John's Blog

How to write a game (part 3)

johnkenn — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:12:00 GMT

So, four main characters with about ten actions and ten to twenty frames of motion for each.. plus all the baddies.. weapons.. Ahem.. HOW many drawings would we need? And these need to be done by when?

Lesson learned: Never underestimate the time your artwork will need to get created.

We've hit the reset button, and are working on a game with much smaller graphical scope. :-)

Game developers don't eat cheese

johnkenn — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:14:00 GMT

Last Friday I attended the GameDevelopers.ie annual Shindig, at which various Irish games publishers - and companies with offices in Ireland - gave presentations on the state of games development in Ireland (strong, and getting stronger) and developers talked technical and demonstrated their latest projects. It was great: mobile development is definitely the in-thing these days, that's for sure.

The other think I learnt was that judging from the empty wine bottles but untouched plates of food, nerds don't eat cheese.

How to write a game (part 2)

johnkenn — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:11:00 GMT

Writing a game is difficult, but we're rapidly learning that getting the art for the game is just as difficult. In fact, given that we're all nerds rather than artists, it's even harder. The options are to use thousands of frames of character animation, use 3D models, or do cunning stuff using minimal art and bones..

I'm hoping that the (hopefully very soon) release of Game Studio 3.1 will make a difference.

How to write a game (part 1)

johnkenn — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:46:00 GMT

I'm very interested to see this site which records the process of writing a game (Darwinia+) and getting it published on Xbox Live Arcade. We're working on several game projects here too, so hopefully can we benefit. Currently we are at the design stage, and I'm already worried.

Scroga

johnkenn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:03:00 GMT

An excellent idea came from lunch today: Scroga - the combination of Yoga and Scrum. Normally we do our 15 minute scrum standup meetings in the morning just, well, standing around. Now we can combine them with Yoga poses. Talk about agile and flexible methodologies!

I am the Empire too.

johnkenn — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:31:00 GMT

I'm not a particularly subtle person. Which is why I wore my nice green "I'm a PC!" t-shirt (with only a hint of irony) to the Tipperary Game Flaedh. I was probably supposed to wear Microsoft approved company khakis and blue shirt, but pfffttt... this was for kids. Also, I don't own any khakis or blue shirts with (or without) a little MS logo. I'm not in Redmond any more, and this wasn't a boring trade show.

Even though I'm on the wong side of 40, I wear nothing but t-shirts and jeans except to job interviews (yes, one team at MS told me I should have worn a tie to the interview in my post-interview-sorry-you-didn't-get-the-job-feedback). I was therefore excited to learn that I could get another - this time, definitely ironic - t-shirt for my collection just by linking to Microspotting, which is a new website that appears to be an online gossip/celeb magazine about Microsofties. The mind boggies. My first thought on reading the name of the site was something completely different (but clearly my trip to Company Sensitivy Training has paid off, as I'm not going to say what it was).

I've got to push the MS Ireland team, so I'm happy to blatently plug the site and hope they visit us over here in (currently amazingly!) sunny Dublin. If they aren't going to send me a shirt because I'm outside the US, well, we'll just have to see how deep the Sensitivity Training goes..

It wasn't that far..

johnkenn — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:53:00 GMT

I'm back from The Games Fleadh in Tipperary, where I was lucky enough to be a judge in one of the games categories, and hand out a rather nice cup. It's always hard to pick just one winning team when everyone had worked so hard, but that's the way it goes.

Fantastic to see the next generation of games programmers using XNA on Xboxes. When I was their age I was writing games on ZX81's and ZXSpectrums, so I was delighted to see the tradition continue.

Here's the winning team from Lucan Community College.

GamesFla...gh...ea..ch..a.. thing. In Tipperary.

johnkenn — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:25:00 GMT

This year I'm going to be a judge at the Tipperary Institute Gamesfleagh (http://www.gamesfleadh.ie/) which is very exciting but also worrying, as

1. I can't pronouce it, and

2. I'm going to have to find Tipperary. Is it a long way to Tipperary? I'm not really sure, but I'm reliably informed that I can take a train. I'd rather that my motorcycle was legal in time so I could use it instead, but that is unlikely. Note for future reference: importing a motorbike from the US to the EU is a time consuming, expensive and beaurocratic nightmare that has taken me 16 months and counting to try and complete.

Snow Day

johnkenn — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:20:00 GMT

After working in Microsoft's Redmond campus for almost ten years, I was used to the two or three days a year when it snowed and complete and utter panic ensued. It was always exciting to watch the entire city of Seattle grind to a halt, and the Microsoft campus being closed - usually to howls of protest from the Fargo office, who seem to operate year-round under six feet of snow.

It was therefore enjoyable to see the same thing happen in my new Dublin, Ireland location. Dublin, and Ireland in general, is not known for its extreme weather. I grew up over the border near Belfast, and it was a lucky winter indeed that dropped more than the barest coating of snow.

This week Dublin received more snow that it has in about a decade. On the plus side, we all ran outside for a quick snowball fight. On the minus side, at home-time the traffic outside the Dublin offices was at a complete standstill for hours, one of the few times I've felt lucky that I don't own a car!

Mesh for Mac

johnkenn — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:28:00 GMT

If you happen to be an Apple user, you'll be interested to know that Microsoft have released a Mac client for Mesh. Mesh is a cloud-based storage system, that works by creating a virtual desktop you can access over the internet - as well as synchronizing folders. It's cool, and it works on Macs and Windows - so if you have multiple computers it's an easy way to share files and keep them all in sync.

http://www.mesh.com

XNA Games Studio 3.0 - Now available!

johnkenn — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:25:00 GMT

Yup, get yerself a nice fresh non-Beta Games Studio release: http://creators.xna.com/en-us/xnags_islive

Games Studio 3.0 - Oct 30th

johnkenn — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:06:00 GMT

Very please to see that Games Studio 3.0 will leave Beta and have a full release on October 30th!

I'm hoping the list of countries that will be able to access Community Games is expanded to include Ireland. Currently it will be US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, and Spain.

http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/archive/2008/10/13/are-you-ready-for-xbox-live-community-games.aspx

Revenge of the Goats

johnkenn — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:02:00 GMT

XNA is a wonderful thing, and what makes it even more wonderful is that it is supported on the Zune. All you need is a Zune updated to the latest OS, and the beta of Game Studio 3.0 (and Visual Studio C# Express or better). In next to no time I was able to get a quick demo up and running, using SpriteBatch to both draw the tiled, multi-directional scrolling background, and draw the various player sprites. This all runs at 30 frames a second, which is nice and fast - fast enough for just about any 2D game you would care to throw at it.

I'm not sure this graphic masterpiece will ever be seen in public (the goats! somebody think of the goats!) but suffice to say I'm happy to have proven to myself that the Zune makes a pretty nifty game platform. It's so nice to write games software and be able to focus on the game itself, rather than fighting with all the graphic drawing stuff. Unlike some other mobile devices I would mention, the Zune has hardware buttons that are a little better suited to some games - and their state is easy to read from within the XNA application.

Coding in Bed

johnkenn — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Today at the lunch table I discovered that I was the only person there not to have done any programming whilst in bed.

I'm not sure what to make of this. For a minute I considered this as meaning I wasn't as "hardcode" as the rest of them, but then I remembered that in a typical week I would spend most evenings programming from when I got home from the office, and not stopping until I fall asleep after midnight. I'm pretty hardcore, oh yes! I guess I just prefer sitting on a chair!

It was an interesting conversation though, covering topics such as the best time of day (or night) for coding and ideas, how to remember things that come to you in the middle of the night, and why licking door handles is probably not a good idea overall.

Goat Attack!

johnkenn — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:23:00 GMT

In the time it took me to post about XNA Game Studio 3.0, I was able to download and install it, and create this amazing smash-hit title: Goat Attack.

Yes, it really is that easy to make games from the 1980s in about an hour. This one has a scrolling tiled backdrop, and SpriteBatch objects for the car, evil goats and various weapons. You drive around the deserted Greek Island taking out the goats, and well, that's about it. Classic stuff.