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

Taking a vacation...

Welcome back!

Well, I will be taking a short vacation. I'll be leaving Saturday and coming back on Wednesday. Not sure if I will be able to much work on this project but I do hope to at least try and get some things done. I will try and keep you up to date on things while I'm away. I should be able to make a few quick posts now and again. I should have a tutorial on creating a role playing game in XNA up on the web site tomorrow though. At least that is the plan. I'm not sure this one will do specifically on XNA though. I think it will have more to do with the player character system, which is just as vital to a role playing game as good graphics are.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

New tutorial available on my web site!

Welcome back!

Well, there is a new tutorial on creating a role playing game using XNA on my web site. You can find all of the role playing game tutorials here:

XNA 3.0 Role Playing Game Tutorials

I'm working hard on the textbox control too. I'm making a sort of virtual keyboard for it, as well as allowing to accept keyboard input, so it can be used with a game pad for the XBOX 360. Any way, I will keep you up to date on the project, so keep on coming back and I will try and have all sorts of good stuff!

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

XNA GUI controls...

Hi again,

I don't know if you read the post about creating a button control in XNA but there was a problem with the control. A few pixels at the bottom of the text were cut off. I managed to fix that problem. I'm just mentioning that because I want to make a few more GUI controls to make a character generator for the role playing game. I'm going to make a picture of what the interface will look like and post it on the blog. I'm also going to also make a player character class.

I'm also thinking of finding a way to just use the keyboard instead of the mouse and get an XBOX 360 controller to add support for the controller to the game.

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

The next XNA RPG Tutorial is ready...

Welcome back!

I have finished the role playing game tutorial like I promised. I have uploaded it to my website in PDF format. It is a little long, 13 pages, but I covered quite a lot in it. 

You can find the tutorial at this link:

Role Playing Game in XNA 3.0 tutorial 1

You can find the project at this link:

Role Plaing Game in XNA 3.0 project

You can fint the images I used at this link:

Role Playing Game in XNA 3.0 images from feebleminds

You can find very good free images, for non-commerical use at feebleminds:

http://feebleminds-gifs.com/free-pictures.html

Come back again soon, I should have more good stuff up soon.

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Making the menu system for the RPG in XNA

Welcome back!

As it turns out I have a lot of time to dedicate to the RPG in XNA today. I'm hoping to have a simple navigation system up and running, it is already very close to working. 

Creating a user interface in XNA, I find, is a little tricky because you have to create the controls like buttons, text boxes, etc. Even the simplest role playing game requires a user interface, such as creating a character, buying and selling items and managing the character's items.

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Hi again, a screen shot of the menu...

I did a little work on the menu this afternoon and thought I would post a screen shot. The image isn't mine, I got it from http://feebleminds-gifs.com/free-pictures.html. They have an excellent collection of art free to use for non-commercial use and possibly commercial use if you get the artist's permission. What I more wanted to show you was the text of the menu. When the up or down arrow keys are pressed the red hi-light bar scrolls up and down. I will try and have a PDF on how to create the menu on my website shortly. This is going to be the starting point of the project.

Come back soon, I hope to have more up and going.

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Hello again...

Welcome back!

Well, the crisis with my father is over so I'm going to be able to start working on things a little more. I'm going to get busy and start writing some code. I was going to start with the tile engine but I think it is a little early for that. What I am going to start working on is the screen manager. I will be using the system that I talked about earlier. It is Wednesday here and they are busy for me.  So, this is what I'm going to try and do. On Fridays, according to GMT, and Mondays I will try and post a tutorial onto my website along with the latest code for the project. I might try and make short little tutorials on other aspects of XNA, I will be posting them on Dream In Code as well. Well, have a great day.

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Character specifications

This blog is about an open source RPG for XNA 3.0 that I am creating. This is the first in a series of documents detailing the design specifications for the RPG.

Design Document for RPG in XNA - Part 1

CHARACTER SPECIFICATIONS:

All characters (PCs, NPCs and monsters) use the same attributes and skills. The game is going to use a skill based system so the player will have more control on how their character will develop. For this implementation there will be no races. The player will have the choice of either a male or female character, possibly a pet.

Each character will have six attributes. They are Strength, Stamina, Agility, Speed, Intellect and Luck.

Here is a description of the attributes:

• Strength measures a character's ability to inflict damage on an opponent and how much weight a character can carry. If a character is carrying too much their Agility and Speed will be effected.
• Stamina determines how much damage can take and how resistant they are to poisons and magic.
• Agility is how nimble a character is. It helps in striking and evading.
• Speed is how fast a character is. In combat a character with high speed will strike faster in combat.
• Intellect measures a character's ability to learn and retain information.
• Luck helps in landing critical hits (that inflict 1.5x damage) on an opponent

There are also a number of skills that a character can learn. This the first draft:

• Sword Skill – this measures how good a character is with all types of swords
• Axe Skill – this measures how good a character is with axes
• Club Skill – this measures how good a character is with clubs and maces
• Spear Skill – this measures a character's ability with spears
• Pole Arm Skill – this measures a character's proficiency with with pole arms
• Bow Skill – this measures a character's ability to use bows and crossbows
• Fire Magic Skill – measures a character's skill with Fire Magic
• Earth Magic Skill – measures a character's skill with Earth Magic
• Water Magic Skill – measures a character's ability to use Water Magic
• Air Magic Skill – this measures how good a character is with Air Magic
• Base Attack Skill – this is a special skill that characters that do not use weapons have for attacking opponents
  

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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Format for posting...

I will try to post quick notes about what I'm working on for the Role-Playing Game every day and tutorials on my website every couple days.

Today I'm going over the Design Document and trying to figure out the different characters I'm going to create.

There are two concepts that I want to incorperate into the game. That is the idea of scenes and actors. The game will be made up of scenes, like menus, inventory screens, character genearation, combat, tile man, etc.

These scenes will be made up of actors. An actor is an active part of a scene. Things like menu items, buttons, sprites, etc. are all actors.

I will go more into this later.

I think the first coding tutorial will be about the basics of tiling.