It's looking good man!  Good luck keeping up the pace.

Well, things are probably better now for XNA games. Doesn't Windows 7 come with functionality for it pre-installed, or in automatic updates?

I'm not sure about that.  I'll have to do some investigation.  But probably not until after I get this game done.  I have to stick my priorities!

Thought I'd post a few "scratch paper" type screen shots.  These aren't in-game screen shots.  These are me working out how the background tiles are going to work.  Cosmic Fool made some cool looking tiles, but I've never used ones quite like that before, so I'm doing some figuring out.


I put the tiles together to see how they look with oryx's sprite.


This is with the tiles that will actually be getting drawn turned off to show what the player sprite will actually interact with to determine collisions.


This is with all the display tiles turned off.  The snazzy colors are just so I can easily see the tile locations.

I'm hoping to have a gameplay video to post soon.  Christmas shopping attacked yesterday and I didn't have nearly as much time to work on stuff as I would have liked.

Wow!  I don't post for two days and my thread gets bumped to the last page?  Just goes to show how active this community is.

That said, I'm sure I don't remember it doing this when I played around with XNA last a couple of years ago...

I didn't remember XNA doing that last time I played with it either, which was part of my disappointment.  Oh, well.  I have my GDI+ version working at 60+ fps just drawing the one sprite and using almost no CPU.  I'll have to do some more investigation with XNA and see if there's anything that can be done about it (maybe I was just doing something stupid).  I probably shouldn't let it irk me so much, but for whatever reason it does.

Speaking of 60+ fps and one sprite, how about a screen shot of that single, glorious sprite?



Isn't it simply amazing?!  Not really.  I just don't want everyone thinking I only know how to make mockups.  I'm a better coder than a mockup maker, honest!  The only really exciting thing to see here is that I got the glow effect finished I think.  You should be able to see it around the sprite's eyes (eye?).  Took longer than I thought, but oh, well.  I'm planning to have some good, dedicated coding time this weekend.  So I'll hopefully make some good progress then.  In case you're wondering, in the image above the sprite is 8X normal size.  For the actual game I'm thinking I'll probably go 4X normal size, but it's easier to see the glow this way.

Yeah, I'm sure I can do more than draw just a single sprite.  I guess I'm just old fashioned and expect my frameworks to be honest, gosh darn it!  If you're doing something, act like it!  If you're not doing something, don't act like you are!

Yeah, I was remembering that from the Demake compo (the last compo I had an entry in).  So for the moment I've decided to just go with GDI+, though I am incorporating several XNA-isms in my engine.

Speaking of which, how about an update?  I have my basic engine working, running at 60+fps, using almost no CPU power to do so.  (What the heck does XNA do with my CPU then?  I mean I know it does some stuff to make sure it's actually running at the correct speed using automatic frame rate dropping and stuff like that, but that can't be that intense, can it?  Anyone know what it is that XNA does that requires the near full attention of one of the cores on my CPU to draw a single sprite?  Or is it just one of those stupid "Make it look like the game is doing a lot by pegging the CPU" type things? </rant>)

I have the sprite scaling working.  I originally tried to have GDI+ do it for me.  I've done that in other games, but it didn't want to work for some reason now, so I just wrote the scaling stuff myself.  It's easy when all you need to do is nearest neighbor and you're only upscaling.  I started on the blurring/glowing stuff, but I'm not done yet.  And I have unit tests.  Not a lot, but a few.  Anyone else unit test their game, or am I just super-nerdy that way?

So my next steps are to finish the blur/glow code, then probably get a basic map laid out with movement and gravity.  That's the less fun part.    I like special effects and particle systems better.  Oh, well.  I guess you can only have so much of your gameplay depend on particle systems, right?

[Demos]

I had sort of an idea for a game, and oryx (as well as some others) provided some lovely fitting and inspiring sprites.  I made a mock-up just to make sure some things would work out before I start coding.  This is what it looks like so far



I'm planning for it to be platformer/sidescroller/exploration type game where combat with baddies is particle based.  Haven't exactly figured out how that will work yet, but it sounds cool and I like creating particle systems.  I want to try for some interesting visual effects where I upscale lo-res sprites and then apply effects to them.  In the image above you can see what I'm talking about on the glow around the guys' eyes and the particles, which are obviously much higher resolution than the sprites themselves.  I think it looks kind of cool.  Anyone else have any thoughts?

I haven't decided if I want to use XNA or good old GDI+ to it though.  XNA is what all the cool kids are using, plus it has some nice game related features.  On the other hand, just doing a simple one sprite test pegs one of the cores on my dual core laptop.  That is going at 60 frames per second, but still.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, all the glow effects and even the scaling and stuff will be added at run time.  I'm not going to modify the original sprites other than to crop them appropriately and probably replace the background color with transparent.  That sounds in keeping with the competition rules, right?


P.S.  Thanks to everyone who made stuff for part 1.  Graphics, sound and music are always the parts that take me the longest, so it's nice to have someone else do them for me.  Lots of people made lots of awesome stuff!


Demos
Added 12/27/09: SONR Alpha 1
SONR Alpha 1

Added 1/4/10: SONR Alpha 2
SONR Alpha 2
Please check this message for some additional info on this build, plus my request for suggestions:

Videos
Added 1/2/10: SONR video 2




Trailer
Added 7/19/10

This sounds awesome.  I thought about doing something like this, but I know I wouldn't have enough time to finish (having a 1 year old of my own).  Good luck in your attempts.  I like your "at least 90 minutes" idea.  I might try that myself (though I don't know that I can ever get 90 continuous minutes to code when I'm not at work).  I've done some preliminary work on a similar project, so if you'd like someone to run ideas by I'd be happy to help if I can, though I'm a C# guy and not a Flash or JavaScript one.

Cool!  Making assets takes so much longer for me than writing code (good thing I'm a coder instead of an artist, isn't it?), so it'll be nice to have someone else do the hard part for me!   Hopefully I'll have enough time in Nov-Dec to write a game and use all the cool stuff I'm sure people will create.

Someone asked about having game engine code written before part 2 starts?  Is that okay?  I'm thinking just input handling, basic image display, collision detection, that kind of stuff.

I made something for people to check out.  I wish that I'd gotten done with it a lot sooner, but oh, well.  At least it's done(ish) now.  It's called Ninja Robot Winning Gameshow.  You can check it out here

http://mythicant.com/2009/06/16/introducing-ninja-robot-winning-gameshow.aspx

There's even a gameplay video.  Woot!

Since this is the feedback forum, here are some of the kinds of feedback that I'd be especially interested in:

• Is the idea interesting at all?
• Is the game any fun to play?
• Is the game too hard?  I had some people tell me it was too hard.  Were they telling the truth or just being wusses?
• I thought there weren't enough levels.  Should there be more?  Speaking of which, if anyone would like to make some levels for me, let me know.
• How are the sounds and music?  Do they fit at all?
• Anyone find any bugs?

Obviously, I'd like all the feedback to be glowingly positive, but constructive criticism is welcome too.  How else am I supposed to learn to be better?  Just be kind, okay? 

Hmm.  Offers for artwork and music and hugs.  I can code.  All we need is a good idea and we could make something awesome!

So, yeah.  If anyone needs a coder I haven't come up with a great idea on my own yet.

Hurray for the extension!  It would have been cool to end on Halloween, but this does mean that it's much more likely that I'll be able to get something done to submit.

By the by, would it be possible to start a co-op thread for this compo?  And if it wouldn't, are there any artists out there looking for a coder?  I have a feeling ASCII art isn't going to cut it for me this time and I probably won't have time to do all the art that I'd like even WITH the extension.

100,000+ views?  I thought my 6000 views on my submission was good.  Good job guys!

But that only gives me one tone. I WANT TO MAKE PC BEEP MUSIC DAMNIT.

If .NET 2.0+ is an option for you there is a Console.Beep() method where you pass it the frequency and duration.

I had a student write a program that played the music from Super Mario Bros.  It was pretty cool.  I wanted to do something like that on my demake submission but I ran out of time.

Let him run on my desktop for about a minute. Problem is all my widows are always maximized. Would it be possible for him to identify any horizontal line long enough for him to stand on and jump up and down the "platforms"?

In a future version I'm planning on making it so he interacts with the windows you currently have up (walking on top of them and such).  But it sounds like you're talking about something else.  Do you mean if I'm looking at an image in Paint.NET and that image has horizontal lines than Megaman would be able to walk on the horizontal lines in the image?  That would be possible, but not terribly easy.  I'm not sure how well it work if you scrolled and stuff like that though.

Actually, since your name is "the particle man", that kind of forced me into listening to what you had to say.

Looks cool though.

Who knew a They Might Be Giants reference could have so much power?

I can see he is very in beta. Looking good so far though.

Thanks!  Was there anything in particular that made him feel "in beta"?  Did you have any problems or was it just that he doesn't do too much yet?



Some of the things I want to add include:

• Jumping/Dashing
• Jumping off walls
• Interaction with more than just the task bar
• Maybe have enemies to interact with?
• Have different suits
• If you drop Megaman from too high he dies and beams in somewhere else
• Be able to throw Megaman (how fast your mouse is moving when you let go of him determines his trajectory)

Any other improvements anyone can think of?

This isn't exactly a game, but it's game related and I thought that the group of people that frequent the forum here might find this entertaining.

http://mythicant.com/2008/10/06/a-little-buddy.aspx

In case it's any incentive for you to actually click the link, it does involve Megaman.  Who can say no to that?

I have lots of improvements that I want to make.  If you have any ideas for improvements please feel free to let me know.

Saw a video about this somewhere the other day.  Looks like lots of fun!  I look forward to seeing (and more importantly playing) it when it comes out!  Good luck and keep up the good work!

Hi, I'm Jon, also known as The Particle Man.  I've been into gaming for a long, long time.  I think the first video game I remember is my brother playing Pong and Tennis on some version of Atari, followed closely by Centipede on an old Sinclair-ish computer.  I really got introduced to gaming on the Commodore 64 though.  (Jumpman rules!)  In my golden age of gaming I moved into NES, SNES and PC.  For the past few years I haven't been as much into gaming though.  It seems like a lot of the focus has moved into flashiness and marketing.  Actually making games fun to play seems to be an afterthought for a lot of developers.  It doesn't help that a lot of new games now cost $50 or $60 or $70 or more.  And for what?  A game that's a lot like games that came out 5 or 10 years ago, just a little prettier.  Not really funner though.  But recently I've started being interested in indie game development because it seems like it's fueled more by passion than by money.  People making fun things for the sake of making fun things, rather than for the sake of making money.

Anyway, that's a little on my game related background.  In the real world I'm a senior software developer working on things that are much less fun than games.  I do get to do some architectural work which is more interesting, so that's nice.  I currently code primarily in C#, but I've also worked quite a bit in VB.NET, Java, C++, Pascal and good old BASIC.

I'll chime in, basically to agree with what everyone else here has said.  Make sure you expectations are realistic.  I've also been in the "I'm going to make the coolest game ever!" boat.  That doesn't work out very well for your first game (and in my case not even for my tenth game ).  Take some time to learn how to make games in whatever language you choose.  One thing that was very important for me was to actually finish some games.  Not just start on something cool and stop when I got to a hard spot.  But hit that hard spot and push and push until I finally get through it.  I think that's where I've learned the most and my skills have really improved. 

My recommendation would be to try a few VERY simple tests with a few different languages/platforms.  Find out how easy it is to actually display an image on the screen and move it around (like others have suggested, I'd recommend starting with 2D rather than 3D).  Once you pick a language/platform then start with a VERY simple game (maybe Tetris or Pacman or a simple platformer like has already been suggested) and finish it all the way through.  Don't worry if it's not the best game ever.  If you have someone play it and they only play it for 10 minutes before getting bored, hey, that's 10 minutes of entertainment that you gave someone.  Once you get past that point, get a little more ambitious.  Start creating slightly longer games, with slightly more features.  Not too much at once, but a little at a time.  Keep that up and soon you'll be a game developer guru!  (I'll let you know how it is once I get there )

As for suggestions on a language, I personally have done game development in Java and C#, both of which are very capable.  I've heard good things about PyGame, but haven't tried it myself.  I know a lot of people recommend other game development platforms, but I haven't used any of those so I can't give you a recommendation about them.

Good luck!

BASIC on my C64 baby! 

Then BASIC on my Amiga and QBASIC on my PC.  Pascal and a touch of C++ in high school.  In college more Pascal and a lot more C++ (and a few random languages like SmallTalk and Scheme).  Then I was a TA for a class taught in Java, so that seemed like a good thing to learn.  (It was funny to watch the expression on the face of the first student whose code I looked at when after saying that he didn't know Java very well I responded that that was okay, I didn't either )  After a couple of years of Java I learned C# as a research assistant.  I'm currently a C# junkie, though my current job also uses VB.NET, so I've had to learn that.  They also have a bunch of legacy code in VB6, but I don't claim any of that.

To learn list: Ruby, Python, F#, maybe Flash.

Add another person to list of people interested in Silverlight game development.  (That other person is me, just it case you were in doubt.)