Another week and another crazy amount of activity going on in the XNA community. I’m fairly certain I missed over half of it. In fact, if I am missing things, make sure to email me and I’ll try and make sure I catch it next week! (
[email protected]). Also, if you’ve got any advice, things you like/don’t like about the way these XNA Notes are going let me know. I always appreciate feedback (currently spammers are leaving me the nicest comments so you guys have work to do!)
Without further ado, here’s this week’s notes!
Time Critical XNA News
The XNA Team Blob reminds
us that February 7th is the last day to submit XNA 3.1 games to peer review!
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xna/archive/2011/01/31/7-days-left-to-submit-xna-gs-3-1-games-on-app-hub.aspx
XNA MVPS
Chris Williams kicks off the marketing campaign for our book
http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/01/28/143680.aspx
Catalin Zima posts the comparison cheat sheet for why Angry Birds is different than Chickens Can’t Fly
http://www.amusedsloth.com/2011/02/comparison-cheat-sheet-for-chickens-cant-fly-and-angry-birds/
Jim Perry congratulates the developers selected by Game Developer Magazine for Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of 2010
http://machxgames.com/blog/?p=24
@NemoKrad posts his XNAKUUG talks for all to enjoy
http://twitter.com/NemoKrad/statuses/33142362502864896
http://xna-uk.net/blogs/randomchaos/archive/2011/02/03/xblig-uk-2011-january-amp-february-talk.aspx
George (that’s me!) preps for his XNA talk coming up on the 8th
http://twitter.com/clingermangw/statuses/32669550554124288
http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15
XNA Developers
FireFly posts the last tutorial in his XNA Tower Defense tutorial series
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/26442/451460.aspx#451460
http://xnatd.blogspot.com/2011/01/tutorial-14-polishing-game.html
@fredericmy posts the main difference when porting a game from Windows Phone 7 to Xbox 360
http://fairyengine.blogspot.com/2011/01/main-differences-when-porting-game-from.html
@ElementCy creates a pretty rad video of a MineCraft type terrain created using XNA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw1f7wnl9I
Andrew Russel gets the first XNA badge on gamedev.stackexchange
http://twitter.com/_AndrewRussell/statuses/32322877004972032
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/badges?tab=tags
And his funding for ExEn has passed $7000 only $3000 to go
http://twitter.com/_AndrewRussell/statuses/33042412804771840
Subodh Pushpak blogs about his Windows Phone 7 XNA talk
http://geekswithblogs.net/subodhnpushpak/archive/2011/02/01/windows-phone-7-silverlight--xna-development-talk.aspx
Slyprid releases the latest version of Transmute and needs more people to test
http://twitter.com/slyprid/statuses/32452488418299904
http://forgottenstarstudios.com/
SpynDoctorGames celebrates the 1 year anniversary of Your Doodles Are Bugged! Congrats!
http://twitter.com/SpynDoctorGames/statuses/32511689068908544
Noogy (creator of Dust the Elysian Tail) prepares his conversion to XNA 4.0
http://twitter.com/NoogyTweet/statuses/32522008449253376
@philippedasilva posts about the Indiefreaks Game Framework v0.2.0.0 Input management system
http://twitter.com/philippedasilva/statuses/32763393957957632
http://indiefreaks.com/2011/02/02/behind-smart-input-system-feature/
Mommy’s Best Games debates what to do about High Scores with their new update
http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/02/high-score-shake-up.html
@BinaryTweedDeej want to know if there’s anything the community needs to make XNA games for the PC. Give him some feedback!
http://twitter.com/BinaryTweedDeej/status/32895453863354368
@mikebmcl promises to write
us all a book (I can’t wait to read it!)
http://twitter.com/mikebmcl/statuses/33206499102687233
@werezompire is going to live, LIVE, thanks to all the generosity and support from the community!
http://twitter.com/werezompire/statuses/32840147644977153
Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG)
Making money in Xbox 360 indie game development. Is it possible?
http://www.bitmob.com/articles/making-money-in-xbox-360-indie-game-development-is-it-possible
@AlejandroDaJ posts some thoughts abut the bitmob article
http://twitter.com/AlejandroDaJ/statuses/31068552165330944
http://www.apathyworks.com/blog/view.php?id=00215
Kobun gets my respect as an XBLIG champion. I’m not sure who Kobun is, but if you’ve every read through the comment sections any time Kotaku writes about XBLIGs you’ll see a lot of confusion, disinformation in there. Kobun has been waging a secret war battling that lack of knowledge and he does it well. Also he’s running a pretty kick ass site for Xbox LIVE Indie Game reviews
http://xboxindies.teamkobun.com/
@radiangames releases his last Xbox LIVE Indie Game...for now
http://bit.ly/gMK6lE
Playing Avaglide with the Kinect controller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqAYbHww53o
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/30/kinect-hacks-take-to-the-skies-with-avaglide/
Luke Schneider of Radiangames interviewed in Edge magazine
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/radiangames-venture
Digital Quarters posts thoughts on why XBLIG’s online requirement kills certain genres
http://digitalquarters.blogspot.com/2011/02/thoughts-why-xbligs-online-requirement.html
Mommy’s Best Games shares the news that several XBLIGs were featured in the March 2011 issue of Famitsu 360
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/33455/451487.aspx#451487
NaviFairy continues with his Indie-Game-A-Day
http://gaygamer.net/2011/02/indie_game_a_day_epic_dungeon.html
http://gaygamer.net/2011/02/indie_game_a_day_break_limit_r.html
and more every day...that’s kind of the point! Keep your eye on this series!
VVGTV continues with it’s awesome reviews/promotions for XBLIGs
http://vvgtv.com/
http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/03/iredia-atrams-secret-xblig-review-2/
http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/02/poopocalypse-coming-soon-to-xblig/
….and even more, you get the point.
Magicka is an Indie Game doing really well on Steam AND it’s made using XNA
http://www.magickagame.com/
http://twitter.com/Magickagame/statuses/32712762580799488
GameMarx reviews Antipole
http://www.gamemarx.com/reviews/73/antipole-is-vvvvvvery-good.aspx
Armless Octopus review Alpha Squad
http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/01/28/xbox-indie-review-alpha-squad/
An interesting article about Kodu that Jim Perry found
http://twitter.com/MachXGames/statuses/32848044105924608
http://www.develop-online.net/news/36915/10-year-old-Jordan-makes-games-The-UK-needs-more-like-her
XNA Game Development
Sgt. Conker posts about the Natur beta, a new book and whether you can make money with XBLIG
http://www.sgtconker.com/
http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/01/a-new-book-on-the-block-and-a-new-natur-beta/
http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/01/making-money-in-xbox-360-indie-game-development-is-it-possible/
Tips for setting up SVN
http://bit.ly/fKxgFh
@bsimser found tons of royalty free music and soundfx for your XNA Games
http://twitter.com/bsimser/statuses/31426632933711872
Post on the new features in the next Sunburn Editor
http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/01/28/new-editor-features-prefabs-components-and-more.aspx
@jasons_novaleaf posts source code for light pre-pass optimizations for #xna
http://twitter.com/jasons_novaleaf/statuses/33348855403642880
http://jcoluna.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/xna-4-0-light-pre-pass-optimization-round-one/
I’ve been learning about doing an A.I. for turn based games and this article was a great resource.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1535/designing_ai_algorithms_for_.php?print=1
