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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Main Game 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

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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

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

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

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

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