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

Quick post of screen shot

Welcome back!

I did a fair amount of work on Eyes of the Dragon on the 30th. I just thought that I would post a quick screen shot of the visual results. Like I was saying the other day it was suggested to me to create a floating bar for the player's hit points and spell points by one of my readers and I went with it.


New Thumbnail of Tile Engine



Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Will be coding today, hopefully writing too

Welcome back!

I will be doing some coding on Eyes of the Dragon this afternoon. What I am planning on doing is making a couple changes. First I want to improve the screen management system. I will also be changing the HUD to have a small floating HUD that display's the character's stats. I will be making a few changes to the PlayerCharacter class as well.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, August 29, 2009

17th tutorial is on my web site

Welcome back!

I have uploaded the new tutorial on Eyes of the Dragon to my web site. You can find the PDF and the ZIP files at these links.
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut17.pdf
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut17.zip

The latest version of the project is at this link.
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/New2DRPG.zip

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tutorial is finished but not online yet

Welcome back!

I have finished the next tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 but it isn't online yet. I will get to work on uploading everything to the web site in the morning.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, August 28, 2009

Just about finished tutorial & received suggestion

Welcome back!

I am just about finished writing the next tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. It should be finished shortly then all I will have to do is update the web site and the tutorial to my web site.

I got an email from the contact form on my web site. The person suggested that I make a floating HUD. If you have ever played Shaiya for the character there is a nice little floating HUD that displays the character's HP, SP and MP. I am going to take the suggestion and create a small floating HUD for character stats giving the player the entire window/screen to view the game world. Thanks for the suggestion.


Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Two thirds done writing tutorial

Welcome back!

Just thought that I would let you know that I'm about two thirds done writing the next tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. I am just finishing the changes to the ActionScreen and TileEngine. I will try and have another tutorial available soon as well. In that tutorial I will be adding a popup screen to display the character's statistics and update the screen manager to make things a little easier to work with.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Working on next tutorial

Welcome back!

I will work on writing the next tutorial today and stop fussing over the graphics at the moment, at least until voting on the poll is over and I have better idea of what my readers are interested in. I will be adding a new screen in this tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. This will be a pop up type screen that will display the player character's statistics.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Got report card on Space Raptor

Welcome back!

Well, I got my report card back on Space Raptor today. For technical skills I got top marks. The rest of the game I didn't do so well. Of course, I didn't have the time I would have liked to add in all of the features I would have liked. For next one I will be better prepared and I hopefully won't have near as many personal problems to deal with.

As well, I have been trying hard to get the next RPG tutorial finished but there was a lot that I ended up having to do today. The HUD is giving me no end of grief as well. I am trying to create something that is attractive.

I am adding a new poll to the blog. I'm going to ask a question. Would you rather have a game that works 100% or a game that looks great or a game that looks great and works 100%. If all you are interested in is a game that works 100% then I will stop worrying about trying to make things look good and just go for something functional. I will have to poll up for one week. Voting will end on September the 3rd at 11:59PM.

In the mean time I will try to concentrate on functionality instead of appearance. Appearance is imporant to a game though and when you are creating your own I encourage you to put a lot of effort into appearance.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Redesigning the HUD

Welcome back!

I'm in the process of updating the HUD again. I'm still not really happy with it at the moment. I will update you as it progresses. I am hoping to have the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 ready and available for download from my web site tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, August 24, 2009

New thumbnail of the HUD

I managed to finish a new version of the HUD this afternoon as well as update the start screen to what I think is a much nicer screen. These are thumbnails of both the screens. I will be continuing to write my next tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 tomorrow afternoon or evening. I do hope to have my next RPG tutorial available on my web site soon. Very soon I will be making an upgrade to the screen manager as well. Be sure to check back soon as I hope to have new tutorials and screen shots available.

Tile Engine With HUD


Tile Engine With HUD

The Main Game Menu


Main Menu
Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Updated the introduction screen

Welcome back!

I'm still trying to design the interface for the game and take the feed back I've been given to make it look nice. I did take a break and update the introduction screen graphics. I will make another post on Eyes of the Dragon a little later on today.

New Introduction Screen


Screen shot of Introduction screen of Eyes of the Dragon
Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, August 23, 2009

I have received a little feed back

Welcome back!

I have received a little feed back on the HUD for the game. Many don't like such a small viewing area for the map. I have made made two new versions. I'm waiting on a little feedback on them to see what others like. These are screen shots of the two new HUDs. One of them allows for a bigger area for character stats and the other allows for a large map. I just made a third, it wasn't hard because of the way I designed the tile engine. All I had to do was change the graphic and update the size of the view port.


Version 1



Version 2



Version 3



I am thinking that for now I will go with version 3. (I just modified it a little but I am not posting a new thumbnail.)

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Did a fair bit of programming on Eyes of the Dragon

Welcome back!

I did a fair bit of programming on Eyes of the Dragon, the project that I am building for the tutorial series on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. I just thought I would post the latest screen shot that I have. The game HUD still needs to be designed to look good but it is a good start I think.

Latest Screen Shot

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Uploaded tutorial 16

Welcome back!

I just wanted to let you all know that I have uploaded that 16th tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0, Eyes of the Dragon, to my web site. I haven't updated the mirror: http://xna.jtmbooks.com yet. I will do that later.

You can find the links to the latest tutorial on at this link:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut16.pdf

The source code for the project is at this link:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/New2DRPG.zip

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, August 21, 2009

Finished writing the tutorial, no XNA though

I have just finished writing the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0, Eyes of the Dragon. I did not get to the XNA part of it though. There was a lot of C# coding done though as well as adding in some game elements like starting with the player character system. A lot goes into a game other than just graphics and stuff. The tutorial was already 14 pages long. So I thought any more would be a little excessive at the moment. I am in the process of updating my web pages and packaging the project and creating the PDF for the tutorial. I hope it will not take too long. I will make another post when I have everything available on the web site. In the next tutorial, which shouldn't take all that long, I will be modifying the game to display the player character's statistics and add in a couple interesting things for displaying the statistics. So, I encourage you to check back soon.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Writing the tutorial is taking longer than I tought

Welcome back!

I have been writing the next turoial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon. The writing is taking a little longer than I thought it would. It is to help those who are new to C# and the concepts of object-oriented programming, especially the idea of polymorphism. Polymorphism is perhaps the hardest topic to understand in object-oriented programming. I will be writing a separate tutorial on the concepts of object-oriented programming: Encapsulation, Inheritance and Polymorphism.

The writing is taking so much time that I haven't gotten to adding the XNA features I wanted to yet. Those, I don't think, will be as hard as what I have been working on so far. I do hope to have the tutorial up on the web site very soon.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Most of the coding is done, working on the tutorial

Welcome back!

I got most of the coding done and working. There are two or three things that I want to add to the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. I have started writing the tutorial on the coding I've done as well. So far the writing is going rather well. I've done quite a bit of coding so there is a lot to write this time. I will try and post some screen shots from Eyes of the Dragon, the game I'm basing these tutorials on soon.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

What is going on with Eyes of the Dragon

Welcome back!

I had a few things to do yesterday. I was promoted to moderator on Dream.In.Code. That means I have responsibilities on that web site. I will still be working on Eyes of the Dragon though. I've been working on it for most of the afternoon. This tutorial isn't so much about XNA though, but I am doing a few things with XNA. Basically I am improving the character generator and starting with the player character system. I was going to make the base class an abstract class but after further consideration I decided against it. You will see why in the up coming tutorial.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

What happened to Jamie?

Well, I have been a little sick of late. I haven't had the time I would like to work on Eyes of the Dragon or more appropriately I haven't been able to. I saw my doctor yesterday and he gave me an extra week's worth of antibiotics for my problem. I also see a specialist on Thursday and I truly hope that he will be able to do something about my problem. I really do want to work on Eyes of the Dragon but it is hard with the problems I've been having. I won't be home for most of tomorrow but I will try and at least get some coding done and hopefully even some writing on the coding.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Started coding today

Welcome back!

I started doing some coding on Eyes of the Dragon this evening. I am in the process of creating a set of classes for the player character. I am planning on using inheritance for the different character classes: Fighter, Priest, Wizard and Theif. To do this I will be creating a base abstract class and then inheriting the other character classes from this class. If you are unfamiliar with abstract classes they are classes that you can not create objects with directly, you must inherit other classes from them. It is much like I did with the GameScreen class. You inherited the various screens from this class instead of using the GameScreen class.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, August 14, 2009

Was in hospital again today

Welcome back!

I had to go to the hospital again today. I'm feeling better now but the doctor wants me to go back if the symptoms don't get better. I was thinking of starting work on a tile map editor. I know there are a few like Mappy and TilED but I don't really like the format they save their maps in. Writing my own will make writing a Content Processor, Importer and Writer a little easier.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Got home and have my lap top set up

Welcome back!

I made it home this evening and I have my lap top set up so I can do some programming with just a little difficulty.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Still pretty sick

Welcome back!

Just wanted to add a little update. I'm still pretty sick and sitting at the desk is a little hard to do at the moment. I will be returning home shortly, probably Thursday. Once I'm there things will be a little easier. So I will try and do a little work on Eyes of the Dragon this evening but I can't make any promises at the moment.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, August 10, 2009

Been in the hospital (as a patient!)

Welcome back!

For most of the 9th and 10th of August I have been in the hospital, not as a visitor but as a patient this time. I hate to say it but I've been rather ill since the 8th. My dad was released this morning so I don't have unlimited Internet access at the moment either. I will be returning home in the next few days, when I feel well enough to travel. I will keep you up to date on the latest news and what I have been working on. Tonight I will be turning in again shortly, I just had a moment and thought I would post a quick note.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, August 9, 2009

New tutorial is online!

Welcome back!

I have just uploaded the new tutorial on Eyes of the Dragon to my web site! Like I mentioned previously, this new tutorial has the tile engine using a view port instead of the entire screen. You can find the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0, in PDF and ZIP format at these links:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut15.pdf
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut15.zip

The latest version of Eyes of the Dragon can be found at this link:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/New2DRPG.zip


You can find the latest news on Eyes of the Dragon here on my blog or on the news page for these tutorials:
http://xna.jtmbooks.com/news.html

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Tutorial is finished but not uploaded

Welcome back!

I finished writing the 15th tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon but I will not be able to upload it tonight. I will have it available on my web site very soon though. Like I said yesterday, I changed the tile engine to use a view port instead of the entire screen and I limited the tile engine to just drawing the visible portion of the map. I ask you to be patient as this is a very hard time for me.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, August 7, 2009

Got programming done but no tutorial

Welcome back!

I got the programming I wanted to get done but I didn't get to writing the tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 today. I switched the tile engine to use a view port instead of the whole screen. The gray area you can see is what will eventually be where the stats and such of the character will go. I just picked a random texture from Genetica Viewer 3 and cut out an 800 by 600 rectangle that will serve as the view port for the tile map. I will more than likely have the tutorial written tomorrow but I can't guarantee it as there are many, many things that I have to do with my dad being in the hospital. The things I had to change to accomplish this were the tile engine, the camera, the tile map and the action screen. I've added in a screen shot of the tile engine. So, I suggest checking back tomorrow and I hope to have a new tutorial up and on the web site.

I have removed the poll from the left as voting has ended and turn based strategy games has won. When Eyes of the Dragon is finished I will start on a strategy game series, both turn and real time based.

Tile Engine using a view port with overlay of what will be
the HUD eventually.

View of the tile engine using a view port with the HUD overlay

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Working on the next tutorial

Welcome back!

I will have most of tomorrow to actually get some work done on Eyes of the Dragon. I should have done some today and I wanted to but with everything that is going on here I just couldn't get to it. Plus I have to actually work sometimes as well. Anyway, I will try and have something new on Eyes of the Dragon either tomorrow (Friday August 7thEST) or the next day (Saturday August 8thEST). My dad seems to be getting better, which is good, and may be home from the hospital soon. Once he is I will have a lot more time again.

Just as a side note, I am starting work on a new book. It is for 8-11 year old children to help them cope with the loss of a grandparent.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Links for Space Raptor

Welcome back!

I just thought I would make a quick post before leaving to visit my father and run a few errands that need to be done. I have uploaded the source code, along with the necessary content, for Space Raptor to my web site. You can find it here: Space Raptor Source Code. Any way, I have to leave and attend to some business but I will try and get some work done this afternoon and possibly post a tutorial tonight if things go well.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Finished Space Raptor

Welcome back!

Well, I didn't get to Eyes of the Dragon but I did submit my final version of Space Raptor to Game Institute for the latest game programming challenge. I have been dealing with my father being really sick and having to make trips to the hospital and run errands. With Space Raptor put to bed and not having to worry about it any more I will be able to work on Eyes of the Dragon and hopefully get more work done. I will post a link to the source code for Space Raptor for those of you who will like to see it. I used a modified version of the particle engine from XNA Creator Club's 2D getting started in the game. I had to make a few changes to the way it worked to integrate it into Space Raptor though.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Was barely at home on the 3rd

Welcome back!

I was barely at home on the 3rd. Well, at my dad's house, which I guess you could call home at the moment and really had no chance to do any programming or writing. I've been having to do a lot of extra stuff because he is in the hospital and there is really nobody else to do the things that need to be done. I just wanted to at least make a post before going to bed. I really hope to be able to do some work on Eyes of the Dragon tomorrow.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, August 3, 2009

Sorry I missed a post

Welcome back!

Well, I wanted to post yesterday but I was quite busy to tell the truth. I have actually for the most part finished with Space Raptor. I managed to get the particle system working with out much too much of a head ache. There is only one more thing that I want to add to the game and that will be over with.

I am still at my father's house as he is in the hospital and he needs somebody here to look after things. I'm hoping to get some work done on Eyes of the Dragon in the morning and get a new tutorial up on the web site.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Voting is now over on the poll

Welcome back!

Voting on what type 2D XNA game you would like to see a tutorial series on is now officially over. The winner was turn based strategy games. Since real time stratagey games was pretty close I am thinking of actually doing a series on both of them. Right now I am getting ready to visit my father in the hospital. I will post an update later on today.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code