Monday, December 28, 2009

I`m back

Welcome back!

I got back yesterday afternoonn but I`ve been pretty busy catching up on things. I did get a new laptop for Christmas from my sister. It is a pretty good laptop and I`ve been trying to get it up and running. I`ve also had a few other things that I`ve had to do. I hope to get back to Eyes of the Dragon this week, as well as other tutorials that I would like to write.

I`ve also been busy trying to set up shop as and Indie developer with XNA. This will cut into the time I can spend on my tutorials but I will be working on them. I will not be working on the game programming contests at Game Institute any more freeing up the time that I was spending on those projects. I hope to have a new tutorial up on the site in the very near future.

Bixel, a reader of my tutorials, has made a couple suggestions on the tutorials on creating a role playing game with XNA. One was to have an editor for creating dialogs for the game. That is something that I will be working on eventually if I ever find the time for that. I also have some plans for the tile map editor for the game. Bixel also pointed out a problem with that editor. If you click outside of the right or bottom edges of the map the editor will throw an exception. I will add in the fix for that in the next tutorial and also make a fix for moving from XP to Windows 7 in an upcoming tutorial.
Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Got the editor working

Welcome back!

I was able to get the map editor working. I won't be writing any more tutorials on the editor. I will make the source code available for download. I said it before but I'm going to have two versions of the game. The first one will be with XNA 3.0 and the other will be with XNA 3.1. The reason is that XNA 3.1 allows you to work on both XNA 3.0 and XNA 3.1 projects. I will make a copy of the XNA 3.0 game and I will update it work with XNA 3.1. I will be working with XNA 3.0 first for the tutorials and then I will apply the necessary changes to the XNA 3.1 version of the game. I hope to get the coding for the next tutorial finished today.

Just to let you all know, I will be away for Christmas, from the 22nd to the 27th. I will be visiting my sister. I still don't have a laptop so I won't be able to work on things while I'm away.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Friday, December 18, 2009

Problems with map editor

Welcome back!

I've been having problems with the map editor. For whatever reason since I've moved to Windows 7 I can't get it to work. What I am going to do is leave the map editor out of the tutorials. I will make a map editor and make it available for download as a separate application. I am busy for pretty much the whole day today so I don't think I will have time to work on the tutorials today. I did get a bit of the coding done, as well as a nicer image of a chest made. I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to work on this more. I will also be creating a XNA 3.1 version of the game.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Thursday, December 17, 2009

What is happening

Welcome back!

Well, I've got this new computer up and running pretty good. I've transfered all of the files that I need to it as well. I was able to get Eyes of the Dragon up and running with no problems. Both in XNA 3.0 and XNA 3.1. I'm having a problem getting the map editor to work though. I will work on that but until then I think I will get back to the tutorial that I was working on, having the player to be able to interact with items in the game. I will also write a short tutorial on how to upgrade the game from XNA 3.0 to XNA 3.1 if you would like to do that. You should have to if you don't want to. I will try not to do anything that would require XNA 3.1 if you do not want to use it.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The move to Windows 7

Welcome back!

I have been making the move to Windows 7 and installing of the programs that I usually use for development and other things. So far it is going pretty well. I have XNA 3.1 installed on the computer with Visual C# 2008 Express edition. I created a tested the Platformer Start Kit last night and it worked perfectly. I'm amazed at how much faster this computer is compared to my old ones. I'm hoping this evening to get all of the important files I need for working on my tutorials onto this computer. They are on a network drive, I just have to copy them over to this one. I hope to get back to work on my tutorials tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

What happened to Jamie???

Welcome back!

Sorry I haven't made any posts in the past few days or done any work on the tutorials. I've had a few issues that I had to deal with. I hope to get back to this project very shortly.

On another note, I treated myself to an early Christmas present. I bought a new desktop computer. My other one still works, I just thought it was time to make the move to Windows 7 and get a faster computer. What I'm planning on doing is using my new computer and upgrade the game to use XNA 3.1 and on the other one I will use XNA 3.0. I will also be getting a laptop in the not too distant future. Right now I'm installing all of the programs I need to get Visual Studio and XNA going. I will probably be adding the files I need for the tutorials and such tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Second screen management tutorial!

Welcome back!

I have finished the second tutorial on adding screen management to your XNA games. This tutorial actually covers creating separate screens for different parts of your XNA game. Separating the screens of your game into different classes will make your game easier to manage. It will also allow for code reuse down the road. If you have a screen management system in one game you can easily transfer it to a new game. You can find the link to the XNA screen management tutorials on the XNA Tutorials page of my web site, XNA Game Programming Adventures.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Finished the tutorial I was talking about earlier

I have finished writing the tutorial I was talking about this morning on creating a role playing game with XNA. I have upload the tutorial to the RPG Tutorials page of my web site. In this tutorial I added in collision detection between the player's sprite and the sprites for the NPCs so that the player can not walk through them. In the next tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA I will be adding in the player being able to pick up items from the game screen. I encourage you to keep come to this blog for what I am working on in regards to my XNA tutorials, both RPG and others, or you can visit the XNA Blog page of my web site.

Sorry I missed yesterday

Welcome back!

Well, I missed yesterday but I did write a new XNA tutorial and I have uploaded it to my site for download. This isn't a role playing game tutorial though. I'm writing a two part, might add a third part, tutorial on handing screen management with XNA. I'm also working on the next tutorial in the creating a role playing game with XNA tutorial series. In this tutorial I will be making it so that the player can't walk through NPCs, which they can at the moment. It won't be a terribly long tutorial so I may add a few other things in that have been bothering me that are easy to fix.

You can find the link to the tutorial on the XNA Tutorials page of my web site.

This is a list of a few things that I have planned for the near future:
  • Multiple maps
  • Items
  • Shops
  • Actual combat
  • Quests
  • Game mechanics

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Monday, December 7, 2009

New XNA RPG Tutorial!

Well, I have just added the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA to my web site! As I mentioned this tutorial was about adding some visual elements for the player's character to the game. You can find the link to the tutorials on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Started writing next XNA RPG tutorial

Welcome back!

I have started writing the next tutorial in my Creating a Role Playing Game with XNA tutorial series. Like I mentioned in my previous post I didn't like just having one sprite for the player to control. There are after all 4 classes and 2 genders and just the one sprite. Well, I fixed that. I used an online sprite tool for RPG Maker to make some sprites for the player's character. I made eight of them in total and added them into the game. Now in the character generator when the player is creating their character there is a little picture of the sprite for that character class and gender. Also, when you go to the actual game with a generated character the appropriate sprite will appear on the screen. I hope to have this tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA on my site for download this evening or tomorrow at the latest. Just thought I would post a couple screen shots of what I did.

Character Generator


Game With Sprite


Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Visual aspects

Welcome back!

What I am working on at the moment is adding sprites for the different characters. Since there are four classes and two genders there will be eight sprites in total. What I would like to do is have a different sprite for each of the classes and genders. In the character generator when the player is selecting creating their character a picture of the appropriate sprite will be on the screen as well. While a minor thing it has been bugging me for a while.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

Friday, December 4, 2009

Third post in one day, new tutorial is online!

Wow! Three posts in one day. That must be close a new record for me. Just wanted to let you all know that the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA is now on my site for download. You can find the link to the tutorial in PDF format on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site. If you want the zipped version so you can download it and read it at your convenience you can find it on the RPG Tutorials ZIP page of my web site.

Got combat screen displaying properly

I have been busy this morning on my creating a role playing game with XNA project. I have the player and the creature attacking the player going to the combat screen when the player gets with in the range of the attacking creature. The actual combat isn't working yet but if you press the escape key the game will return to the action screen. Just thought that you might be interested in a screen shot of what I got working.

Combat Screen



Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code
XNA Game Programming Adventures

New page on my site!

Welcome back!

I've added a new page to XNA Game Programming Adventures! This page will be a blog of sorts that I will be adding what I am working on for my tutorials and short little tutorials on general XNA or snippets that you might find interesting or helpful. The URL of the page is http://xna.jtmbooks.com/xnagpablog.html.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Screen shot of what I got accomplished

Welcome back!

I have been working on the creating a role playing game with XNA tutorial series. I've added to the game the ability to to add in monsters for the player to fight. I might write a tutorial on getting to this point and then in a second part get to the actual screen where the combat will take place. That might be a good idea thinking about it. It won't be finished today but I do hope to have it finished tomorrow, Saturday at the latest.  In any event, this is the screen shot of the game with monsters on the action screen.

Monsters on the Screen

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Working on combat

Welcome back!

I will be working on combat today. I hope to get the code and tutorial done today. I won't be doing the full combat system as it is going to take quite a bit of code to do it. What I hope to get working is have it so that if the player gets close to an enemy it will go to the combat screen and if you press escape in the combat screen it will return back to the game.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Working on getting to combat

Welcome back!

I have started working on adding in enemies for the player to fight in the game. They way that I'm going to handle it is there will be enemies on the map. Is the player gets with in a certain radius of them the player will be taken to a combat screen. To handle to this new screen I will be using a new screen that is derived from the GameScreen class. Adding the new screen will not be all that hard. The way I'm going to implement it will be different than the other screens I've added so far. The concept is the same though. While it is active the other screens will not update or draw themselves.

I've also started working on some sprites for the player's character. I found a good tutorial on spriting and I've been working with it. This is not something that I expect to finish in the near future, it is more something that I will work on now and again. Just thought I would show you the first sprite sheet that I completed.



While I was working on the screen for the combat to take place on I found out why there were lines in the tile engine. Tile tiles that I have been using aren't the greatest tiles. They will work for the tutorials but you would probably want to find or make some tiles of your own for your game.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, November 30, 2009

Next XNA RPG tutorial is up!

Welcome back!

I have just uploaded the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA to my web site! This tutorial continues on with adding in dialog for the NPCs. I've also split the RPG Tutorials page in two. There is now a RPG Tutorials ZIP page. On the normal RPG Tutorials page there are the links to the PDF tutorials. On the second page are the links to the zipped tutorials. I also added a screen shot of the game in dialog mode to the Screenshots page.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Got the scripting code finished!

Welcome back!

I have been working on getting a script into the conversation bubble and responding to the player's input. I've got it working. I wrote three scripts to test it with. The sprites that I chose were of a knight, ninja and skeleton. I wrote a small script for each of them and tested it. This is a screen shot of what the dialog looks like. (I will have to make a bigger bubble because the text does not fit nicely into the bubble I'm using.)

 

I hope to have the tutorial on my web site on Monday. I don't think that it will be ready tonight and I don't think I will be working on it tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, November 27, 2009

Was working on the game

Welcome back!

I have been working on the XNA role playing game today. I got a lot accomplished and I hope to work on the writing of the tutorial tomorrow. What I did a little more refactoring and I also got a start on being able to move next to an NPC and press the space bar to start a conversation with them. I have it so that if you are near an NPC and you press the space bar a conversation window will pop up and if you press it again the conversation window will close. This is what the action screen looks like with a conversation window on it.

Eyes of the Dragon
Dialog Window


I have also been working on an entry to the latest game programming challenge at Game Institute. It is, of course, an XNA game. The theme of this game is a tower defense game. For the title I've gone with Defender of the Crown. It was a game I used to play a long time ago. Just thought I would post a couple screen shots of that as well.

DotC Main Menu


DotC Game With Wave


Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Next RPG tutorial is up!

Welcome back!

I have finished writing the next tutorial in the creating a role playing game with XNA. In this tutorial I added in custom Content Pipeline classes to import, process, write and read tile maps. I also fixed an error that had to do with the tile engine. You can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG tutorials page of my web site. I hope to have another tutorial up in the very near future. So keep visiting this blog for the latest news on how these tutorials are proceeding.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Finished the coding but not the writing

Welcome back!

I have finished coding the next tutorial on Eyes of the Dragon, the tutorials on creating a role playing game with XNA. This is still part of the refactoring but I also added in the ability to use the Content Pipeline to import, process, write and read maps. I also fixed a huge error in the design related to that. Using a DrawableGameComponent for the TileMap class seemed like a good idea but it actually wasn't. The reason is that it requires you to pass as a parameter a Game object to the constructor. There really wasn't a way to do that and have a custom Content Pipeline project. What I did was create a TileMapComponent and a TileMap class. So, this tutorial will be rather long. I hope to finish it up tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, November 23, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

Well, I've added in the next tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. In this tutorial I did a little refactoring because something has been bothering me for a while now. I've found that having an action screen is good for smaller games but with everything that I'm wanting to implement into this game it is going to end up being a major pain eventually. I've started refactoring things a little to make it better to add in what I am wanting to or possibly even remove it completely. You can find the link to this tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Have been busy

Welcome back!

I have been working on this project but other projects as well. There is a new game programming contest at Game Institute. The theme for this one is a Tower Defense game. You do not have to be a student to enter but you do have to register as a visitor. If you are interested in participating you can find more information at http://www.gameinstitute.com/challenges.php. You will have to register before you can go to the challenges area.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, November 20, 2009

Second collision layer tutorial is online!

Welcome back!

Well, I finished writing the second tutorial on the collision layer this afternoon and have uploaded it to my web site. The collision works perfectly, even on the diagonals. The one thing that I might add in later is for the sprite to be able to enter the transparent parts of tiles that can not be entered. That is another really complex topic as it would involve per pixel collision detection and since I'm using a tile set instead of individual tiles that would make things a little more difficult. As always you can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Coding done but not the tutorial. Response to comment on the blog.

Welcome back!

I have got the tile collision working pretty well. I have it so that the player cannot walking into the water tiles on the map that I made. I wasn't able to get the writing of the tutorial done. I should have it up on the site sometime on the 20th, Eastern Standard Time.

There was a comment on the blog asking if I could explain the ProcessCollisionLayer method. What this method does is loop through all of the tiles in the layer. In the switch statement I get what the current tile is passing the x and y loop variables. The switch statement takes the tile id returned and compares it to the tiles that can not be walked in. I will update the tutorial and try and explain it better in the tutorial. If there are any other questions or comments about this feel free to post them on the blog or use the contact form on my web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Another RPG tutorial is on my site!

Welcome back!

Well, I have added yet another tutorial to my web site on creating a role playing game with XNA. This tutorial is a little short but it paves the way for the next one which will be a little complex. I've gotten started on adding a collision layer to the game. The collision layer is an important topic. What the collision layer does, for one, is keep the player from walking through impassable tiles like trees or water. The actual collision detection is a little more complicated to deal with. Collision detection itself can be a complicated topic, especially when you are dealing with transparency and animation. You can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

I have just uploaded another tutorial in my creating a role playing game series. If you read in the comments on this blog there was a minor problem with lines around the tiles in the tile engine at times. This is a problem with the tiles that I am using. I made a fix that will greatly reduce this problem but not solve it completely. To solve it completely you will need better tiles. I also worked on the map editor. The editor now works with just the mouse. The map scrolls when the mouse cursor is at the edges of the tile map display. The editor will paint while the left mouse button is down. You can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, November 16, 2009

Issue with lines in the tile map of the game

If you saw the comment here on the blog there is an issue with lines when the tile map is rendering in the game. The problem is the tiles in the tile set. There is a minor error with them. I've reduced the lines as best I can with the tile set. If you use better tiles than the ones I have chosen for the game you will not see this problem. In the next tutorial I will add in how to reduce the problem with the lines. I will also look for better tiles for the game or try and make some better ones that will stop this problem.

The latest tutorial is online!

Welcome back!

I have uploaded the newest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA to my web site. In this tutorial I have added in the a few more sprites. You can find the link to the tutorials on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Screen shot of what I have been working on

Welcome back!

 I have been doing some coding and writing on the next tutorial for Eyes of the Dragon. What I did was add in a few sprites pointing in different directions and animating. I changed a bunch of the sprites from Philipp Lenssen's site EvilMana.com for use in the game. I changed them from 32 by 32 pixel sprites to 64 by 64 pixel sprites. I also put them into separate sprite sheets with all of the sprites on the same row. Instead of switching them all to have the down animation as the first animation I just changed the order of the animations in the enum.

Game Screen With Sprites




Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Tutorial is on the site!

Welcome back!

I have finished the latest tutorial and have updated my pages and you can find it on the site. The link to all the role playing game tutorials is on the RPG Tutorials page.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Hope to have new tutorial up this evening

Welcome back!

I am finally home again and have some time to work on the latest tutorial. I have it almost done but since I have been away for a while now I need to go over it again and make sure that I have included all of the changes I've made in the code.

I want to thank you all for your patience in these trying times for me.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Something terrible happened

Welcome back!

My father passed on. I'm not sure how much I will be able to work on tutorials for the next week as I will not be home and I no longer have a lap top to take with me to work on. Don't be surprised if there are no posts on the blog for a little while.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Have been busy coding and writing

Welcome back!

I have been busy coding and writing the next tutorial. I now have the Tile Map Editor being able to edit multiple layers. I've also tested the multilayer maps in the game. Just thought I would post a screen shot of a map in the editor and in the game.

Tile Map Editor




Eyes of the Dragon

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Finished the new tile set image

Welcome back!

I finished making a new tile set for the game. They are fairly simple tiles but there are 64 of them in the tile set now. These are the new tiles for the game.

Tile Set


Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, November 2, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

I have added another tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA to my web site. In this tutorial I added in to the map editor the ability to read a map that was saved to disk. The editor still only works on a single layer but I will add in the functionality to work on multiple layers in the next tutorial on the map editor. You can find the link to the latest tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.
Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Hopefully will have next tutorial online tomorrow.

Welcome back!

Being Sunday I don't really like to work on coding or writing. I do plan to try and work on things tomorrow though and I hope to have the tutorial available online for download.

If any of you would like to send screen shots of what you are working on in your own game I would like to create a show case on my web site of what you are doing. You can contact me at: simplejamie613 at gmail dot com

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Been writing the next tutorial

Welcome back!

I have been working on the next tutorial for the Tile Map Editor program. I've got quite a bit accomplished and I do hope to have it on the web site soon for download. I may add in the ability to add another layer to the map. The reason is that much of the code I've added to the editor was pretty much copied and pasted from other classes that you have seen the code to before.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, October 30, 2009

Was working on the map editor

Welcome back!

I did some work on the map editor this evening. I have the map editor being able to load in a map from disk now. There was a lot of code to do this so I think I will write a tutorial on what I have done so far and then go from there.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Was working on editor

Welcome back!

I was working on the editor last night. I've been working on being able to read in a map to the editor and I will also be working on adding layers to the map. I encourage you to either keep visiting this blog for the latest news on the game or you can visit the news page of my site.

It was also brought to my attention that the link to tutorial 31 on my site was broken. I have updated the site and the link goes to the proper tutorial.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, October 29, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

I finished writing the new tutorial on reading a tile map into the game. You can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Been working on the new tutorial

Welcome back!

I was able to get all of the coding that I wanted to get done and on reading a map into the game. The tutorial is not quite complete yet but it will be a short tutorial. I do hope to have to tutorial up very soon. So keep visiting the blog or my web site for the latest news.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

I'm sorry it has taken so long but I have uploaded a new tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon. In this tutorial I have the ability to create and write a single layer tile map. I'm already onto reading in a single layer map into the game. You can find a link to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site. There is a screen shot of the editor on the Screenshots page.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Will keep you updated

Welcome back!

At the moment I am in the middle of a family crisis. I'm not sure how much work I will be able to get done on the game. I will also be going away for a little while and since the monitor on my laptop died I will not be able to do any coding or writing while I am gone. I will keep you up to date on what is going on.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Been working on the editor

Welcome back!

I have been working on the tile map editor today and I've started writing the next tutorial on it. I have been able to get the editor to write out the tile map, with a single layer at the moment. I will soon be adding in the ability to create other layers, save layers and read in layers. In the tutorial after this one I will be adding into the game being able to read in a map from disk but not with the Content Pipeline. I want to be fully finished the editor before I add in that ability. So check back soon as I do hope to have the tutorial up on my site shortly.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Had a busy day

Welcome back!

Today has been very busy for me. I didn't really get to the writing I wanted to. I will have time tomorrow and I will also add in the code to write a single layer map to the editor.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Some coding done but no writing

Welcome back!

Well, I got a fair bit accomplished today on the Tile Map Editor. You can now draw a single layer map with the editor. At the moment the cursor control the scrolling of the map. In a future tutorial I will add in being able to scroll the map by having the mouse cursor at the edges of the map.

Tile Map Editor


Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, October 19, 2009

Added a new tutorial on the tile map editor

Welcome back!

I just finished uploading the newest tutorial on the tile map editor to my web site. In this tutorial I made a change to the editor because I made a bad design decision when I created the editor. The tutorial is a little on the long side and I'm sorry about that. In the next tutorial I will get to actually editing maps with the editor and I will also try and add in writing them out as well if it will not make the tutorial too long. If I get to writing them out in the following tutorial I will get to reading them in to the game. Later I will get to creating Content Pipeline importers, processors and writers for the maps. You can find links to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, October 17, 2009

28th tutorial is online!

Welcome back!

I have uploaded the 28th tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. Like I mentioned yesterday I have been working on a tile map editor for Eyes of the Dragon as being able to load in a map at run time is an important aspect of a role playing game. You can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

This is a screenshot of what the editor looks like at the moment.

Tile Map Editor


Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, October 16, 2009

Been working on the next tutorial.

Welcome back!

I have been coding today as well as writing about that code. So far the editor is coming along nice. I have been able to read in a tile set and have the current tile display in the PictureBox. That might not sound like a lot but it was a fair amount of code. The explanation of it has taken quite a while though as it is pretty complex.

What I will work on next is implementing a tile engine into the tile display. That shouldn't be near as hard as what I have been doing today.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, October 15, 2009

New RPG tutorial is on my web site!

Welcome back!

I have just uploaded a new tutorial on my web site on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon. In this tutorial I got started on adding a tile map editor to help with the game. I added the map editor to the solution so when you want to work on the map you can just right click the tile map editor project and select Set As Startup and you will be able run the project directly from the same solution. In this tutorial I just got the form created and a control on the form that can be rendered using XNA. You can find the link to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Had other work I had to do today

I was wanting to get to Eyes of the Dragon today but I had other work that I had to do today and I always have much to do on Wednesday afternoons. I will try and get what I want done on the Tile Map Editor tomorrow and hopefully have the tutorial up on it as well.
Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tile Map Editor

Welcome back!

An important part of a role playing game is being able to create maps for the player to explore. At the moment the map is being generated by the program. It would be better if there was a way we could read in a map at run time. I have started the process of creating a tile map editor for Eyes of the Dragon. I will be writing tutorials on how to create the editor. I am hoping that I will have the first tutorial on creating the Tile Map Editor on my website tomorrow evening.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

I have uploaded a new tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. In this tutorial I have added the Tile Set Generator project to Eyes of the Dragon and I did a little bit of refactoring. You can find the links to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site. I am hoping to do some more work on Eyes of the Dragon this afternoon when I get home.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, October 12, 2009

New Tile Engine tutorial!

Welcome back!

I have written a new tutorial in my tile engine series. This is a short tutorial but it increases the efficiency of the tile engine. You can find the link to the tutorial on my XNA Tutorials page.

I will be working on Eyes of the Dragon this afternoon. I hope to have a new tutorial up on Eyes of the Dragon soon.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Took the day off coding

Welcome back!

Since it is Sunday and in Canada this is Thanksgiving weekend I have taken the day off of coding and writing. I will be doing come coding tomorrow though. I will post links to the source code of the Tile Set Generator program on my web site so you can download it and look at it. I am thinking of writing a tutorial on it. It is just there are a lot of controls on the form and I'm not sure how to go about the placing of the controls and such. The code is pretty straight forward and I don't think there is anything really all that complicated.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, October 10, 2009

200th post and 25th tutorial is ready!

Welcome back!

This is officially the 200th post I've made to this blog. I have added in the newest tutorial, number 25, on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. I didn't get to the Tile Set Generator in this tutorial. I will write up a quick tutorial on doing that though in the near future. In this tutorial I finished up adding a sprite to the game for the player to control.

I have also added in a debugging feature to the game. This is completely optional and you do not have to do this. I have a message box that will pop up and ask if you want to run the game in full screen mode. If you choose yes the game will run in full screen mode. If you choose no the game will run in windowed mode. This is a useful debugging tool as if you are running the game in full screen mode and the game crashes sometimes you can not get back to the debugger to see where it was that your game crashed.

You will find the links to the tutorial on the RPG Tutorials page of my web site.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Will be working on next tutorial today

Welcome back!

I am going to try and finish up the tutorials on adding a sprite to the game today. Most of the code is already done. It will just be a matter of writing it up. In this tutorial I will include the creation of the Tile Set Generator and how the program works. I hope to have the newest tutorial ready in the next couple of days if not today.

One of the next things I will be working on is tile map format and a tile map editor. The tile map format is important to the game. This might be a strange restriction but I will probably limit the map layers to being the same size. I will also work on adding in portals that will transfer the player to different maps so that the map isn't incredibly huge. Doing this will make rendering the maps a little more efficient.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, October 9, 2009

24th tutorial is not online!

Welcome back!

I have finished and uploaded the 24th XNA Role Playing Game tutorial to my web site! This is the second part on adding a sprite for the player to control to the screen. I also had a request to add in the ability for when the player presses Escape on the action screen to display a pop up screen to ask if they really want to quit. It wasn't a hard thing to do so I added that in as well. I hope to have the third part on adding a sprite to the game on the site very soon October 12th, GMT, at the latest.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, October 8, 2009

New RPG Tutorial!

Welcome back!

I have uploaded the newest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon to my web site. In this tutorial I added in an animated sprite to the game. At the moment the sprite doesn't move with the map. If you scroll the map the sprite disappears off the screen. In next tutorial, which I already have most of the code for, I will cover moving the sprite on the screen and changing the animation when the sprite changes directions. I hope to have the next tutorial available on the 10th of October, GMT.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thought I would post a screen shot

Welcome back!

I just thought that I would post a screen shot of the sprite on the game screen. Like I had posted in the last entry since I had done so much coding I decided to break it up a little and do things bit by bit. I will definitely have a tutorial up later on the 8th of October, which I guess is today now. This tutorial will go over creating the animation classes and rendering the sprite to the screen. This will not cover getting the sprite to move however. That will be in the tutorial after this one.


Animated Sprite


Tile engine with animated sprite

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Progress on current tutorials

Welcome back!

I have been doing quite a lot of coding on this tutorial and I'm afraid that it will be rather long. I'm thinking of splitting it up but everything is kind of integrated now and I'm not quite sure where to start. I created two classes, similar to the ones Nick uses is his tile engine tutorial series as I do like the method he uses, for sprite animations. There are a few differences however as I added in my own coding style to these. I got the sprite on the screen animating with out much difficulty. The problem was I was trying to simplify adding in the logic to having the map scroll with the sprite. Again, I like what Nick did in his tile engine series in using the matrix to transform the map instead of having to use the camera object to draw items on the map. You could just give them the position and set the transformation matrix. So it ended up that I had made quite a lot of changes to the game in order to do all of this and there is really still a fair amount that I want to do.

What I think I will end up doing is going back to the last version of Eyes of the Dragon and just focus on one item at a time, in interest of keeping the tutorials short and not throwing a lot at you at once.

One of my readers has been having some problems typing the code from the tutorials into his program and has been finding some minor errors that escaped my attention. I would really like to thank him for bringing them to my attention. I've been keeping track of any that he has found and making the proper changes to the tutorials and uploading them to my web site.

So, since I was away for most of the day today it looks like it won't be until tomorrow that I will have the next tutorial on the site for download.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

What am I working on?

Welcome back!

I'm in the process of adding in a sprite for the player character to control. I made a slight alteration to the sprite that I put up yesterday. I put the character walking down in the first two frames, the second two are down, the third left and the fourth right.

I am using a method similar to the one that Nick Gravelyn used in his tile engine series for animating sprites. There will be differences of course. Instead of using a Dictionary and strings for the keys I will be using a List with an enum. I feel that this is simpler and easier to implement.

I hope to have the tutorial finished tomorrow but I can't guarantee that as there is a lot I have to do tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, October 5, 2009

Will be working on the rpg tutorial

Welcome back!

I will be working on the next tutorial for Eyes of the Dragon, the role playing game that I am working on with XNA. Like I said I am trying to add a sprite for the player to control. I downloaded the sprites that Nick Gravelyn used in his tile engine series. They are from the site evilmana.com for the game Last Guardian. I have finished modifying the one that I will be using for the tutorial. Just thought I would post what it looks like with the modifications I made.

Modified sprite from evilmana.com

It looks like it will fit well with the updated tile set I will be using. I hope to have the next tutorial finished by tomorrow evening or Wednesday evening by the latest.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, October 4, 2009

New XNA tutorials!

Welcome back!

I have just add three tutorials to my web site on creating a tile engine with XNA. These are general XNA tutorials and should work with both XNA 3.0 and XNA 3.1. They aren't very long but I they introduce the concepts of creating a tile engine. The first one concentrates on the tiling process. It takes an array of integers and 4 tiles and renders them on the screen. The second deals with scrolling the map in cardinal directions. What I mean by cardinal directions is the map will only scroll left, right, up and down. It will not scroll on diagonals. The third one implements a 2D camera system and allows the map to scroll at a constant speed in all eight directions, cardinal directions and the diagonals. I hope to have a fourth ready in the next couple of days as well as another on my role playing game series, Eyes of the Dragon. You can find the links to the tutorials on the XNA Tutorials page. (You will have to scroll down to the bottom. I will be adding pages specifically for tutorial series soon.)

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Changes to the tile set

I made a change to the tile set. I really didn't have to but while I was looking for sprites to use with the game I couldn't find any 32 bit sprites to go with the tiles that I created. I know it is a minor thing but I thought I would try and at least have things that match. I downloaded the sprites from evilmana.com, the ones that Nick Gravelyn used in his tile engine tutorials. I will be making some changes to them. I also made another small change to the game. I increased the HUD to be 64 pixels high and the size of the tiles to be 64 pixels by 64 pixels. When I write up the next tutorial I will be adding that in. In any case this is what the map looks like now.


Updated Tile Engine



Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

22nd tutorial on creating an RPG!

Welcome back!

Well, I just finished uploading the newest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. I also fixed a few typos in in tutorials 4 and 6. In 4 I had spelled Components wrong in one of the using statements. In 6 I forgot to up the constructor of the ActionScreen class. When I created the new tile engine it required four parameters, the last two being the height and width of the map. I made that change. I will also let you know that the project.html page has been renamed to rpgtutorials.html. I just wanted to give the page a more descriptive name.

You can find the links to the tutorial on this page:
http://xna.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials.html

Good luck with your game programming adventures.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, October 2, 2009

Tutorial is finished

The good news is I got the tutorial finished. I don't think that I will be able to have it up on my site this evening. It will definitely be up tomorrow though. I also know what I am going to work on next. I will be adding in a sprite that the player can control. Since I'm not a great artist I will have to go with what I can find on the web. So I encourage you to check back tomorrow for the newest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Been writing the next tutorial

Welcome back!

I finished the coding that I wanted to do for the next tutorial and I have been busy writing it. I would like to have it finished this evening and up on my web site. There really isn't a lot of writing left to do so I'm hoping that it won't take too much longer. I will keep you posted on when the next tutorial is up and on my web site.

I'm also going to try and have a couple general XNA tutorials on my web site soon as well. Again, I will keep you posted on the details.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Got some coding done

Welcome back!

I was working on some coding that I thought needed to be done. This was in the hope of making it easy for you to take the tile engine out of the game and drop it into another one. I got most of what I was hoping to do accomplished. I'm hoping to write up the tutorial on it tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Introducing XNA Game Programming Adventures

Welcome back!

As I mentioned in an earlier post I've been updating my web site that hosts my XNA RPG tutorials. I am calling this new site XNA Game Programming Adventures. This site will host many XNA tutorials as well as the tutorials on creating a role playing game with XNA called Eyes of the Dragon. The new site is online now. I would recommend that you visit the sub domain that I created instead of the old URL. You can find XNA Game Programming Adventures here:

http://xna.jtmbooks.com/

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, September 28, 2009

Trying to finish updating my site

Welcome back!

I did a lot of work on the new updated site to host my XNA tutorials. I just have one page left to finish and then I will put it up online. I will try and have a couple general XNA tutorials on the web site as well. I will have the first three in the series of creating a tile engine. I think I will have one other as well.

I might not be able to get to it tomorrow but I will try to.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Making changes to my web site

Welcome back!

I have been working on giving my web site a nice clean fresh look. I like the design so far. I would like a better graphic for the image in the header. I will see what develops. I'm hoping to have the new version online tomorrow.

I have been busy the past two days with things not related to Eyes of the Dragon but I will be doing some coding on Eyes of the Dragon tomorrow. I have decided to find some simple sprites and add them into the game soon. I am thinking of making a change to the game itself. I have been thinking about it for a while now and the more I think about it the more I think it needs to be done.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, September 25, 2009

21st tutorial on creating a role playing game!

Welcome back!

I have just finished adding the 21st tutorial on creating an RPG with XNA 3.0 to my web site! In this tutorial, like I've been mentioning, I created a custom Content Pipeline import, processor, writer and reader for Tileset objects created by the Tileset generator. I was going to go over how I created the Tileset generator but decided to do that in a separate tutorial. You can find the links to the tutorials on this page of my web site http://xna.jtmbooks.com/project.html

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Not quite finished the tutorial

Welcome back!

I'm sorry to say I'm not quite finished the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA Game Studio 3.0. I was hoping to finish it today but it looks like it won't be finished until tomorrow. It will definitely be finished tomorrow though. I will have it up on the web site shortly.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Been busy writing the next tutorial

Welcome back!

I've been busy coding and writing the next tutorial. It is about 75% finished. I am hoping to have it finished and up on my web site for download shortly. I've mentioned before that in this tutorial I will be going into creating a Content Importer, Content Processor, Content Type Writer and Content Reader for the Tileset class. I made a generator to generate an XML file for the Tileset object. I was going to add into this tutorial creating the generator but instead decided to just describe the format of the XML file and write a separate tutorial on creating the generator later. I will make the source code for the generator available on my web site for download.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Working on next tutorial

Welcome back!

I have the Tileset generator finished pretty much. It will create an XML file that has all of the information needed to create a Tileset object. I'm going to work on creating the components needed to implement this in Eyes of the Dragon. I'm hoping to have it up and on my web site tomorrow evening.

I have a blog on Dream.In.Code where I am writing basic tutorials on XNA. At the moment I'm working on a tile engine system that would be able to be added to any game that would need a tile engine. This one I'm not making with Drawable Game Components. It will be an object-oriented tile engine though. You can find this blog here.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Finishing up the Tileset object generator

Welcome back!

I will be finishing up the Tileset object generator today and incorporating it into the game. I have decided to have the generator export everything to an XML file. I chose XML because there are great methods of importing and exporting XML documents with C#.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, September 21, 2009

Will finish up the generator

Welcome back!

The program that will create the rectangles for tile sets is almost finished. I am thinking of writing up a tutorial on how it works but not entirely sure on that. When I have it finished though, I will be writing a tutorial on how to use the output with the content pipeline.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Going to finish up the tile set editor

Welcome back!

I don't really like coding or writing on Sunday but I think I will try and finish up the tile set editor. What I mean by tile set editor is that given an image, like the tile set I've been using for Eyes of the Dragon, and the width and height of the tiles with the number of tiles wide and high, generate a list of rectangles for the tiles. I am planning on creating content pipeline processors, importers, etc for the rectangles and such.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Made a little program this evening

I started work on one of the editors for the game this evening. It is a program that will generate tile sets so they can be loaded in at run time instead of being declared at compile time. This will help you with your games. I will be creating a custom content pipeline importer and such for the tile sets.

This is a thumbnail of an early alpha version.



Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Got some feed back on the screens

Welcome back!

I got a bit of feed back from some people who's opinions I respect on all of the screen. I've made a few changes to the screens. I made a few of them simpler and got rid of a lot of the textured back grounds. I kind of like things with a texture to them but I will go with the new versions. I also found a free font that I like on http://www.dafont.com that I will be using for the game. I will be placing it into the Graphics.zip file on my web site. To use the font you will have to install it. I don't use Vista but for Windows XP you just have to place it into the C:\Windows\Fonts folder. I believe you can double click it in Vista and it will install it for you.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, September 18, 2009

20th tutorial available on my web site!

Welcome back!

I have just finished uploading the 20th tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. You can find links to this tutorial, and all tutorials on creating a role playing game called Eyes of the Dragon on this my site http://xna.jtmbooks.com.

I have already started coding the next part and I hope to have the tutorial up very soon.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Finishing up the newest tutorial

Welcome back!

The writing of the tutorial is taking longer than I thought it would. I had done a lot of work again and some of the things I did require a little more explanation than I thought. I am about 90% done. I'm just finishing writing up the new screen. Once that is done I just have to write about a few changes I had to make to the Game1 class. I will have the tutorial done today for sure though and have it available for download.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 17, 2009

A screen shot from my coding

Welcome back!

I finished all of the coding last night. I tried to make things look at least a little nice but I didn't obsess over the little detail. I managed to get the pop up screen that displays the player character's statistics up and going. Just thought that I would post a screen shot of it.

Character Stats




Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Haven't been feeling well

Welcome back!

As many of you have read in my blog I have been kind of sick lately. Yesterday was no exception. I will be writing the next tutorial this evening and try and have it available for download tomorrow. If I have it done and I have the time I will actually try and have it up tonight.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, September 14, 2009

Did a fair bit of coding today

Welcome back!

I did a lot of coding today but it hasn't produced any visual results. What I did was add in the difficulty level system to the player character class. You have all seen that there are four difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Hard and Ultimate. I'm not sure how many of you remember how I planned on implementing this.

Easier mode characters gain more experience per battle but they are not as strong as the harder mode characters. So if you are playing in easy mode the character will level up faster but the character wouldn't be as strong as an ultimate mode character.

I use two float variables to work this system. To have a character level up faster I multiply their experience by a value greater than one. I had chose 1.25 for easy, 1.0 for normal, 0.75 for hard and 0.5 for ultimate.

The reward for playing a hard or ultimate mode character is that each level the player gains they get more points to distribute to their stats. An easy mode character has a 0.75 multiplier to their stat bonus, normal 1.0, hard 1.25 and ultimate 1.5. I have chosen 4 as the base value. That means an easy mode character only gets 3 points per level while an ultimate mode character will get 6.

There will be other things that difficulty levels will work on as well. I may make the monsters, a generic term for all enemies, easier to kill in easy mode and harder to kill in the harder modes as well.

Tomorrow I hope to add in the screen to display the player's stats.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Don't like to code or write on Sundays

Welcome back!

Like the title says I don't really like to code or write on Sundays, has to do with my faith. I'm hoping to have a new tutorial up Tuesday evening though. Like I said I was wanting to add in a new screen to the game to display the player's stats. I have a nice background texture for pop up windows like that. I thought I would post it.

Pop Up Window Background



Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Working on a new game screen

Welcome back!

I am working on adding a new game screen to the game. It is nice for the player to be able to view the stats of their character. This will be relatively easy to accomplish in Eyes of the Dragon because of the way I've been designing things up until now. First I will have to create a graphic for it. I will not fuss too much over the graphic, as most of you seem to want functionality over appearance. I will try and at least make it look a little nice. It might be Monday before I will have the tutorial up on my web site though. So, I encourage you to either visit this blog or you can visit my web site for these tutorials for the latest news on Eyes of the Dragon.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, September 11, 2009

New tutorial is up on my web site!

Welcome back!

I have just uploaded the newest tutorial on my series of creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. In this tutorial I focused on cleaning up the project and working on functionality of the game. You can find links to the tutorials on my web site at XNA 3.0 RPG Tutorials.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Working on Eyes of the Dragon

Welcome back!

I am working on Eyes of the Dragon at the moment. I am cleaning the code up a bit and organizing things a little better as well. I am also making a new screen for the game to display the player character's statistics. This tutorial will be kind of long but these are things that need to be done and I thought they should be done now instead of later because it would be even longer down the road.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Was away yesterday

Welcome back!

I unfortunately away for pretty much the whole day yesterday. I had an early appointment in the morning, another in the afternoon and an over night appointment last night. I will be trying to do some coding this afternoon. I know what I want to code today and I should be able to get it done with out much problems.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Was in the hospital again

Welcome back!

I had to go back to the hospital yesterday. I'm sorry about this. I am hoping that this problem will get cleared up very soon. Like I mentioned the other day I'm planning on adding in a sprite for the player's character and have the sprite move with the map. I will start with just animating the sprite. After that is working I will get the sprite to move with the map.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Was in the hospital again

Shortly after I got up this morning I had to go back into the hospital so I didn't really get any programming done today. I have the plan laid out for the next tutorial though. I will be adding in a sprite for the player's character. I was looking for some nice sprites online but didn't really find any that I liked. What I am going to do though is I have links to a lot free sprites. I will find a couple and set them up for use in the game.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

What I am working on

Welcome back!

I am going to be adding in a sprite for the player character now. I will remind you all that I am not a pixel artist so I pretty much have to go with what I can find on the Internet. I do have the sprites from Nick Gravelyn's tile engine tutorial series and I could use those easily. I wanted to find something a little nicer but you, my readers, have said that you would rather I add functionality to the game instead of appearance. I'm writing these tutorials for you so I will try and do what you are asking.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Uploaded tutorial #18!

Welcome back!

I just finished uploading the 18th tutorial in my series on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon. In this tutorial I made a couple of changes to the game. I changed the HUD to a small texture at the bottom of the screen and I changed the PlayerCharacter class to be responsible for drawing itself. I made it a DrawableGameComponent. You can find the tutorial as .zip and .pdf format at these links:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut18.pdf
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut18.zip

The latest version of the source code for Eyes of the Dragon is at:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/New2DRPG.zip

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Was in the hospital again

Welcome back!

I had to go to the hospital again and I'm having problems sitting up again. I am going to try and work on things but I'm not having all that much success at it so far.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Been away all day

Welcome back!

I have been away from the house all day today so I haven't gotten to any work on Eyes of the Dragon. I will try and some work this evening.

Jamie McMahon
-----------------------------
Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, August 31, 2009

Coding finished, not the writing

Welcome back!

I was able to finish all of the coding that I wanted to do but I wasn't able to finish writing the tutorial yet. It should be finished tomorrow though and I will start coding the next tutorial in the series on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. I decided to add a small bar to the bottom of the screen for displaying short messages. This is the thumbnail of the screen shot.


Tile Engine Thumbnail



Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code