CQX Progress Update.

Progress on the Casual Quest XNA port has been coming along rapidly since project start a few weeks ago. Data driven class, baddy and skill systems are all built and functioning. Collisions with the map are fully implemented for both players and monsters, while rudimentary collisions with skills is in progress and partially working. In game chat is also working at this point.
The project is officially greenlit by the original creator, and I have the support of the current maintainer of the BYOND version. Things are looking pretty good so far, let's hope it continues.

Network Framework up and going

So, using the Network Library RakNet, I've been able to get some semblance of a Client/Server setup going.
Currently Joining a server, toggling ReadyState, and multiple users mulling about on a map are implemented.

Need better handling of Client Disconnects (Should attempt to immediately reconnect once or twice before dropping altogether), as well as Drop In support (Join while a game is running). Perhaps more importantly, there needs to be some actual GAME (No monsters spawn, or anything like that yet). There's no prediction or interpolation, so it'll be pretty susceptible to lag, and in general, there's a lot to do. But hey, Progress!

New Project!

This one is already Designed and Arted up, in fact if you've been around the BYOND community you may have heard of it:

Still in the early stages of development, but progressing nicely. Currently the Networking code is under the lens. More updates as I have em!

A quick post to show a video!

Hurrah! A new video! Groundwork has started for weapon types that don't actually fire bullets, as well as animated weapons. The vid shows off the RockSaw a new WIP weapon which will be able to dig through, you guessed it, rocks (It also shows the other weapons off too).

It's starting to look like a game!

It's been quiet in here lately, and for a few reasons. I've been hooked pretty hard by Terraria lately. It's a remarkably entertaining little gem, and impressively, is an XNA title. But I've also been coding.

For one, I started porting Alpha Blasters over to XNA 4. Most of the immediate compile errors have been cleaned up, but the storage framework seems to have changed completely, requiring a rewrite of the save system. Another time perhaps.

I've also been working on the current project (Which I've codenamed "project 0" for no good reason). I've gotten some art from the artist, and it's looking swell. Have a handful of new dirt tiles to use, so I built the framework to build the terrain by randomly placing them, works and looks great =D. I've also gotten the first pass and basic game state management wired up with some help from the XNA samples over at the App Hub. I also finally got around to wiring up XACT. I have a few songs for use, and some first pass SFX as well. The game mode system is more or less setup, and kills/deaths/respawn has been implemented.

There's still a lot more code to write, and a lot more assets to be built, but it is starting to take a basic shape. I'll be putting together a video soon but, for now, here's a screenshot:

P.S: This also still works flawlessly on Xbox 360 (Better even, as player 1 & 2 can both play).

Progress update!

It's been sorta quiet around here lately. I wish I could say it's just because I've been busy coding, but I can't as it's only about half true (see, I found League of Legends and it's quite the distraction). BUT! There has been some heavy code work done and things are moving along quite nicely.

I've started, and progressed a good ways toward, building a GameManager to handle all of the Specific game rules (e.g. time limits, kill limits, how many players etc...) as well as handle drawing the game and it's UI objects. It's mostly functioning at its basest level but there's still plenty left to do. Bullets now collide (and do damage to) other entities (not just dirt). There's a rough lifebar and rougher still UI block. The zooming camera has been fine tuned and now works brilliantly. There's also been some heavy code re-factoring (basically pulling out a bunch of junk placeholder code and replacing it with more functioning stuff where it actually needs to go).

More updates to come as I have them. For now, I leave you with a new ScreenShot!

New Video!

I've made some progress with the weapon and digging system, and even gotten a cool new little avatar to user.
here's the new vid, Be sure to watch it full screen at 720!

 

And for good measure here's a screenshot showing off both 2x Zoom and a mini-map that came along with Tuesdays camera work for free! 

WEAPONZ!

Oh man, my overly complicated data driven weapon system works beautifully, and on the first try!

Still a long way to go but progress is happening!
Here's a video!

Physics problem getting close!

After much battling I've finally gotten quite close to my goal for implementing these accursed physics.

Terrain collisions are working as well as I could possibly hope, and the Rope isn't doing too bad either. Below you'll find a video showing how the roping looks in action. As for collisions, I changed from the weird collision area XML definition, to a much simpler outward in cross, and it seems to work great (at least with my circle test sprite) We'll see how it pans out later in the cycle. =D 

2d Physics are hard.

Boy are they kicking my ass... I can get things working halfway for one piece and then the other piece fails in a cycle of doom. However, I have a plan and I'm going to implement it in the next few days. The internet is rich with resources and with their help I might be able to get this troubling piece accomplished.

More to come.

Random updates.

Well since GameSpy is out of the question I looked around a bit and found RakNet. Turns out it's also free for us indie devs as well. What's even better is that they've done most of the hard work for us. Included is the support, setup, and documentation for using Swig to wrap the C++ dll's up for use in .Net. So yay! Windows Networking support without having to roll everything from scratch!

On that note I have a small side project used as a testing bed for learning that piece, more on that later.

The main project is progressing, if slowly. Got tunnel shadows implemented with remarkably little work, and it looks pretty good too.

GameSpy Technology And XNA?

So recently I discovered that "GameSpy Technology" had opened up and is now free for us indie type devs.
So this begs the question, can we XNA developers make use of this techology for our windows projects and, if so, how many hoops would we have to jump through to get the C libraries working in our managed C#?

A thing to ponder on certainly. I plan to dig into this mystery here soon and will report back any progress.

Back in Business!

Heh, so I forgot it again. Shocker. This time however I plan to be more active as I'm actively working on CODING a game, rather than trying to design one (Which was the case with the aforementioned RPG project.)

So let's take a second to get things up to speed since he last post. First and foremost: I finished Alpha Blasters and have released it to the world! (Go! download it/rate it/buy it etc...). It took until December 1 to do it, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

Next, the RPG project has been shelved. Couple of reasons behind this include lack of time/interest from the team members, and XNA 4 being released and ruining my map code pretty severely (Hard to draw a map if I can't load the data anymore).

And finally, more good news; I have a new project currently in development and coming along nicely. It's not named yet, and all art is currently placeholder while I work on getting the pieces functional. The core concept is pulled from an old windows game with a fairly large cult following. You may have heard of it: Liero (If you haven't, GO GET IT NOW!).

Great progress has been made in the map system already, and it more or less works (needs some tweaking still, but it functions enough to move on to other pieces), The goal is to get it into DBP 2011. We should have enough time to have it ready for that, but we plan to finish even if we miss the deadline. Anyway, feast your eyes on these early screenshots.