In October, I wrote about how I would get started with programming, knowing what I do today. With this post, I wanted to explain how I got started in game devleopment and programming. This all ties into the latest promotion that Microsoft has for students. I’ve been pushing for the return of Dream.Build.Play, an XNA…
I’ve been working on a shmup for some time now, and just started blogging about it. One issue I came across was writing an inventory system. There are many out there, but they just didn’t work for me. I wanted something simple, and only needed it to work with my weapons and powerups. Since my…
You can listen to the podcast here. Designer and musician on Pillar, a collection of minigames, each with unique personalities and challenges, which his headed to PS4. Previously, Michael and I had coordinated the third Indie Games Summer Uprising in 2012, which was a showcase for XNA developers on Xbox 360. Additionally, Michael had created…
If you told me, even one year ago, that Microsoft would begin open sourcing as much technology as they do right now, I would have flat out said “No”.Today at Connect() developer event, Microsoft announced that we’d open source the .NET core. Scott Hanselman explains it best on his blog. Scott Guthrie has more info on…
This post is part of 3 week series giving current and aspiring game devs the tools, resources, and advice they need to get started building for Windows. We also have a great video course on game production basics at Microsoft Virtual Academy. Visual Studio Community Edition You need an IDE, or Integrated Development Environment,…
Recently, I’ve been dabbling in various gaming frameworks and learning new languages as a means to understand the pros and cons of each. Along the way I felt it was necessary to document my findings, in hopes that it’ll prove useful for other aspiring game developers out there as well. Last month Microsoft began hosting the New…
The practical parts of my Windows Phone children’s app is complete, so now I’m working on cleaning up the code and adding details to refine it and make it appear like a professional product. In particular, I wanted to add sound effects. I wanted to add a clicking sound when a user navigates to and…
Xbox LIVE’s Indie Games Uprising, the marketing campaign that I’ve been helping coordinate with teams of other XNA/XBLIG developers for the past 6 months, is finally visible on the dashboard! Turn on your Xbox to see the the promotion on the front page of the dashboard! Our goal is to promote Xbox Live Indie Games in the…
So it’s been a long time coming, but my first Xbox Live Indie Game, Piz-ong, finally appeared on Xbox Live this morning. It took me a few attempts to get it through peer review, and it was always for something silly, like forgetting an “if”statement for the trial mode (which I later found out from James…
It’s an honor to be a part of the third Indie Games Uprising on XBLIG. We’ve got a lot of great things coming up, and can finally make all of our announcements today. In addition to the games hitting the service, including the bizarre qrth-phyl today, we’re pleased to announce that the XBLIG companion has hit…