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Twin Cities Code Camp 7 Reminder

Matt Christian — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:43:11 GMT

Hopefully you haven't forgotten, but the Twin Cities Code Camp 7 is happening this next weekend! I will be giving a talk about effectively storing game assets like sprites and models. This will be my first time writing code during a talk and think it should go pretty well (should take more time compared to my other talks).

There have been some changes this year to the lunch situations so if you haven't yet checked it out, head over to TwinCitiesCodeCamp.com and get all the details. And if you haven't ever gone to TCCC, I'd highly suggest checking out the site and going next year!

XNA: What do you want to learn?

Matt Christian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:08:04 GMT

I'm thinking about either re-writing my old XNA tutorials or starting a whole new series. XNA is now in v3.1 and when I wrote the tutorials we had just jumped from the 1.0 refresh into 2.0. I want to know what you want to learn about XNA. Send me an email or post a reply and I'll try to structure it to include what you've asked (hopefully I can teach what you want to learn).

So...

what do YOU want to learn?!

Twin Cities Code Camp 7

Matt Christian — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:18:49 GMT

October 24th is the date for the next Twin Cities Code Camp and registration is open. TCCC is an awesome, free event that everyone that can make it should attend!

For those who don't know, the code camp is a free event held on a Saturday that focuses on many aspects of programming (definitely not only Windows stuff!). The day is packed with multiple rooms all featuring presentations by great developers so you're bound to learn something.

After every TCCC I'm always pumped to look into something I just learned that day and it's always something new and useful.

Go register at the site and if you're interested in speaking there are details there as well. The TCCC site is TwinCitiesCodeCamp.com

Geekdom Strategy Comparison

Matt Christian — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:24:21 GMT

Last night a few buddies and I geeked out by sitting around for 5 hours and playing the strategy board-game Descent. It was my first time playing and although we lost, I feel I got a decent 'welcome' into Descent. And, other than Dungeons & Dragons, was the first strategy game I've ever played (yes, I have never played Risk).

While I understand the appeal of the game, I didn't enjoy it as much as I do when I play D&D. Though, it's really apples and oranges considering in Descent I was a Hero and in D&D I am typically the DM. Our play session seemed unnaturally slow for a game. Each player spent loads of time saying "I could do this, or should I do this?" That's great you're thinking up a strategy, but what were you doing when it wasn't your turn? This could be the players I was with, but they had a pretty good understanding of the core system and were still taking hours of time debating the proper way to go down a hall.

The last few D&D sessions I hosted we played with miniatures but no play mats or visible indicators of walls, simply obstacles, enemies, and players. We still had a great deal of strategy involved regarding placement of characters and such and the game wasn't slowed to a halt by long spurts of indecision.

In comparison, either one of two things generally happened. Either I overly deluded the strategy in D&D by removing most (not all) walls (the players were outside for the most part), or the Descent guys were over-strategizing (or I suppose regular strategizing). To me, the game of D&D where strategy was involved but the game kept moving along is a preferred situation compared to a game that stalls on possibilities.

Although, maybe I'm just a strategy noob with 'strategy ADD'.

E3 Press Conference Impressions

Matt Christian — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:10:11 GMT

E3 was promised to be back and big again this year and it sure seemed to be with Microsoft leading the press conferences on Monday. Microsoft's main focus was on 3 items, new games, a new peripheral, and new Xbox updates. Typically these are always the things they focus on though usually when they get to one section or another the audience groans in boredom (for example, when they drone on about Scene It! and other goofy family games no one watching will typically care about), but this year MS came out strong on all fronts. Games announced included Beatles Rock Band, Crackdown 2, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, and others. Gameplay previews included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and Halo 3: ODST. The new peripheral was possibly the biggest talk of the meet, developed as "Natal" (pronounced na-taal), the peripheral is a large-ish camera and microphone that sits under or on your TV (similar to the Wii motion bar). Natal also features voice and facial recognition software to know who is playing and automatically sign them into their correct account. Also mentioned along with Natal was a new Metal Gear Solid game using Natal developed by Hideo Kojima himself. Finally, Microsoft talked about many new Xbox updates including features able to link your Xbox with your Facebook and display what games you're playing, update your Twitter status from your Xbox, and free use of the last.fm music service. Also mentioned was the ability to use a credit card and play full Xbox 360 games from the marketplace.

Apparently, the 'bigger, better' show applied to MS but not to Nintendo, whose conference was less than spectacular. Highlights of the meeting include new games and one new peripheral. Nintendo announced a slew of new games but the biggest announcements were Super Mario Galaxy 2 and a new Metroid game developed by Team Ninja. There seemed to be a heavy focus on bring Mario back, with 2-3 other new Mario based games. They also talked about the 'hardcore gamers' by bringing a Dead Space game, a new Resident Evil, and leading to the Metroid game. Also of interest, several DSi games featured user-creatable content and distribution methods in 2 games. Finally, the peripheral, which is extremely poorly understood or just not that useful. Called 'Vitality', it is a finger scanner you attach to the Wii-mote to read your heartbeat and tell you if you're stressed, excited, or a variety of other feelings. Sounds like a gimmick...

Finally Sony finished up the 3-core conference meets with one LONG event. They focused a lot on games including demos of God of War 3, a user-creation based kart racer, MAG, and Uncharted 2. Also shown were Gran Turismo for PSP, Gran Turismo 5, The Last Guardian (known online as Trico), a new Metal Gear Solid for PSP, a PS3-exclusive game by Rockstar North called Agent, Final Fantasy 13, AND Final Fantasy 14 Online! Also announced was the PSP Go, a slimmer PSP without all the trimmings for the 'techie on the go'. Sony is trying to compete in the motion wars by showing a controller that works with the PS Eye to produce 1:1 movement in games, which they showed LOADS of small tech demos featuring the technology.

How To Not Get Programmers

Matt Christian — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:42:34 GMT

I recently went back to one of the online development forums I had talked within a bunch awhile back and had a greeting of 10 new messages of people asking for me to join their project (I had requested a project there awhile back). Here's one message in particular that got my attention:

"hey well im lead programmer ATM, i must say I started learning C++ 3 weeks ago. I know this sounds stupid making a game while you dont know about templates and stuff. But i feel like i known C++ for a year. I can send you a sample of my work. We are using a Premade engine, so your DX skills will be no use, but you could write openGL shaders for our use. Our game is an FPS and I will supply you with more info if you'd like to join. Its for linux and mac providing we have a mac to test on. If you'd like to make a windows port, you are welcome but im not putting effort into making something specially for that shitty OS. Anyway going back to the features, we want to use V3 shaders, raytracing (believe it or not), depth of field (if i can manage picking), motion blur, volumetric fog and clouds (if they wont appear to be low), per pixel lighting and bla bla etc etc.

So are you interested??"

Let me help by mentioning some comments on your message.

First off, there is no immediate structure to the message making me instantly think "new guy" or "young kid". Secondly, I can understand if you want me to join as a lead programmer, but to say you've only known it for 3 weeks but it feels like a year might be good that it 'feels' that way, but I guarantee you don't know how to effectively use what you've learned. But, thankfully they're using a premade engine so my skills are useless.

Next, you mention the game is targetted towards Linux and Mac but you don't have a Mac to test on? You then proceed to call Windows a shitty OS, which is absolutely not the case, especially in games where Windows has the majority of all PC games ever made (Mac and Linux have games but they're typically the bigger companies developing for all systems or sometimes ports). Though it should be OK because I'm just writing the shaders and apparently someone who has programmed for 3 weeks will write the shader processing engine.

Sorry, I'm not interested.

Love

Matt Christian — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:58:26 GMT

Love is a bird,
like a dove on a pole,
followed closely behind,
by a black-feathered crow.

When this dove falls
and fall though it will,
the crow comes along
and eats up its fill.

This crow could have babies
and each one be sent,
off after doves
a lovers lament.

The crow could live long
but never have loved,
and never be as fine
of a bird as the dove.

Man, I write bitchin’ poems.