Huge Cleanup and Big XNA Announcement

While the details of the game play and rules are starting to take shape, I'm now in the middle of a huge process of breaking out a lot of the code to external classes...and praying I don't break the whole thing in the process.

I've done a few tests centered around one of the simpler classes and I think I'm ready to start tearing the bigger pieces out. *cross your fingers...mine are*

Along with the code side of things, I've been playing around with various icons for the different pickups in the game. Hopefully I'll have something to post soon on that.

On other news I was pretty pumped to hear the details about the upcoming changes to the XNA Community Games. Among them are a global name change, free tokens for marketing purposes, update pushes for existing games, and a price structure change.

XNA Community Games will soon be known as "XBox Live Indie Games". I think the name change is purely for restart purposes and honestly with all the 'non-games' that currently sit in the top 10 list I'm very surprised it wasn't renamed "XBox Live Apps".

Very soon when a new game is launched on the marketplace the game creator will be given 50 "tokens" to distribute to publications and...whoever they wish...to help promote the game and spread the word. I think this is a great call...at the very least it means I won't have to charge my friends and family in order to let them play the full game.

Something I had no idea, until it was spelled out in the new press release, is that current XNA games on the marketplace really have to way of letting people know an update has been made to the game. The best they could do was post something on a website and hope existing users saw it. Soon, they'll be able to notify current customers of an update to their game when the game launches....I'm guessing very much in the same way normal games do now.

And the final change, which caused the largest ripples in the water, was the pricing structure change. Instead of games being priced at either 800, 400, or 200 Microsoft points, the new prices will be either 400, 240, or 80 Microsoft points. One hard rule is that if your game is larger than a 50M download it can't be priced at 80MSP.

This announcement got quite a few people worked up on the Creator's Club site but I think it's a good thing. Some say it will open the doors to flood the marketplace with 'crap' games. Well, I'd hate to say it, but that door may have swung open quite a while ago. If I see another 'massager or image viewer' app referenced as a 'game' I'm gonna have to hurt someone. The Creator's Club, I believe, was created for aspiring and hobbiest game designers to let their visions loose on the world and bring their ideas to life. While the current tools may not allow 'everyone' to fullfill this dream (with a decent hill to climb) it is, at it's base, aimed at hobbiests. Make these games because they're fun and/or challenging to make, or to use it you create a game to help you break into the gaming industry, or...simply because you've always wanted to...not because you've got a multi-million dollar businessplan behind it.

Video Update

Long overdue, but finally I've put together a tiny video update. Some things are still obviously placeholder, such as the UI and the enemies, but things are starting to fall together.

As all the basic pieces come together and playtesting the full experience really gets moving, a real game is beginning to emerge.

When I began, I started trying to select the simplest of game mechanics, trying not to bite off too much. I started off with a single player, controlled by a thumbstick, had him fire a single weapon and blast as many bad guys as he could. Calculate a score and we've got a basic game. Mission Complete!

However, as I began to feel a little more comfortable with C# and XNA other ideas began to pop up, ideas that didn't seem to hide behind mounds of terrifying C# code, so I figured I'd give them a shot. Throw in an oxygen resource and cost/benefit mechanic...done. How about a secondary bubble burst weapon....done. What about a depth mechanic that ties to the oxygen usage...done.

Step back and things begin to really shape up. Then more ideas hit that seem to make sense, other enemy/hazard types. More weapon variations. Upgradable ship node with an associated economy system.

IF I can actually manage to get all that in "Deep Blue". IF I manage to write to code to make it all behave properly. And IF makes the game more fun...then this little experiment of a project may become something a little bit more.

Variable Screen Resolution...

....should be close to "step 1" when you start planning and programming your game. Variable screen resolutions and their effect on the game is a pretty global change and it's much better to think about that up front than having to sort through your code later and try to correct everything....like I'm having to do now.

Variable screen resolution doesn't simply effect layout (although that would probably be enough of a hassle). It effects game object speeds (or apparent speed), as well as any limitations based on screen position. The goal, of course, is to have your game play the same on any resolution. That, so far, appears to be much easier said than done.

Trust me, you're going to want to plan ahead on this. I know I will next time.

Successful Sound on the 360

Well I've completed my initial sound tests which included a looping sound effect for the ambient underwater noise as well as a full deploy to the 360 and all went relatively well.

The sound levels need to be worked out but they were all definately there.

I'm still having some horizontal 'stretching' issues going on with all the graphics that I'll have to look into. It would make a certain amount of sense with the background stretching...but all the graphics...something weird is going on.

But yea for sound!

And then there was sound

I've got a pretty decent amount of experience with audio creation in my past. So I have to admit, it is a little bit of a relief to step away from the "bold/new" of C# and get back on more familiar ground of music and sound effects.

Even being more familiar to me, I was a little concerned about getting audio into XNA with all the posts and questions/troubles that I've seen people had about audio on the forums. Luckly...so far, knock on wood, things are going remarkably smoothly. Honestly, I really like the authoring tool.

I've created a few simple sounds for the gameplay and the UI, create a few variations on certain sound effects and tweek volume and pitch levels so it all blends together correctly. The two remaining big steps I have to take with the audio are longer audio files, such as background music, and testing out the files on the 360. But so far, everything has worked out painlessly on the PC.

Kodu Fun

For those of you aspiring game designers out there (especially the ones without a masters degree in programming), I highly recommend checking out the "Kodu Game Lab" available for the xBox 360 on the Live Marketplace.

It released last week and is a great way for starting game creators to get their ideas going. All authoring is done on the 360 through a series of circular menus and iconic programming. The programming feels very "LEGO". It's very easy and quick to get a game up and running.

There are of course limitations. You're not going to be creating Halo any time soon on Kodu, but for simple games it's a lot of fun. There are currently around 200 3d assets to choose from (I've heard...but personally I find that number a little high) and the dev crew did a good job of creating assets for a wide range of games (sports, racing, shooter, platformer...etc.). It's a little like going to Toys R Us and grabbing a lot of generic playing pieces out of the board game isle and throwing them all in a box

There is a free trial, but the program itself is $5.00, but well worth it for the time you'll spend playing around.

Hopefully in the future they'll release 'asset packs' which will enable you to have even more items to play with.

All Hail 4-Day Weekends

Thanks to the 4th of July, I've got a 4 day weekend and I'm determined to make a good amount of headway on "Deep Blue". I'm currently finishing up the main menu screen and dealing with resolution variations for different TV's .

I'm pretty much cycling through the following steps: program something, play/debug, then review for clean up.

Some of this C# must be sinking in because the amount of "what the heck was I thinking!" during the review process has gotten much less frequent.

Soon I'll turn back to design, user interface specifically, and story. I'm not looking for an epic backstory here, just a little something that makes a little sense for what you're doing underwater.

But for now...off to July 4th barb-b-que and fireworks.