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

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
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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

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

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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

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

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

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
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code