Building games based on Silverlight and Expressions

Building games for everyone, especially beginning programmers.

Author: Sam Stokes

Software in the cloud that builds Windows 8 Store Apps (and Phone as well!)

TouchDevelop is a new tool that is being tested by Microsoft Research.  It isn’t JavaScript, it...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 11/27/2012

Scirra.Com/Construct 2: Quick way to build HTML5 Games for Windows 8

Scirra.com is an amazing tool to create your game ideas quickly.  Scirra.com’s tool called...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 10/22/2012

Free: HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals Training, seriously awesome

If you need to brush up on your HTML: HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals This is a nice way to brush up...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 09/21/2012

Free: JavaScript training, comments say this one is the BEST

If you are just starting with JavaScript, then you will need to work through the 21 short videos on...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 09/19/2012

Free: Win8 Game Kit

One of my fellow technology evangelists has written a little library of javascript for use in...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 09/18/2012

IE 10 Preview, you should read it! and use it

IE 10 Preview, wow, this is a great way to learn more about Modern Design and get into the right...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 09/16/2012

Free Windows 8 help and software tools

Please click on the links and check out these offers, they cost you nothing and might help you make...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 09/12/2012

First Prize in Imagine Cup: $50,000

Get signed up at https://www.imaginecup.com NOW.  And it’s THREE, that’s right 3 $50,000 first...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 08/29/2012

Free Online Hackathon! This is a first

Hey sign up for this free Hackathon, win prizes (as described in the link): Free Online Hackathon!...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 08/15/2012

Free! 21 Part Free tutorial on HTML5 and CSS, must read for game designers

If you read no other free tutorial this summer then this is the one you need to work through. ...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 08/06/2012

Game Design: Tools you need to get familiar with, a bunch of downloads and installs

In the current environment of game design you can get away with flash and dash game design, that is...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 07/21/2012

Game Design: Using PowerPoint with TFS to do storyboards, Part 2

If you are reading this blog, good, if you aren’t, then how did you get to this part of the...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 07/20/2012

Game Design: Using PowerPoint with TFS to do storyboards, Part 1

Usually one doesn’t encounter the use of the product PowerPoint and TFS in the same sentence. ...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 07/19/2012

Game Design: Database using LightSwitch

One of the problems with working  with free tools is that they are limited, unless you know how...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 07/18/2012

Game Idea: Polar Bear Cubs save the world

Ok that’s it, plus this video, could be a great idea.  Avoid the issue with the fact that mom...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 07/17/2012

C++ Multiplayer games

Nothing new with that, except is it easier to build multiplayer games with Windows 8 and...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 07/16/2012

Game Design: Teaching your game to fight

First rule of Fight Club: Don’t talk about fight club.  Corollary: In any group of men the most...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/30/2012

Machine Theorems: Determine if a player can reach the goal in your game

In the paper: Learning to Solve Game Trees , it isn’t about you learning how to solve game trees but...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/29/2012

Free paper: Skill leveling players of your game

How do you set your skill levels of players of your game? Now normally you would just use the actual...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/28/2012

Kinect Hover Buttons Explained

Hover Buttons, totally cool. Totally badly documented, I infer this from the search result for Hover...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/19/2012

Designing for the Windows Kinect: Hover Buttons

Hover buttons, pretty cool, but not well explained in the documentation that I have found. ...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/17/2012

What happened to Tyrian? It lives on!

If you like the old style shooters then this one is for you!  Lost Gardens has updates the...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/16/2012

Lost Gardens: Excellent 2D graphics and lost no more

Lost Gardens is an awesome web site/Blog. Here are some of the links to the graphics:...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/15/2012

HTML 5 Games: Irate Dolphins returns

Ok, I copyright the idea of Irate Dolphins as a game series as of today: Irate Dolphins @2012. ...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/15/2012

Playing with your Peas: Cool graphics hidden in Expression Design 4

I really like Expression Design 4, and one of the things that is hidden in the samples folder is the...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/15/2012

Kinect Based Game: Ski without the leg breaking!

https://www.kinecthacks.net/skiranger-beta-released/ Check it out. I was wrong, there are some really...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/11/2012

Silverlight 4 based Platformer level designer using Azure

Really.  David Rousset a fellow blogger make this a couple of years ago, and it works with the...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/10/2012

Kinect and Sharepoint? Serious use of Kinect, again not a game.

Oh boy, here is a very serious use of Sharepoint and Speech Services to read-out files.  Check...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/09/2012

Kinect Based Game: Getting started video mysteries

First off start by carefully following Dan Fernandez’s video series on setting up your Kinect...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/08/2012

South Park XBox 360 game, Trey Parker and Matt Stone talk about their game

This looks a fun game, I am going to get it and play it!  Check out the video! Enough said.

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 06/07/2012

See Windows 8 at the Microsoft Store!

Alice Pang is demonstrating Windows at the following Microsoft Stores: Wednesday, May 30 Mission...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/29/2012

Be pushy with Push Notification in your Game: Class scope variables and HttpNotificationChannel

Part 2: https://aka.ms/PushyNotification No matter what I have said in the past, XNA is going to be...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/26/2012

Be pushy with Push Notification in your game: Application Manifest File

First of all, you will need to enter a Publisher name in the Properties\WMAppManifest.xml file....

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/25/2012

HTML 5 Game Design: EaselJS, SpriteAnimation made easy

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so lazy, but then how can you be a true surfer and work hard at...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/22/2012

Mech Commander, could it be rebuilt for Windows 8?

Mech Commander, an interesting idea that I have been carrying around for awhile, unlike the other...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/15/2012

HTML 5 and JavaScript: MathJax the follow on to jsMath, game idea

MathJax is an open-source JavaScript display engine for LaTeX and MathML that works in all modern...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/10/2012

Kinect not working on one of my test systems, finally got it working…

Well this was a big duh!  I had installed the most current Kinect SDK v1 and it would not...

Author: Surf4Fun Date: 05/02/2012

Next>