The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Game Development

Quakelight, Shenanigans you say.. I say not!

scbarnes — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:07:51 GMT

Adam & I have been talking to Julian Frelat from InnoveWare Solutions, and we've been both extremely impressed by QuakeLight - a Silverlight port of id Software's Quake.

This was a few days ago, and Julian the other night sent me a link to the demo of QuakeLight. I then this afternoon grabbed a coffee, stormed over to Building 18 in which I then proceeded to poke Adam until he cried like a school girl. He eventually caved into agreeing to get his interview post online (sure he whined about his workload for PDC2008, but I simply asked him to man-up and get with the real work... showing the world Julian's awesome work, PDC2008 be damned! damned I say!).

Check out the interview here, and job well done Adam!

http://adamkinney.com/blog/374/default.aspx

I love this quote though from Julian.

I am pretty sure Microsoft will extend the set of WPF features supported in Silverlight in the future (WriteableBitmap, 3D api...) and I am convinced Silverlight will become a great platform for demos, games and rich applications in general.

Hmmm...

Quake has a special place for me, as it was my first taste of software development back in the late 90's. As my brother & I used to hang around with a few of the Aussie Quake players, two in particular were Robin Walker & John Cook; the creators behind TeamFortress (Add-on for Quake). Given I had art skills, I joined the team to work on TeamFortress 2 which was to use Quake 2's new engine, and it was my first taste of actual software development.

Fast forward to 2008, Robin & John are now 20mins down the road from my office in Bellevue, working for Valve Software and here I am playing TeamFortress 2 still to this day! :) (Wonder if we can port TF to Silverlight next once Julian's done :D)

Point is, this software industry seems to constantly have a lot of twists and turns associated to it and never underestimate small ideas growing into bigger ones. I hope guys like Julian continue to grow further with products like Silverlight as whilst they will never be the next Half Life 2 engine, they will bring casual gaming to the next level.

Adam & I'll work hard to ensure they are supported from internally.

XNA Gamers wanted.

scbarnes — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:14:16 GMT

Mission:

To get XNA in the hands of trillions, in order to ensure XBOX Games like Halo3 continue to evolve so that I will eventually succumb to "death by XBOX 360".

Training Requirements:

It's simple men/women, ensure you show up at these key locations with your I'm an XNA Coder secret decoder ring (actually just show up wearing clothes and having at least showered once this week).

Sydney Event: http://xnasydneypeteisensee.events.live.com/default.aspx

Date: Nov 14^th 2007 @ 6:30PM
Location: Microsoft Sydney Office

Melbourne Event: http://xnamelbournepeteisensee.events.live.com/default.aspx

Date: Nov 16^th 2007 @ 6:30PM
Location: Microsoft Melbourne Office

Expectations:

You will enjoy meeting Pete Isensee the head Mafioso behind the XNA Developer Connection Group. He will enlighten you with wisdom, excitement and there are sure to be tears. Failing that, you'll get to throw your "wishlist" at him and hope something sticks (don't be afraid to explore your inner gaming geek within).

So Stop sitting on the fence, be the gaming geek you want to be and be there or be a ... well.. non-XNA-Cool-Gamer-Person..

Brisbane Game Development User Group.

scbarnes — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:15:44 GMT

If you're in Brisbane Australia (thereabouts), and have a game within you just busting out, then come along to this user group. I missed the first meetup but the group are looking to build a game with some kind of collaboration for any / all that want to join in.

Brisbane boasts some interesting legends in terms of the gaming scene, and latest game from Australia (FURY) by AURAN is a testament that there are some talented folks within brisvegas.

Whom knows, the next Game Studio may well be founded by this group.

http://gamedev.meetup.com/172/