"XNA WEEKLY ROUNDUP 12-03-07 TO 18-03-07"

Mykres has published his "Weekly Roundup" which covers source codes, projects, games, new blogs/sites, tutorials and game releases from March 12, 2007 to March 18, 2007.

From Mykres' post: "... Ok, that's it for this week; remember if you have anything that you would like added please post. Also one more thing if you have any questions on the XNA Framework, Game Studio Express or any other game development question you can drop over to http://creators.xna.com. Or you could jump onto the IRC and talk with us all live, we are currently living on Efnet under the Channel XNA, hope to see you there. ...".

Watch this space!

"SHARKY'S AIR LEGENDS": MULTIPLAYER AT LAST!

After a couple of weeks locked working hard on the next update of this great game, Sharky has decided to see the sunlight and publish the latest build of "Air Legends", which includes a 2-player splitscreen multiplayer feature.

Nice!

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 ... ;)

360ZINE ISSUE 4 NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

This month issue of 360Zine is now available for free download. And yes, you have read it right, free download.

If you missed my previous post, Gamerzines.com publishes a set of online magazines in 4 different flavors, being 360Zine one of them.

This month topics cover a full review of Tom Clancy's "Graw 2" and an exclusive of "Bioshock", inter alia.

So, what are you waiting for?! Download it now!

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!

VIDEO: REALTIME TERRAIN GENERATION WITH XNA

Channel 9 has published an awesome video from the TechFest 2007.

The video shows Andy Wilson's first XNA project: real-time terrain generation with XNA through the use of a depth-sensing video camera and real world objects.

Enjoy!

XNATUTORIAL.COM: "NO MORE WEEKLY UPDATES"

Since XNA GSE started we have enjoyed for months of every "Weekly Update" reported by XNATutorial.Com.

Today, Joran has announced that due to an increase in his workload, he has no time left to spend in order to bring more weekly updates to the XNA Community.

It's sad to hear this news. However, at the same time, after reading his post, it's completely understandable.

But not everything is bad news: "... On the upside, this means I should be able to get back to making tutorials. Although, with the increased workload, I doubt there will be one per week, like during last year ...".

So let's thank Joran for all the efforts he made in order to bring  this invaluable resource week by week and wish him luck in his new "split" of activities.

BLADE3D BETA 1 (BUILD 1543) NOW AVAILABLE

The latest build of this impressive framework is now available for registered beta-1 testers.

From Blade3D's forums: "We are happy to announce the availability of the latest build of Blade3D.

Here is a list of features and improvements for this weeks release. 

• Entirely new multimedia help system with embedded video tutorials
• Integrated web based asset delivery mechanism for textures, models and modules
• Over 400 free textures and more than 70 models ready for delivery
• New menu commands for quick model import, selection and scene insertion
• Improved, more intuitive translation tool
• Ability to define custom bone controllers for animated models
• New animation graphs provide basis for total animation control in future
• Ability to import/export any part of the module to shareable packages
• Many bugs fixed

Registered Beta 1 users should go here to download the latest build

Enjoy!"

So, ... enjoy!

MOUSE2D GAME COMPONENT FROM TEHONE.COM

TehOne.com has published a mouse component for XNA.

From TehOne's post: "Here is my Mouse2D DrawableGameComponent. I started out just wanting to be able to put a custom Mouse pointer/cursor on the screen instead of the windows mouse. From there the code just seemed to keep evolving more and more. After I got my custom pointer on the screen, I wanted to then place a Texture2D where it clicked (this was mostly for debugging etc, but I think turned out to be useful for other things). I could see this feature being used in map editors maybe, or something where you want to give the user the ability to design what they see on the screen."

You can download the source code and or a demo game, and check the online documentation ... and please, don't forget to read the license.

"As always, I would really appreciate some feeback on this. I'm sure people can make use of this code (especially beginers). And I'm even more sure that it can be improved with input from others (especially those with more experience then me)."

Let's give the guy some feedback.

XNA GSE CHALLENGE GAMES RELEASED!

Head over this thread on the XNA Creators Club Online, and download each game as soon as the authors post links to their respective builds.

Four games in four days ... great!

GAMERZINES: FREE MAGAZINES FOR GAMERS

Gamerzines? What's that? Glad you ask.

It's a set of e-magazines written by UK game reviewers that anyone in the world can download for free. Yes, for free!

But what is so special about this magazines? Well, not only you will find previews, reviews, interviews, and contests, but also as the magazines are dispatched as PDF files there's lots of multimedia content included, like demo videos and trailers of brand-new game releases and upcoming games.

The magazines comes in this four different flavors:

• 360Zine: for XBOX 360 gamers.
• PCGZine: for PC gamers.
• HGZine: for Sony PSP and Nintendo DS gamers.
• PESFanzine: official "Pro Evolution Soccer" e-magazine.

So, what are you waiting for, go and get them now!

BTW, 360Zine #3 includes an exclusive interview with Larry Hyrb, Microsoft's Xbox Live Director of Programming, also known as "Major Nelson".

Enjoy!

NEWS, MORE NEWS AND EVEN MORE NEWS!!!

Spread the word! A new update for XNA GSE is on its way: bug fixes, changes, new additions, and potential features being investigated.

You can find complementary information on the following sites:

• XNA Team Blog,
• TheZBuffer (which also includes a rumor), and
• Shawn Hargreaves Blog.

And if you think this is it, you are wrong! Browse to this link and download Microsoft XNA Developer Slides presented to this year's GDC (which cover many interesting topics).

Too much info to process in no time. Ok, let's start ...

GDC UPDATE: "DUNGEON QUEST - DAY 2"

Benjamin Nitschke has posted a brief update for the second day of development of the XNA-Challenge's game "Dungon Quest".

Looking that good, in only two days ...

Thumbs up!

CAPTAIN AMERICA DIES?

Steve Rogers meets his end by a sniper shot as the hero leaves a courthouse. This was announced yesterday and today here, there and everywhere (and of course at Marvel's site).

So it must be true ... :( ... but is this really the end for "Captain America"? We shall see ...

Godspeed in the afterlife Steve!

GDC UPDATE: WE'VE GOT VIDEOS!

As we wait for Andy's and or Benny's updates about their journeys into the GDC's madness, Coding4Fun's Weblog brings a breath of fresh air by directing us to Joystiq's blog.

Joystiq shares a lot of interesting information from GDC, including four posts with exclusive videos of these ongoing XNA Challenges:

• "Dungeon Quest" by Benjamin Nietschke and Cristoph Rienacker,
• "Simian Escape" by Jonathon Stevens and Patrick Glanville,
• "Abdux" by Andre Furtado, and
• "Final Stand" by Josh Butterworth.

Enjoy!

GDC UPDATE: WE'VE GOT NEWS!

Yes! News are comming directly from the source:

• TheZMan has some news to share with us, which range from "vague" to "not heard before", including "pie in the sky ideas", and
• Benny comments on creating "Dungeon Quest" (Day 1) as well as posts some pictures of GDC and San Francisco.

Will Andy find a better place to connect to the Internet and post updates? Will Benny's team meet the main goal on time?

Let's keep our fingers crossed and stay tuned to their blogs ...

IMPORTANT NOTICE: XNA FORUMS MOVING ON

David Weller has posted the following news: "Very soon, these forums will no longer permit new posts. The XNA team has moved their forum support over to the new XNA.com site, including the new site for community discussions and headlines, http://creators.xna.com.

We apologize in advance if this creates an inconvenience, but we are very excited about the new opportunities this will offer to our entire community.

We look forward to seeing you there! ..."

I know what you're thinking "LetsKillDave", right? ... ;)

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!