Araknoid v1.1

I figured that since I'm going to be posting again, I might as well post the new version of Araknoid with high scores. I'm almost certain that there is still a bug in the high score system and in the dialog box code, and I don't intend to fix them. Sorry, but it's been so long since I've even worked with this project and I just want to move on. As of now, Araknoid v1.1 will act as a simple example of my abilities as well as the abilities of XNA and those who wrote helper code (particle engine, XNAFont, etc). Thank you for your help, I look forward to your future projects. For those that are interested in downloading the v1.1, I am currently hosting it on my Wisconsin account.

Download Araknoid v1.1 now!

Whaaaa?!

Holy crap. Well, as some of you may have noticed...well, who am I kidding, there are none of you anymore. But if you did exist, you may have noticed that I haven't posted in a really, really, really, really, really, really.........................really, really,really long time. So, why have I not posted in this long amount of time? Well, it's complicated. I haven't really been programming at all in the past months due to my recent high school graduation and ensuing college preparation. The move from high school to college had almost entirely taken over my life. If you were wondering, I'll be going to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall for majoring in Computer Science. With roughly a month and a half of summer left, I should have a decent amount of time to do various programming projects, and maybe even a small game or two. One would think that a Computer Science major would be programming constantly, but...you know....I had stuff to do. So today I said to myself "hey, I should check out my devblog" and whaddaya know, I had a comment from Zygote on my last post (ZOMG!!!!!1!11). Huzzah, but I'm sorry I let you down Zygote. I promise that I will continue to program things in XNA as well as post about them. Here's to the resurrection of my devblog. Stay tuned.

Edit: Also, I forgot to mention one thing. Since I'm going to college, I bought a laptop. It's pretty decent and should aid me in my game making journeys. If you are interested in the specs, check out www.xfire.com/profile/eogas

Good Times

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't been working with XNA as much as I used to. With the upcoming Dream-Build-Play competition, I plan on using it much more. I was originally going to release the final build of Araknoid today, but I played it over and realized that there was a bug in the high score system. As soon as it is worked out I will upload it. My brother and I are also beginning the endeavor to making a full game engine on which we will build a cool game (which has not been decided upon yet). So far it is basically a soft-attach third person camera following a textured model of a person. Animation has been achieved through the use of The XNA Animation Component Library, which is actually quite nice. As soon as my brother (the artist) makes some animations for his model, this engine should start taking shape.

Oh No!

So today I was finally going to get around to releasing that new version of Araknoid with high scores, but I just found a new bug. The high scores work fine, and it should be a simple fix. If I didn't have band practice today, I would say to expect it today, but since I do, I will try to have it fixed and ready to play by tommorow.

Sorry For Not Posting

I know I haven't posted in a while, and that DOES reflect the amount that I have been working on Araknoid, but today is a good day. The final version (1.0) of XNA GSE is now available here. I "converted" Araknoid with a little trouble from the Mercury Particle Engine (JimJams, I hope you don't mind, but I recompiled under v1.0 myself). More good news is that I actually got high scores to work (finally). It was actually a very simple fix (multiplying a variable by 2, haha). I will proceed to make a new bitmap font for high scores and more levels in the following days.

Pwned!

That's right, I pwned DirectX with C++. Ok, I just got through the first tutorial on MSDN, and I must say, it's not as hard as most people's code makes it look. It would probably be a lot easier if I knew C++ (I only dabbled with it in middle school), but I plan on getting a C++ book for Christmas. Don't worry, I am not leaving XNA. In fact, I am currently attempting to get high scores to work with Araknoid (with little progress). I shoudln't say that. The scores load up fine, they just don't save correctly, leaving an unreadable file that crashes the program when it tries to load it (You have not conquered me yet, Araknoid). Once I finish this project, I hope to jump immediately to a new project (hopefully 3D (and hopefully with a non-Beta version of XNA)). Stay tuned for more info.

Ready to be Downloaded

Ok, I just fixed a mouse bug where the game skips straight from the game over screen to level 1 without showing the startup screen again. Do I think this warrants a version increase? Yes I do.

Download Araknoid Now!

I Know It's Been A While

...but I finally have a user (non-developer) playable build ready. If you saw the first one, it's not much different. The only changes are that it is playable multiple times, and that it runs on Beta 2.

EDIT: It looks like no one can run it, so I've set up a new build that actually includes the application manifest (imagine that). Hopefully it works now. Oh yea, I also forgot to mention that it's also smaller now at a mere 1.38 MB zipped. It would be smaller, but the runtime takes up a bit of space. Either way, you can download it in about 10 seconds (assuming you have broadband, idk about dial-up).

EDIT: It still looks like no one can run it, so I got some help on MSDN and it definitely works now (Thanks Leaf). The only steps before running are to install the XNA runtime and run the DirectX Web Installer. Both are included in the zip.

Download Araknoid Now