entry there describing the art process of my game. Seems like everything is pressuring me to update update update! WordPress just released a new version that I’m going to eventually get around to. Most exciting is XNA Game Studio Express released Beta 2....

Hmmm… 4 hours of sleep. What a splendid way to start off the week :|. Spent the weekend working on my game, along with a healthy dose of gaming and much needed sleep. It’s getting cold here in Atlanta and I left my warm jacket at my parent’s place in Montgomery, so it’s been a bit chilly getting to work. Anyway, made a new post over at the homebrew contest. I hope it’s coherent since I wrote it at the last minute and half asleep....

What?! Two posts in one day? Yea well, this one actually has some content to go along with it. I’ll make it short and sweet. You can find more info at my dev blog. I’ve got some cool stuff to share for this weekend’s update so stay tuned! My 5th Dev Blog Entry I put up my first tutorial! Hurrah! Go check it out in the tutorials section. I’ve also posted my game’s project plan for anyone to follow it as the game progresses....

Strange how sometimes I feel like there’s nothing to do for a while and then suddenly I’m swamped with things that need to get done. I wish it would come gradually, but I guess I do this to myself. I’m in the process of fleshing out my project plan so I can get a better picture of my progress on the game I’m developing for the xbox360homebrew contest. I’ll be managing it within my blog so I’ll make a post linking to the page so for those interested can see the current progress of the project, otherwise just look out for my weekly updates on the homebrew site or here....

Phew! What a busy week that was! I got several components fixed/added into the editor to better support XNA’s graphics pipeline. I still need to implement the ‘smart import’ so I can save time (maybe hours) from cutting up images by myself to import individually. I made another blog post on the status of Wildboarders. My 4th Dev Blog Entry I’ve reached a stage in the development of this game where I’m sensing the transition is moving from ‘foundation laying’ (the fun part) to the real effort (not so fun) part of the development....

Every once in a while I see a game that really goes off in a different direction. Sometimes it’s a gameplay innovation/evolution other times it’s a visual style that seems so out there that I can’t help but appreciate it. Games like this just reaffirm the fact that games can be art. It really takes an open mind to break free of typical game conventions such as creating photorealistic graphics, or going for the typical cartoon style of graphics seen in many 2D games....