I am back.

I have finally decided to get back to a bit of game programming every now and again. I am just going to concentrate on 2D games for now as I can't be bothered working on all the complicated 3D game things. I am going to remake classic games such as pong, tetris, breakout... etc.

These games, upon completion will be available on my website. So if you want to play my creations then feel free to do so! 

I haven't had much time to program games lately as I have been working on my website. 

Anyway I have to go I have got school to go to!

Day 6 : 2D game

So guys I haven't had time to do anything on the game this day because of other things. But I did manage to find an artist whom is keen to do some free art work for my game. This is great as it means the game will look a lot more professional by the end. But I am currently creating a game menu. Which will incorporate my first ever use of buttons in XNA and C#.

however I am thinking that I might start work on a second game. A city builder. This should be challenging, but I am going to try and plan it. It is going to be a tile based game but I am thinking about a way to do this. My main idea is to create so many buttons up and down the screen. Query the mouse position and whether it is clicking and when it clicks on one of the appropriate tiles then bring up a small UI so that you can choose what to build on it.

But I will start it tonight. As well as work more on my first game.

Anyway Cya later!

Day 5 : 2D Game

So I have been working on the menu feature as I mentioned in the last post but I am also looking into ways of creating buttons. I am going to go for a clicking interface to cast spells. For instance I will have a row of small buttons at the top of my UI which will have images corresponding to their spell. I will also have an in game menu.
With these in place I can then implement a new level system. This would be good as it would add a lot more to the game.

With this project just about finished I have been thinking about my next game. I am thinking about going for a city builder. It will be a 2D game similar to Civilization. But right now I don't have much time to tell you about it. But I will update you tonight.

day 4 : 2D game update

So guys I have started working on the main menu. I am going to get some placeholder graphics up and running and then hopefully get an artist to draw me up some cool things for my buttons and my backdrop for the menu. This is quite easy.

What I am doing is I am using an integer value named GameState. This is initially set to 1 which happens to be the main menu state. This right now shows up the basic blue screen. But when I then set the GameState to 2 it draws everything the game usually shows and takes input as normal. I can then take this further by having a GameState 3 which I could use as a pause state etc. This is a very simple solution to my main menu problem and it is one that I used in my First game of Pong. Although for the way I have coded this I do not like it. It means I have weird if statements everywhere whereas if I had everything set in appropriate public voids. Then it would be a lot better/cleaner.

For instance I would rather have

if ( GameState = 2 )
{

takeinput();
drawgame();
setlevel();
docombat();

}

whereas for the most part I have

if ( GameState = 2)
{

Then quite a lot of code.

}

So in my next game I am going to resolve this at the very outset. Then hopefully I can utilize this to a greater extent in my next games.

Anyway a quick screenshot to show you how the game is progressing. This contains placeholder graphics so try and use your imagination when looking at it. I will however have a download within the next 2 weeks so that you guys can have a shot at my game :D

More updates tomorrow!

Bye for now!

Day 4 : 2D game

For those that don't know I am currently in the process of creating a 2D game which I will add to my website GamerCity.co.uk for download when I am finished. This 2D game will be programmed in C# and XNA and shouldn't take longer than a week or two to finish.

Throughout the process of programming the game I will be giving daily updates as to how the game is coming along and what things I am going to add and other things like that!

So today I am working on adding placeholder sprites. "What?!" you say? Well I managed to find an artist that is willing to work for nothing in order to create decent looking art work for my game. This will hopefully come to fruition in the next couple of days and hopefully I will have some nice art to add to my game. I think the art will definitely add to the game as a whole but right now it isn't very fun to play. Although I have had some ideas.

Firstly I will make it a sort of boss type level found in games like devil may cry. For instance I will make it so that after the boss reaches 25% health I will have some sort of flying bat fly down and try to attack you. I will have it so that it is a sort of quick fire click fire. Then you have to click on the bats before they reach you. Hopefully this will bring a bit of fun to the game.

So today I have added a couple of things like

A sprite which travels across the screen to hit the enemy.  AKA a fireball
I have also added sprites which represent the player and the enemy
Also I added a timer function so that if you press the H button you can rejuvenate some health at the cost of some Magic Power.

More updates tomorrow

Day 3 : 2D game

So today I added quite a few things. For instance I set up a basic combat system. Which allows the player to fire  a spell at the enemy. This is all just numbers at the moment but I think I will steal the ball used in the 2D XNA tutorial and use that as my spell.

As for the sprites I need I have put up a thread in the help wanted section of GameDev.net and am currently waiting for a reply. Hopefully that will come soon.

Anyway I am still on the hunt for decent 2D sprites to fill the void. When I get them in it will look like a proper game!

I have also been thinking of a couple of new things to add to my game. Like for instance a floating health bar at the top of a character. This wont really be much use in the game its just that it will give me the knowledge of how to program one in.

So I thought I would give you a little screenshot to show you how the game is coming on!

As you can see I have added a few more stats to the game as well as put up the enemies stats in the top right corner. Currently I have added a few options:

Space to shoot a spell

P - makes you drink a Magic Power potion which allows you to fire more spells

thats all so far. But the combat system works. I am going to add a random number generator to see whether or not the spells hit the monster. And I am going to make it so that the monster attacks you right after you have attacked it. It will all be quite random. But I want to be able to add some sort of skill to the game. For instance. I could limit the number of potions you could drink to 1 per 3-4 turns. Which means you could try to finish the monster off with the magic power you have left or you could drink while the monster heals itself.

Another thing I need to add is the Magic Power regeneration feature. Which lets you rejuvenate so of the Magic Power used whenever you successfully hit the monster with a spell!

Anyway I need to go school time but more will come tonight!

Day 2 : 2D game

So guys this is my second day working on my latest game. I must say it will be complete fairly soon. Its not been that hard to do so far but this time I really want to spend a lot of time polishing it so that on the exterior it looks fairly professional. For instance I want to have decent artwork this will take me a while even if I do it myself. But it is more than likely that I will ask a newbie game artist to get it all done for me. This should be fairly easy as game artists are a dime a dozen for semi decent ones and also it gets me started networking. Which might help me get a job in the future. Anyway now I am looking at possible candidates for sprites.

I am simplifying the game so that I can get some practice on the more technical side of things. Like animation and  sound and things like main menus and in game menus. If i get all these in my game then I can then reuse them in my other games. This is me just building up my library. Then I can concentrate on other games to add to my website!

2D Side Scroller

Today I managed to get quite a few things up and running with little trouble. I thought I would give you a quick preview of what the game looks like after the first day in development.

As you can see programmer art leaves a lot to be desired. But I am happy as I have gotten the viewport set up as well as health. I am going to have the enemies stats in the top right of the UI. and all the rest at the bottom. The bottom right will play host to the backpack to which I have no idea as to how I will get that implemented.

I haven't got round to getting a decent sprite for my character, nor my enemy character. I will also need to get a couple of sprites for attacks such as fireballs and arrows. Close quarter combat will have to wait until I learn animation and how to use character sprite sheets.

Any way time to have my sleep so that I can continue to work on my latest game tomorrow.

Remember to become a follower so that you can track how my game is coming along!

XNA side scroller

Ok guys so I am going to try my hand at creating a RPG XNA side scroller. This will hopefully be good fun as I really want to try my hand at 2D games. I have a few Ideas in the pipeline but this game will be my number one priority.

My main ideas for the game will come from other 2D rpg's for instance I have had a wee look at the RPG that XNA creators website gives you. This is a complete game so if I get stuck I can easily just check out how they did it.

Anyway I am currently looking for a good sprite that will be used for testing. As well as a good background for my game.

I haven't quite decided whether I will try a pokemon-ish type top down scroller. Or just a classic side scroller. I think side scroller would be best at the moment as a full top down scroller would be a big drain on my resources.

Todays tasks:

Get a decent sprite
get a decent background
program in movement for sprite chosen
find enemy sprite
work on Human computer interface( get a main menu, in game menu)

Also I need to get the basic lay down for the game interface. This will have things like health and backpack information

Anyway I need to get working. Lots to do!

Im back

So recently a lot of things have been happening which has meant I have not had a lot of time and effort to put into game programming, But now that has changed. I still have to focus on my school work, but I can find time to program games again. I miss the feeling of joy when you realize that you have solved a problem and that when you complete your game you have achieved something.

Its gonna be different this time though. I am going to use purely C# and XNA and I will work on larger and larger 2D games to begin with. This will mean that I can easily put the finished product onto my website and I can move onto 3D quite easily when the time comes.

I just hope that I will be able to create the 2D games that I have in mind quickly so that people will come to my site and play these games because they enjoy them.

Nothing new

Well guys my mum has just had her liver transplant so I haven't been doing much over the last week or two. The operation was a success. Which is great! I can't wait to have her back. I was incredibly nervous today at school as it was so sudden. But programming will be put on hold for a while as I will be busy working on my site. Its new layout is in place and I am currently trying to get it up and running so that every page up has decent content on it. Read more about my new website at my entrepreneur blog which I will put a link for in my link section.

anyway need to get back to work.

bugs

Hello. Right now I am currently working on making the tank fire, but the problem is that the rotation matrix for the missile does not take the tanks current rotation into perspective. So I have to find a way to fix this, as this is causing the missiles to fire upwards. They do go in the right direction that I would like. Also I have downloaded a new tank model and I am currently working on implementing it.

Hopefully though I will have the enemies working so they start to move toward the tank. Then I just have to set up some collision detection and scoring system and then thats all the gameplay I wanted to add. Although I might add more.

I still have to create a model that has a decent grass texture on it as the one I have right now Is incredibly boring. Anyway I need to get back to work.

Camera working!

Ok guys so I haven't being doing much game programming lately. I have been busy building up my website.

Although tonight I have managed to get my camera working. I did this by using matrices. Firstly I created a camera rotation matrix using the following lines


Matrix rotationMatrix;
            Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(cameraYaw), out rotationMatrix);

as you can see I first initialize the matrix using Matrix rotationMatrix then I go onto create a value for how much I would like to rotate. cameraYaw is a const variable set to 2.0f.

and using input I then determine whether or not I would like to set this rotation matrix into effect.
Like so...


    if (keyboardstate.IsKeyDown(Keys.D))
            {
                cameraYaw -= spinRate;
              
            }

So thats all working. Now I am going to work to make it so that the camera goes in the direction of the target. Hopefully that shouldn't be to hard.

Anyway once I get that up and running I will definitely get some missiles firing. I have decided that since this is my first 3D game I am not going to go into to much detail and just get the thing finished. For instance I was going to split the tank model into 2 models so that I could rotate the top of the tank like a turret on a real tank would but that would be too much work. And I am probably going to change the model again as I am not quite happy with it. Anyway right now the missiles will only fire towards whichever direction the tank is facing.

After getting this set up I will find a way to make the terrain solid. And set up some collision boxes around the tank and the terrain. Having done this I will find a way to add gravity to my game to make sure that my tank is constantly on the ground :D

Anyway back to work!

progress?

So guys recently I have been working a lot on my new website. Putting most of my efforts into it. Right now I am writing some articles for it that will hopefully bring a few more people to the site.

On the programming side of life, I have blitzed through all the tasks my computer teacher gave us in class. I am his favorite programming student :D. So I am learning something after all :D.

Anyway right now I am going to work my way through the new book that came.

Microsoft XNA game studio 3.0 unleashed. And by the end of it I will have a cool 3D game. Learning how to do a couple of things on my way that will eventually lead me to creating my own game.

Please remember to check out my new site and sign up for the forums! :D

http://www.gamercity.co.uk and if you like what I am doing with the site please tell me in the forums :D

Study time

Hi

I cannot really do much work today as I really need to study for my computing and chemistry test that I have coming tomorrow and the next day. So all the things I have lined up for today will have to wait. I am just going to try and add a skybox then probably call it a night. anyway more info tomorrow as well as a small update on how my debut at training has gone at the new club I am going to! :D

Bye for now!

Enter the Matrix..

Hi guys so I have just found out that to fix my model I need to create a matrix for it which is similar to that in the Chase camera sample from the XNA website

So I need to figure out how I would port that to my engine. I am happy though as I managed to fix the problem

that the models center was not where I wanted it to be. Although hopefully when I get back from school I can

quickly find someway to create a matrix for my model. After that I am going to force myself to create a skybox because

the background looks a little dull. I might also texture the flat terrain model I have with something that resembles

grass. And also find a way to texture the tank that I have downloaded.

So my list of tasks for today is as follows:

texture ground

create skybox

create matrix for tank model

texture tank model.

research how to make solid ground

- this should be easy as I think I know what I am doing here. Just a quick bit of collision detection and

if this returns true then I will simply move the models position up a bit.

anyway time to get ready for school.

Yet another update :D

Hi guys Just thought I would show of a picture of my current game engine. As you can see its still very primitive but that will hopefully change soon. There is a small bug with the drawing of the tank that I need to correct but other than that its coming along pretty nicely(although a bit slow) But since this is my first proper 3D game I am just thinking that any progress is good progress. Hopefully tonight I will be able to fix the object center point bug and I will get some cubes attacking you and some missiles firing from the tank. After that is done I will probably change the terrain to something that resembles grass. Its going to be flat though but to make it more interesting I might add some bill-boarded trees. The skybox as you can see is not up and running yet. I have been too busy helping my dad dig up the garden. All in all I have gotten less than I would have liked to this weekend.

Anyway time to go Cya later!

Small update

I have just joined technorati to try and get a few more people to my blog. I will keep you updated as to whether or not this is any good. Hopefully it will be :D

Anyway I am having a tough time figuring out how to make it so that the model goes in the right direction. Hopefully I will find something good and useful in the sample I just downloaded from XNA. I am actually astounded that XNA have such high quality samples which allows a lot of beginners the ability to dive straight into game programming. It has lots of samples ranging from animation to networking and beyond! I should have the basic gameplay mechanics up and running soon though :D

Stay tuned!

Update

I changed the model in my game engine to a cool looking tank model, which I downloaded from turbosquid.com- This is a great site that any game creator should use when trying to look for models(free or otherwise). Anyway right now I am trying to figure out a way to make my tank move in the direction it is facing. Right now I only have the option to move in a positive or negative direction along the X and Z axis. I also fixed a minor bug which caused my model to load facing downwards. Thank god we learned about radians in school last week or else I would not have had a clue!

While I am waiting for some help on the model direction problem. I am going to get the tank firing missiles out its turret. Then I can set up some targets(boxes) which I can try to shoot at! :D It will start to look like a game really soon! I hope :D

Also since getting a new tv yesterday and finding that nobody really needs my old one. I am going to get 2 birds with one stone. My little brother is quite addicted to the PS3 but since it is in my room and connected to the screen my computer is connected to then that means he doesn't get to play it as often as he likes. So It will allow him to play next to me while I am on the computer. And also I have not found a way to record movies of my PS3 on my new screen so by keeping my old screen it will essentially let me get that second bird I was talking about earlier.


anyway it is morning here so I better go grab my breakfast.

More updates Soon as well as a link to download the current version of my game engine.
Although you must have the C# express edition downloaded :D More details to come!

Birthday

Hi guys Its my birthday today and I got a great TV which is a 32" 780p LG from the lh2000 series. I am using it right now and the picture is insanely good I love it. It so big as well. I am just about to try it out with the PS3 and see how much better the picture is. Already I am noticing a difference. Hopefully I will be writing games soon that test the resolution of this thing :D. Anyway I am going to try it out and get a new video walkthrough of another game level so that I have more and better content to put onto my website.

The game I am creating is coming along well I have gotten the forwards and backwards left and right camera working as well as up and down so that I can change my view to see things better. Although I need to add a rotation functionality to it which should be pretty easy. Then I can finally get to work on setting up the animations or importing a new model. I haven't quite decided.

Anyway I will talk to you later I have alot fun to do! :D