Gaming

I’ve been pushing HTML5 cross platform applications for some time now. I frequently give talks on how to use tools like Telerik’s App Builder, Adobe’s PhoneGap Cloud, and my personal favorite, Intel’s XDK. You can find my open sourced Cordova app here. Previously, Cordova was a cumbersome command line tool for building cross platform HTML5 mobile apps. it was not fun, and was incredibly painful to use, due to the constantly outdated documentation. Even worse, even if you did get an HTML5 app running on Windows Phone, you didn’t have a debugger! ...

This post is part of 3 week series giving current and aspiring game devs the tools, resources, and advice they need to get started building for Windows. We also have a great video course on [game production basics](http://Game Production Basics) at Microsoft Virtual Academy. Visual Studio Community Edition visual-studio-logo You need an IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, to write code for your games. Visual Studio Community edition is FREE from Microsoft, and allows you to use a multitude of languages. ...

I’ve been a huge fan of shmups for as long as I can remember. If it’s good, I’ve played it (and it’s probably Japanese). I wrote my last one in JavaScript using the Impact.js framework, but this time around I wanted to do it in Unity and really test the performance of the engine. When looking for Unity shmup templates, I came across this great set of posts on the Shmup-dev website. One post includes an excellent talk on unity shmup development, with slides and source code to go along with it. It really touches on some of the basics and key points for creating a shmup, including performance considerations. Object pooling is absolutely necessary when creating a high performance game, and the author monoRAIL explains it very neatly for readers. ...

Play Super Rawr-Type for FREE in the Windows 8 Store Super Rawr-Type, my 2D sidescrolling JavaScript shooter, is finally available for Windows 8. I actually finished working on it in August, but needed to change a few lines of code to have it pass certification, and completely forgot to resubmit. On Friday I made the final necessary changes, submitted, and it’s up in the store today. The project is open source, and you can find my GitHub here. ...

Update 3/29/16 With today’s announcements at //BUILD, some of this information will be out of date. I will make changes in the very near future. Updated, 9/24/15 TLDR: Middleware engines work great and support for Xbox one is continuing to grow within new tools each day. I have a more recent post with more information following Microsoft’s presence at GDC 2015. Here is the latest. For developers to focus on building for the UWP. Building UWP apps today is the best way to make sure apps will work on the Xbox when UWP is available on the Xbox. Similarly how different device families have specific APIs (GPIO, Hardware buttons, etc), Xbox will have a set of APIs that developer can use to extend experience to match the Xbox One, and those APIs will be used on top of the core UWP functionality that developers are building today. ...

This ties into my previous post, where I spoke about how to get your game or app on Xbox One. Microsoft unveiled quiet a bit of information regarding SmartGlass during BUILD 2012, and much of it is available **via this Power Point presentation.**Ignore most of the C++ in there; I never had to touch any of that. All of my work was done via JavaScript and it worked fine. I also spoke about SmartGlass development on this week’s Hanselminutes podcast. ...

“I want to get started with making games, but I don’t know how. Where should I start?” It can be overwhelming when you are starting off, because there are so many options available to you. I mean just look at plethora of game making tools at Pixel Prospetor, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you have zero programming experience, then I’d suggest starting with Construct2. Construct 2 allows you to create HTML5 games without ever having to write code. Everything is handled in the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which has a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that anyone could use. You simply drag-and-drop objects into your scene, and can make changes to the objects properties by right clicking. Even better, it’s free! There are premium versions available, but if you’re just starting off, then the free version offers more than enough to get you going. ...

My goal right now is to build a network for students around Philadelphia to work on projects together, ask questions, and share their work. Feel free to ask me questions. I’m here to help! Want to know how to get started with an HTML5 project, mobile apps, or how to get started in the games industry? Ask me! I met some of you this weekend at the Global Game Jam, and others at the**Tri-Co Hackathon.** If you were interested to see what was happening at either event, click on the links above. ...

I don’t write much about gaming anymore, which is disappointing, but I instead fill my time with development, and an indie development podcast. So this is my one chance to round up my brief, if not disjointed, thoughts on gaming this year. Here’s a quick list of things I’ve played recently, and most of which in the last week. I had 12 days off from work after Christmas, so I cranked through as many games as I could, considering I didn’t play much earlier in the year. Hell, many of these games weren’t even released this year. ...

So now that November 15th has finally arrived, I can say what I’ve been working on lately; a new game with the Unreal Engine 4. I’m still under NDA, and I can’t post any screens just yet, but rest assured that the engine is vastly improved from what UDK was, in terms of both usability and performance. Epic has a number of videos available online, so you can see what the workflow is like. ...