XNA Notes 020

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Been a busy week for me, wish it was full of XNA stuff and that is why I’m busy (and that the notes are late…again) but not the case. I’m just going to have to figure out a better way of integrating the XNA Notes into some of the stuff going on lately or maybe change my life situation so these things aren’t going on. I’m working on figuring it out both ways. But you don’t come here to read about my personal stuff, you come to see what the XNA community has been up to!

So without further ado, here’s what I saw happening this week in the XNA community!

Time Critical XNA News:

• June 14th is fast approaching and is the drop dead date for your Dream Build Play submissions! Let my voice of experience guide you, DO NOT WAY TO JUNE 14th TO SUBMIT YOUR GAME! Seriously, every year we have people toeing right up to that date and you have a very, very good chance of missing the deadline because something always inevitably happens when 1,000s of submissions are sent to the server at the same time. Plan to submit days early to make sure your game gets processed and accept BEFORE June 14th.
• http://www.dreambuildplay.com/Main/Default.aspx

XNA Team:

• Shawn Hargreaves posts about Geometry aliasing
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/05/18/geometry-aliasing.aspx
  

XNA MVPs:

• Glenn “Mykre” Wilson shares a large set of useful links - 3D Buzz Blend Fundamentals Drop 1
• http://www.virtualrealm.com.au/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/670/3D-Buzz-Blender-Fundamentals-Drop-1.aspx
  

XNA Developers:

• Robert Boyd’s Call of Cthulu makes a cameo on Supernatural!
• http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/83088.aspx
• http://zeboyd.com/2011/05/20/cthulhu-saves-the-world-was-in-supernatural-tonight/
• Kris Steele shares Fun Infused Fridays 10
• http://www.krissteele.net/blogdetails.aspx?id=265
• Castle X by Alexandre Lobao released as open source on Code Plex
• http://castlex.codeplex.com/
• http://www.AlexandreLobao.com
• David Amador shares using PerfHud with XNA
• http://mobile.dzone.com/news/using-perfhud-xna
• Michael Neel shares the grand and glorious life of IncaBlocks via the Xbox LIVE Indie Game Database
• http://xbligdb.com/game.asp?id=64
• (make sure to post your own information for the new IMDB for Xbox Live Indie Games! –> http://xbligdb.com )
  

Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG):

• Armless Octopus stays up on the community better than most sites out there. Here’s what they wrote about this past week
• The Last Pod Fighter review: Better than that pod racer movie
• http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/05/16/the-last-pod-fighter-review-better-than-that-pod-racer-movie/
• Decay - Part 4 wins the Tentacle Award for XBLIG Game of the Month - April 2011
• http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/05/17/decay-part-4-wins-the-tentacle-award-for-xblig-game-of-the-month-april-2011/
• Animals explode in the new trailer for Fluffy: Operation Overkill
• http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/05/19/animals-explode-in-the-new-trailer-for-fluffy-operation-overkill/
• Tic Part 1 Takes to the Skies in the Official Trailer
• http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/05/20/tic-part-1-takes-to-the-skies-in-official-trailer/
• Get to know your XNA MVPs Part 4 - George Clingerman <- That guys sounds like a pretty cool guy!
• http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/05/20/get-to-know-your-xna-mvps-part-4-george-clingerman/
• Writings of Mass Deduction and Steven Hurdle continues the incredible pace of buying an Xbox LIVE Indie Game every day and then reviewing and recommending that purchase to the rest of the world. Steven doesn’t review just anything, he only reviews games that he enjoyed buying and wants others to buy. Can’t imagine any better recommendation than that! These are the games he purchased and reviews this last week...
• Day 185: Boom Block
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/13/day-185-bloom%ef%bc%8ablock/
• Day 186: Epic Dungeon
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/14/day-186-epic-dungeon/
• Any Xbox LIVE Indie Games you’re curious about?
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/14/any-xbox-live-indie-games-youre-curious-about/
• Day 187: Square Off
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/15/day-187-square-off/
• Reminder: special re-review later today, big review tomorrow
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/15/reminder-special-re-review-later-today-big-review-tomorrow/
• Day 187.5 Arkedo Series -03 Pixel! (re-review of Day 77)
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/15/day-187-5-arkedo-series-03-pixel-re-review-of-day-77/
• Day 188 - Shield the Beat
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/16/day-188-shield-the-beat/
• Day 189: Mirror
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/17/day-189-mirror/
• Day 190: Magical Cube
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/18/day-190-magicalcube/
• Day 191: Rainbow Ball into Adventure
• http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/05/19/day-191-rainbow-ball-into-adventure/
• and Steven continues his relentless positive exposure of Xbox LIVE Indie Games by changing people’s minds one by one over on Kotaku...
• http://kotaku.com/speakup/forum?comment=39357502:39357635
• (the community seriously needs to do what they can to thank Steven!)
• Vintage Video Games TV
• Minions Review
• http://vvgtv.com/2011/05/20/minions-xblig-vvg-indie-verse-review/
• Quad Smash coming soon to XBLIG and PC
• http://vvgtv.com/2011/05/20/quad-smash-coming-soon-to-xblig-an-pc/
• EuroGamers reviews Mr. Gravity
• http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-20-download-games-roundup-review?page=3
• GameMarx reviews the Last Pod Fighter
• http://www.gamemarx.com/video/trials/88/the-last-pod-fighter.aspx
• Co-Optimus announces new Xbox LIVE Indie Game Section
• http://www.co-optimus.com/article/5944/co-optimus-announces-new-xbox-live-indie-games-section.html
• The VideoGamerRob reviews Laser Cat
• http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/xblig-review-lasercat/
• n00b Alert interviews Michael Ventnor of Red Crest Studios
• http://www.n00balert.com/qa-with-michael-ventnor-of-red-crest-studios/
• DealSpwn posts the Xbox LIVE Indie Game of the Week!
• http://www.dealspwn.com/xbligotw-blocks-that-matter-the-last-pod-fighter-10-amazingly-awful-games-60839
• ExtraGuy reviews Mr. Gravity
• http://www.extraguy.com/2011/05/mr-gravity/
• N4G - GamingTruth reviews Blocks that Matter
• http://n4g.com/news/766912/gamingtruth-blocks-that-matter-xblig-review
• Silver Dollar Games in a very, very, VERY rare moment talks a bit about why they have made the games they have
• http://www.thisisxbox.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1065:silver-dollar-games-defend-xbox-live-indie-game-crap-pile&catid=38:features

XNA Development:

• Channel 9 asks “If I were graphically challenged were could I get resources I could use in my XNA games?” and reminds us all of the great content in the App Hub samples.
• http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/If-I-were-graphically-challenged-where-could-I-get-resources-I-could-use-in-my-XNA-games
• A large collection of SoftImage XSI videos and tutorials
• http://www.moddb.com/groups/3d-artists-group/tutorials/vast-xsi-learning-movies-on-youtube
• Sgt. Conker shares a series of articles most XNA Developers should find extremely useful
• High End Performance Optimizations on the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7
• http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/05/high-end-performance-optimizations-on-the-xbox-360-and-windows-phone-7/
• Windows Phone 7 Unleashed Hackathon at TechEd
• http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/05/windows-phone-7-unleashed-hackathon/
  

Windows Phone 7:

• diagramtic starts a new blog covering developing with XNA for Windows Phone 7
• http://diagramatic.wordpress.com/
• Jo De Greef shares a wonderful series of tutorials for creating your own Angry Birds clone for Windows Phone 7 in XNA
• http://jodegreef.wordpress.com/