HOW TO: XNA-BASED GAME ON A WEBPAGE

For those of you interested in my article ("Xna & Beyond"), I have -what I consider- an interesting update (btw, don't forget to vote for my article since it's on a compo!).

You may remember that I was trying to investigate how to use the Silverlight technology with XNA. The bad news is that v1.1_alpha does not allow to host WinForms controls; the good news is that v2 -the new name for the final release of v1.1- will do!

I didn't want to wait so thinking more on the problem, I remembered how to embed an .NET assembly into a web page. Digging further into the subject I finally succeded. Read the section The "Silverlight" At The End Of The Tunnel for details and also download the new sample code.

A strong word of warning here: the new example code provided in the article is for learning purposes only. So do not recommend -as I don't recommend it- anyone to modify his/her machine's security giving full trust to any assemblies or websites since it could open the door for security risks.

Maybe I should start and hold a project at CodePlex. I don't know ... we shall see ;)

Well, enjoy!

I NEED YOUR HELP, GUYS!

As you may know, a few days ago I submitted an article entitled "XNA & Beyond: The Path To VS 2008" to The Code Project site.

Well, the article has entered TCP's VS 2008 Compo, where 3 out 5 finalists have been already announced and in a couple of weeks the remaining 2 places will be assigned for sure.

Why do I need help? As time goes by, in order to improve my chances to make it into the finals I need more votes, so if you feel like it, can and want to help me, just read the article and cast your extremely high votes ;)

It seems that Silverlight-based articles are the ones that bring more attention to readers and voters, and XNA ones are just left behind. Are we going to allow this? I repeat: Are we going to allow this???!!!!

By the way, thanks a lot to the ZMan, Ziggyware, Gamedevkicks, and the folks on the IRC channel for their support as well as all of you who have already voted for my article.

Cheers!

[Damn! I feel like a politician during an elections campaign ...]

TO CONTESTS AND BEYOND!

Wow, mate! As we approach the year-end it's as if Santa brings a lot of incredible contests for us to choose. Just to mention a few:

First, we have Ziggyware's "Holiday Contest" when you can win one of the three available DX10-ready gfx cards plus subscriptions to the Microsoft XNA Creators Club, just by writing an XNA-based tutorial or a handy tool to help you develop your XNA creations. Piece of cake!

Second, we have the second edition of the "Dream.Build.Play compo", which includes the "warm-up challenge". Although the main compo's "precious treasure" wasn't yet disclosed, there are great prizes ahead for those who enter the challenge: (a) the possibility of an intership at Microsoft Research, Rare Ltd. or Lionhead Studios, (b) tickets to show your entry at GDC'08, and (c) $3,000.

Third, the "InstantAction Game Developer Contest" organized by GarageGames. The task: to create -at least- a playable game demo by using whatever engine you want. The grand prize: a publishing deal with InstantAction.com plus a lincese to Unity Pro with Asset Server (valued 1,999 american dollars).

Fourth, the ImageCup's "Game Development Competition". If you're a student and love using XNA GS for your game creations -as much as I do- you may find this one is the right for you. Hesitating? Read on: "... Not only will cash prizes be awarded, these winners will then have an opportunity to come to Microsoft and present their entry to the Microsoft games management team for possible inclusion as a download in the popular Xbox LIVE Arcade service or MSN Games Web site. The first place team or individual will also win the opportunity to become an apprentice at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business as part of its internship program ...".

Last but not least -hang on to something, Acclaim's "Project Top Secret". I won't comment on this one because it took my breath away, and I'm recovering, so I'll just quote the following: "The winning Indie Development team, which will develop the game, receives an instant prize of $100,000 and Acclaim will pay the license fees for whatever commercial game engine the team chooses. This combination is capped at $1,000,000. Yes, you are free to use ANY commercial game engine!".

And these are just a few compos. You may find plenty more, just do a google search to be surprised.

But which one suits you and your team? There lays the tricky part ... are you ready to face the challenge? If so, go ahead, choose your compo, and slay the dragon!

"SILICON MINDS"

Do you want to win the opportunity to be interviewed for an internship with Microsoft Research, Rare Ltd. or Lionhead Studios? How about an invitation to show your entry at GDC 2008? Well then you would also love to cash in 3,000 american dollars.

Yes, the cat is out of the bag now ... you can win all of the above-mentioned prizes if you "... push the limits of Artificial Intelligence while building a game with XNA Game Studio 2.0 ...".

Interested? Then head over the Dream.Build.Play site, read the rules, dates, prizes and start coding! Hurry up! The entry period for submissions starts on December 20, 2007 and ends on January 27, 2008.

Cheers!

[Well Ziggy, one part of the plot is known, so I guess we'll now have to wait for a soon release of XNA GS v2 final ...]

IS THERE A PLOT SOMEWHERE?

Thanks to Ziggyware I read about Dream.Build.Play 2 and the new warm-up challenge scheduled to start this Dec 8th, 2007, that is, tomorrow.

Now, the XNA Team guys have previously announced that XNA Game Studio 2.0 Beta Program would end today, so is it me or something is being cooked right now??!!!

I don't know about you but I feel there's a plot somewhere ... hummmm ... ;)

AND THE WINNERS ARE ...

Have you watched the first webcast? A great intro by Chris Satchell with plenty of info about the future of XNA v2.0 (first surprise: get to the part about the "pro" version), expected numbers on the XBox Live market (growing very fast), XBOX Live Arcade and ... drums please ... the winners of the Dream.Build.Play compo of this year:

1. First Place: two games will share this place, both getting all the prizes: "Blazing Birds" and the "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai" ... btw, Chris, how cruel of you! ... :)
2. Second Place: my connection went bad at this time but I guess this place is also shared ... please correct me if I'm wrong, but the games getting the second place are "Gravitron Ultra" and "Yo Ho Kablammo!" (the sound went bad but the pictures shown a Live Arcade image among the prizes, so I guess they also getting the opportunity for a publishing/distribution deal? If so, more congrats!)
3. Third Place: the remaining finalists ... I can bet and hope that many-to-all of you will also get some interest deals and offers from distributors/publishers/etc. in the split of a second ... ;)

Congrats to all of you!

Also, there were shown great demos, in particular, I was amazed with the one presented by the guy of XSI (in fact, the procedural-textured terrain looked awesome).

Ah, yes, before the second webcast begins, in sync with Chris' presentation, Michael Klucher was also announcing XNA GS 2.0 at the XNA Team Blog ... what no "Express" term inthere? Mmmm ... just watch what Chris says about the "pro" version ...

Opps! gotta go ... Michael's presentation has started ...

D.B.P. FINALISTS!!!

At last! Dave Mitchell has announced the top 20 finalist of the Dream-Build-Play contest ...

So, go ahead and direct your browser to the contest's site to meet the finalists.

Congrats to all the ones who created/submitted a game, and special congrats to the finalists .. and good luck in the final round!

2007 INTEL® GAME DEMO CONTEST

Do you believe in second chances? What could you do if your game didn't make it in the Dream.Build.Play contest? Maybe (1) you decide to hold to your more-than-8-hour daytime job -plus you quit your dreams of cash, more cash and glory- or (2) the "Intel® Game Demo Contest 2007" could be your next solution.

However, you'll have to consider that the contest calls for entries elegible for the following two categories:

1. Best Threaded Game: for the demo that best shows off the computational power of a multi-core processor, and
2. Best Game on the Go: for the demo that best shows advances in laptop gaming.

Life is not that easy, isn't it? Well, before say "naaahh, it's not for me ...", check the prizes and the official rules.

From the rules: "... Contest begins March 5th, 2007. Registration Forms must be received by July 1st, 3:00pm PST 2007. Community judging to determine finalists will begin July 1st, 3:00pm PST 2007 and run until August 1st, 3:00pm PST 2007. Executables of finalists must be received by August 15th, 3:00pm PST 2007. Winners will be announced at Austin Game Developer Conference on September 5th, 2007, and published on the contest website the same day ...".

Let's code!

FROM ZYGOTE'S SITE: WANT TO WIN 100 BUCKS?

Ziggyware is hosting a contest: write an XNA article/tutorial, submit it to Ziggyware, and you will have the chance to get USD 100 if you're picked as the winner.

From Zygote's post: "... Ziggyware is hosting an XNA tutorial/article contest. Simply submit a quality article covering any range of XNA related content.

Top prize is currently One Hundred Dollars USD. Contest deadline is May 30th 2007 ...".

So, do you want to win 100 bucks?

A CHANCE TO PRODUCE YOUR OWN TV SHOW FOR XBOX LIVE

There's a new compo with a prize of USD 100k to help you produce your own TV Show for the Xbox Live.

From Major Nelson's post: "... Got a great idea for a TV Show? How would you like $100k to produce your great idea AND have it digitally delivered over Xbox LIVE?

Hit this site for details on how to sign up and get in on the competition. To enter you must be over 18 and live in any of the 25 countries where Xbox Live is available. Fire up the camcorder and good luck ...".

Are you one of the lucky guys living in any of the eligible countries? If so, start thinking on an idea, right now and join the compo!

ZIGGY'S LOOKING FOR AN ARTIST

Maybe is not too late: Ziggy is "looking for an artist to help in a small multiplayer game project to showcase and enter into the Dream Build Play contest".

Interested? The reply to the original post.

Bye.

WANT TO WIN A 360?

DotNetSlackers announced a contest with the chance to win 1 of 3 Xbox 360 Core Systems. How? Just writing an article.

From the post: "... DotNetSlackers is proud to present its authors with the chance to win 1 of 3 Xbox 360 Core Systems (worth 299$). Simply write an article for DotNetSlackers, following our Submission Guidelines, and you’ll automatically have a chance to win 1 of 3 XBoxs. It couldn’t be simpler!

Every month, for three months, registered DotNetSlackers users will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite DotNetSlackers article and the winning author gets a brand new Xbox 360! ...".

Hurry up!

UPDATE: "THE DUNGEON QUEST" GAME

Benjamin has released a new build of the game called "The Dungeon Quest", which was part of the XNA Challenge (GDC'07).

The update fixes some minor bugs, boosts performance, and adds new features but it requires a videocard that supports Shader Model 3.0 -if you happen to have a lowerend GPU, say, the nVidia GeForce 6600 card (like I do), make sure to run the game in a lower resolution to seed up things a little bit more.

Those big ogres are awesome.

Great level ... Cannot wait to get the book ... ;)

D.B.P.'S WARM-UP CHALLENGE ENTRIES

Do you want to know which were the entries submitted to D.B.P.'s Warm-Up Challenge, watch screenshots of each game, and or download builds to play?

I bet you do, so jump to XNA Matrix site and be amazed!

Thanks to dczraptor for sharing the links with all of us.

Cheers!

WARM-UP CHALLENGE'S "UDDER ASSAULT" GAME

Continuing with news related to DPB's Warm-Up challenge winning entires, you can visit this site to get information related to "Udder Assault" -one of the winning entries, plus you can also download the latest build of this great game.

Information on "Cracklin Crackles" is available on this site, but there's no link to any build of the game, though.

If you know links to sites where builds of "Cracklin Crackles", "Earth vs. Mars", and "Viduce" are available for download and want to share them with the XNA community, please drop a comment.

See ya!

"G": A WARM-UP CHALLENGE WINNING ENTRY

Zyggyware informs on the release of the latest build of Mutant Penguin's "G" game.

For those that do not know, G is one of the winning entries in the Dream.Build.Play's Warm-Up Challenge Competition.

Very cool entry, the eye-candy is great and the gameplay is really funny.

Download the latest build from this link, and let's the joy begin!

THE GLOBAL CONTEST IS OFFICIALY UNDERWAY

Now that the warm-up challenge is over, the main compo has started, and the list of prizes for each winner is detailed here.

In short, there will be a total of 20 winners organized in three places:

• One winner of the first place's prizes.
• Two winners of the second place's prizes.
• 17 winners of the third place's prizes.

Thus, only one indie will take the prize of all prizes: the long awaited publishing contract deal.

Watch out for the deadlines: "Enter March 5 - July 2, 2007".

So, let's code!

SPACEWAR WARM-UP CHALLENGE WINNERS!

Five games have been chosen by the jury, and the winners are listed here. You can also see some in-game screenshots for each.

Congrats to the winners!

[BTW, do you have links to builds of any of the winning games? Then feel free to post them here.]

UPDATE: OFFICIAL WORDS ABOUT D.B.P. COMPO

Have you read my previous post? If you did, my apologies. If not, don't!

I should have checked any news on my RSS-feeds subscriptions earlier ... that's why the name of this site: "Do as I say, not as I do ..." (I'm not going to delete it to live in the shadows of shame as ways of auto-punishment; now where is my "dumb" cone-hat?).

Anyway ...

The XNA Team has informed in its latest blog's post three relevant things:

1. XNA Creators Club Online community site is open for business,
2. Dream-Build-Play's "main" competition has gone live, and
3. New partnerships and exclusive benefits for XNA Creators Club Premium members.

The community site is a great place to start with XNA since it offers a growing set of educational tutos, starter kits, samples and so on.

D.B.P.'s main competition is the dream came true for any indie developer that was/is willing to make it into the pro leagues: "The Perfect Compo".

Last but not least, the new benefits that "premium" members will enjoy are great: SOFTIMAGE/XSI Mod Tool, TorqueX Engine, Allegorithmic ProFX, among others.

So, go ahead and read this post, for the complete information.

Happy coding! ;)

A SNEAK PEEK ON D.B.P.'S PRIZES

Well yes, I couldn't find any official word and link (yet) detailing the prizes for the main DBP compo (other than what has been published in the OXM), but TehOne.com has posted the following:

"Dream-Build-Play’s main competition has gone live. Fame, fortune and a chance at global envy await you in our Dream-Build-Play competition. The grand prize is a $10,000, an awesome Alienware PC with a smokin’ fast AMD FX processor and ATI graphics card, 3D modeling software, Xbox 360, XNA Creators Club subscription tokens and an amazingly cool Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract for your chance to get your game published on Xbox Live Arcade. Do you have what it takes to win all that and more? Then get started on making your dream game using XNA Game Studio Express and head on over to http://www.dreambuildplay.com/ to enter it into the contest."

Quite interesting ... now we only have to wait for someone in the XNA Team to confirm whether "the cat is out of the bag" or not.

In the meantime, hands on our respective XNA projects!