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[Skirvir]

I'm curious as I searched the forums and was rather shocked to find very little (one thread) on silverlight, is there just no interest or is it that people are unaware of it's potential for games? It's an incredibly powerful framework for making all sorts of applications as well as games.

Awhile back I fiddled with http://www.codeplex.com/FarseerPhysics which is a really neat 2D physics engine for both XNA and Silverlight. That's just one example, with all the Flash games being created I'm just suprised Silverlight doesn't seem to be talked about much. It's cross-platform, extensive .NET support and my favorite, you can use C# or VB.NET (or any other .NET language) to write your Silverlight games (I personally never could stand Flash's scripting language myse

[skaldicpoet9]

Problem is I never really here about it anywhere. The only reason I even vaguely know silverlight is because of the msdn website and when I downloaded C++ Express edition it asked my if I wanted to install silverlight and I decided why not because it was a small install anyways. I would be interested to know more about it actually, I am always open to new languages and such. Do you know of a good place for silverlight documentation/ tutorials?

[Skirvir]

That's why I'm bringing it up :D

The obvious recommendations are:
http://silverlight.net/
http://silverlight.net/Learn

They kinda of pulled a subset of .NET and a subset of WPF (if your familiar with it) and wrapped it all into Silverlight, which runs on the client, just like Flash. The neat thing however is WPF leverages XAML which allows you complete and flawless control over your UI (it's XML based) which is outstanding imo.

This site has a blog as well as some tutorials:
http://www.bluerosegames.com/brg/silverlight_game_development.aspx

Just search around, it's actually in use with gaming quite a bit, and overall is a very neat technology, it's not just a MS knockoff of Flash or anything, it's actually very powerful stuff.

[skaldicpoet9]

Right on, thanks for those. I'll be sure to check it out.

I will also add it to the Programming Languages Resource thread for a little more exposure here on TIGS

[skaldicpoet9]

Wow, I am looking at a few of the featured websites on the silverlight front page and it seems like silverlight is pretty lightweight. That's badass. I might have to play around with this a bit...

[JLJac]

Silverlight was going to take over for flash, right? That doesn't seem to be going very well... Maybe in some time. Thing is, it's a bit of a gamble to learn it, because if it breaks you will be on the front line, but if it doesn't it doesn't.

[Skirvir]

I would imagine it was meant to compete with Flash on some level, on many levels it utterly destroys Flash in my opinion as I generally see Flash used in mostly advertising, and then games, and lastly, some specialized websites and streaming video. Not to mention the environment for coding is lackluster at best with Flash, while the animation stuff may well be superior, I really don't know.

Silverlight has a ton more applications than that though, in fact entire business applications and platform stacks are in development, not that it can't be done with Flash, I just think, productivity-wise, Silverlight outshines Flash, I have a strong feeling that will be the case with games as well, etc. I've been incredibly impressed with Silverlight while I never was with Flash really (not being a graphic artist I suppose has a lot to do with that as well so I admittedly have a strong bias towards strong development and programming environments).

I don't understand the notion that it's a gamble to learn it, it's definitly here to stay, it's under heavy support and development at Microsoft, and it definitly won't be breaking (unless you code it wrong .

Anyway, we're talking for games and I wanted to bring it up for game purposes cause it appeared this entire forum/site wasn't really aware of Silverlight being another viable route to take for developing games, haha as if there aren't enough ways to make games right?

[JLJac]

Oh sorry, I used break as in "break through"... Not a native speaker :D

If Microsoft supports it it will propably get more popular over time, but still flash is strongly rooted in the web. A transition might take some time. But if it is attrative for you programers, why not?

I for one is more of an graphical artist with alignment towards interactivity and animation. I want to create graphical elements that move depending on feedback from physics, player input and other in-game objects, and I want really quick results. It can't take more than 20 minutes from the first line of code to that I see movement on the screen and can start callibrating values, or I will get frustrated. Both flash and macromedia director are good at this. Is silverlight?

You are right that there are very few silverlight games at this forum, I can only recall one or two for the last couple of months, and those were kind of small and simple. Maybe it is that people is still learning it, there's no-one who knows it as good as there are people who knows flash?

[JeffWeber]

I think it's just that Silverlight hasn't hit any kind of critical mass yet. 

I've been making games with it since it's been in beta and I think it's an excellent platform for game development.  (You can see my games at www.FarseerGames.com.)

What I would like to see are some portals come out that support "Web Games" in general. I think a portal that supported Flash, Silverlight, Unity, JavaFX, etc... could really differentiate itself from the 10 million existing Flash portals that all pretty much carry the same games.

In my opinion, most users don't care what tech was used to make a game, they just want to play fun games.  A small minority complain about installing "yet another plug-in", but I think the majority don't give a crap if the game looks worth-it.

That said, there are a couple Silverlight game portals starting to pop up: www.SilverArcade.com and www.Mashooo.com are the most prominent at the moment.

I'm currently working on another Silverlight game called

.  Hopefully by the time I'm done Silverlight will have gained some traction as a gaming platform.

-Jeff Weber
www.FarseerGames.com

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it also seems to be able to mess up your computer worse than Flash when it goes wrong -- I went to that silverarcade portal site, tried the art of solitaire game, went to full screen, and noticing that the bottom part of the game wasn't visible anymore went back to normal mode, and when I went back my entire screen had been weirdly shifted upwards: the top part of my screen was no longer visible and there was an extra bar of nothing on the bottom. never had Flash do anything that bad to my computer due to a bug before.

[Skirvir]

It can't take more than 20 minutes from the first line of code to that I see movement on the screen and can start callibrating values, or I will get frustrated. Both flash and macromedia director are good at this. Is silverlight?

This is a familiarity question, if your not familiar with XAML and basic WPF principles then it's going to take more than 20min, obviously you as well as many other are probably far more familiar with Flash, you've been working with it for years and it's been around for over a decade so of course you guys will probably be quicker with Flash, stick with what you know

You are right that there are very few silverlight games at this forum, I can only recall one or two for the last couple of months, and those were kind of small and simple. Maybe it is that people is still learning it, there's no-one who knows it as good as there are people who knows flash?

I find that most Flash games are small and simple at their core, in fact most hobby games are generally small and simple, there's nothing wrong with that though. I think people are still learning it and most people are simply more familiar with Flash.

At a recent conference I attended, they told us the number of downloads of Silverlight was somewhere in the 300 million range, so I think it's safe to say that Silverlight is definitly out there, it's not nearly as propagated as Flash but that's a good amount of machines and that was about 3-4 months ago, it's a shiny new technology, it just needs time is all

(They also have Expression line of products which make creating Flash things easier for animators and graphic artists, it's essentially like Visual Studio for artists and such, it's probaby precisely what a lot of Flash folks would feel most comfortable in (and myself not so comfortable hehe http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Overview.aspx?key=blend).

Paul.. that's an odd issue for sure (not indicative of Silverlight as a whole, just so you know), give it another shot and if it keeps happening, let the guys (the folks who made that game or MS) know so they can fix it

[Craig Stern]

I have had bad experiences with Microsoft products in the past, and they have a history of simply dropping support for things when it suits their interests. That having been said, Silverlight has been marketed as a Flash replacement, yet the last time I checked, its penetration rate in browsers worldwide isn't even in the same universe as Flash's. No one wants their players to have to download a new program just to play their game in a browser (I'm exempting Unity from that rule because its capabilities are so dramatically different from Flash's--Silverlight doesn't have any such compelling reason to merit making users download the player, as far as I know, though I'm open to being proven wrong).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

That's true -- if I wanted to use a browser-based programming language which wasn't Flash to make games, Unity seems a lot more attractive than Silverlight, particularly in the games that have been made with it so far.

[JeffWeber]

Silverlight doesn't have any such compelling reason to merit making users download the player, as far as I know, though I'm open to being proven wrong).

I get your point on this, but I'd still say most players would not be bothered by a one-time 2-3 minute download if the game is compelling enough. (Some will, yes, but not most.)

I've had many people ask in a bewildered manner why I didn't make Diver a Flash game. My answer is I have 10 years experience with Microsoft tools and tech and zero with Flash. I also have a full-time job and no time to learn an new dev language/environment.

I have found most people don't seem to have a problem downloading the plug-in, the biggest disadvantage for Silverlight right now is the lack of portals that support it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I agree that most people don't really have a problem downloading a plugin, especially if it's automated. As for silverlight's distribution, I believe MSNBC broadcasts much of its video in silverlight (particularly the 2008 olympics coverage on their site), that's when I installed the plugin. But I still think the games I've seen in it so far have all been pretty much unpolished beginner-quality stuff. It's hard to get excited about a platform when it has no really excellent games to show off what it can do.

[Skirvir]

I've had many people ask in a bewildered manner why I didn't make Diver a Flash game. My answer is I have 10 years experience with Microsoft tools and tech and zero with Flash. I also have a full-time job and no time to learn an new dev language/environment.

That's about precisely where I am and why I tend to like Silverlight over Flash, it's already more familiar to me cause I can take my .NET skills and very quickly move into Silverlight development, Flash, I can't do that with as easily or quickly.

At the same time, I wouldn't ever suggest anyone make anything truly serious with either Flash or Silverlight, they are great for smaller and simpler arcade type games however.

Also, I should also point out, Silverlight is not purely browser based, with Version 3 coming out (or out, I can't keep up), you will be able to install Silverlight applications on the local computer, essentially detaching it from the internet/browser, I think this has some pretty neat implications for a variety of applications including games. Like that particular game? Cool, just install it locally for next time! (And, they can auto-update themselves I believe, like when you publish a new version, which is always handy).

[JeffWeber]

At the same time, I wouldn't ever suggest anyone make anything truly serious with either Flash or Silverlight, they are great for smaller and simpler arcade type games however.

I think as Flash and Silverlight keep maturing, this will become less and less true. Flash 10 and Silverlight 3 both support hardware accelerated graphics.  I think it's safe to assume future versions of both will eventually support full-3d (rather than the current 2.5d). Shaders will also become hardware accelerated. 

At that point I think some really exciting things will be built.. more than just your simple arcade/casual games.  In fact, I think there are some folks who have already pushed Flash beyond where most think it can go.

Throw Unity and Instant Action in the mix and web games have a bright future.  Just need those portals to start thinking outside the "Flash" universe a bit.

-Jeff Weber

[JoeHonkie]

The .NET integration is what I like.  I feel like a sap for focusing on C# so much now that I have a Mac as well as a PC, but things like XNA and Silverlight make for a very appealing ecosystem for just that one programming language.