Windows 8 Platformer Game Starter Kit

Platformer Game Starter Kit(includes 2 HTML5-based examples)

Don't start from scratch. Our Platformer Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 will get you going with full code & free game art.

How

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Feel free to take the examples, mix them up and build your own great game for the Windows Store following these steps:

1. Download your free Visual Studio for Windows 8 for all the tools you will need.
2. Download the Platformer Game Starter Kit.
3. Mix it up and build your own epic game.
4. Open a Windows Store Developer Account.
5. Let us know about it and we can even give you free advice on making it great and help pass store certification.
6. Publish it to the Windows Store.

We know everyone is not a game artist, so we have provided you with some free game art and other places you can find royalty-free art for your game.

Ludus Game Starter Kit

An HTML5 Platformer Game Starter Kit for Windows8 Store

by Christer (McFunkypants) Kaitila http://mcfunkypants.com

Source: https://github.com/mcfunkypants/ludus

Demos: http://www.mcfunkypants.com/ludus

Welcome to Ludus, brave adventurer!

Ludus is a dirt-simple game engine that uses html5 canvas. It was designed specifically for mario/sonic style platformer games but could be used for any genre with minimal changes. It boasts great performance, and requires only free tools.

The word Ludus means PLAY/GAME/TRAINING in latin. The Ludus engine is designed to be a great way to learn to make games.

Sure, there are bigger and more complex game engines.

This one is designed to be easy to play around with.

Why? It was created to run real-world games that have a beginning, middle, and end. It was optimized to run on less powerful systems and touch-screen tablets. It is simple, but goes beyond the level of a "tech demo" to encapsulate all the required functionality you might need to make a polished game, such as GUI and sound.

...

IT'S POSSIBLE TO MAKE A GAME USING LUDUS IN A WEEKEND.

You could make your own game just by changing the artwork: it is possible to make a new game without ever touching a line of code. All you would need to do is modify the .png and .mp3 art assets as well as the level#.js level data files.

The best tool to create in-game worlds is TILED (http://www.mapeditor.org) which exports data in .json format.

Check out the example .tmx source files and see if you can make your own game! Once you've made a level, export as .json and then run the _buildlevels.bat file to convert JSON to JSONP data to a new level#.js file.

The one important thing to remember is that each layer is important. The order matters. The bottom-most layer is for regular world tiles that the player will collide with. The rest are for pickups, bouncy platforms, dangerous spikes, and so on.

Additionally, you should modify the game settings in the MAP MENU -> MAP PROPERTIES dialog. Gravity, speed and the player's starting position are all stored there.

HACKING THE SOURCE CODE

The only source code file you will want to modify, if you choose to start coding, is ludus.js. Inside, you'll notice all sorts of variables at the top which you can modify to your heart's content. Note that some of these variables are overwritten by whatever is defined inside the level data.

With regard to the structure of the code, the most important thing to know is that the game is controlled by STATE objects.

Each state (title screen, in-game, and between level transitions) is a class object that has a .setup(), .update() and .draw() function. You could add new states for things like boss battles, inventory screens or a high score table.

See these class constructors: function TitleScreenState() function LevelTransitionScreenState() function PlayState()

HAVE FUN!

...

Let's take a peek at the two included example games (In Visual Studio of course!)...

Both games ran for me the first time with no issues and were fun (in a platformer kind of way). Sure there's only 3 levels, but hey, if there was too much done it would take all the coding fun away!

So either start from scratch or copy off of these, this kit and the provided free artwork, framework and code will have you building your next great Windows 8 game...

• [00:42] Announcing the Release of WebMatrix 3
• [01:13] Announcing the release of Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET (Scott Guthrie)
• [02:56] Windows Azure: Improvements to Virtual Networks, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services and a new Ruby SDK (Scott Guthrie)
• [03:58] Windows Azure Training Kit - April 2013 Available (Dr. Z), Download
• [05:03] Moving 4th & Mayor to Windows Azure Web Sites (Jeff Wilcox)
• [06:08] Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2012 (VSTA) is Now Available, VSTA 2012 SDK, VSTA 2012 Redistributable
• [07:19] Enterprise Library 6.0 (S. Somasegar), Just released - Microsoft Enterprise Library 6 (Grigori Melnik)
• [08:53] NuGet 2.5 Released (Jeff Handley)
• [09:17] NuGet for C++ (Jennifer Leaf)
• [10:28] Taking NuGet to the Enterprise (Alex Papadimoulis)

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[11:52] Turning a standard LCD monitor into touchscreen with a $5 wall-mounted sensor
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[13:34] What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? (Patrick)
• Brian's Addendum:[15:41] Indie Game: The Movie

• [00:33] XBox Event May 21, 10AM PDT
• [01:10] Windows AzureConf 2013
• [02:07] Introducing: Code Digger, an extension for VS2012 (Nikolai Tillmann )
• [03:06] TypeScript Announcing 0.9 early previews (Jonathan Turner)
• [04:25] Microsoft Offers Module to Scale Out Real-time Node.js Applications (Richard Seroter, Glenn Block)
• [05:27] Using Visual Studio’s Javascript Memory Analysis tool to find memory leaks on your Windows 8 Javascript app (David Catuhe)
• [07:11] Miguel de Icaza: Mono, Open Source, Visual Studio, and Xamarin (Charles, Miguel de Icaza)
• [07:58] Build your next great game for Windows 8, OpenGameArt.org
• [09:25] Channel 9 Highlight: Introducing Creative Coding and ProcessingJS With Windows (Clint Rutkas, Matthias Shapiro, Rick Barraza )

Picks of the Week!

• Dan's Pick of the Week:[11:52] The power of 3D interaction (Lee Stott), http://drdave.co.uk/page/projects (Dr Dave Brown)
• Clint's Pick of the Week:[12:33] Pizza Hut launching Xbox 360 app that lets console owners order pizza from Xbox Live (Alexa Ray Corriea)

Game Starterkit for Windows 8 with leaderboard in Windows Azure

This Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 contains what you need to get started with game programming for Windows 8, including online high score in Windows Azure. The game kit is written in HTML and JavaScript.

Download now – follow instructions below to make it work.

Before we start, let me show you what you get with this solution.

Example game
The kit comes with an example game that you can modify and play with. The code is all in one file so it’s easy to play with for beginners. Feel free to use it however you like.

The kit will get updated with cooler and more advanced game that you can use as a basis when developing your own. Follow this blog to get the updates!

...

If you want to learn how to create this game that comes with this starter kit, you can read the guide here (slightly different graphics):

Part I:
http://digitalerr0r.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/html5-game-development-for-windows-8-1-getting-started/

Part II:
http://digitalerr0r.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/html5-game-development-for-windows-8-2-adding-a-player/

Part III:
http://digitalerr0r.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/html5-game-development-for-windows-8-3-finishing-your-first-game/

• Implementation of high score in Windows Azure
  The kit also enables support for Windows Azure and handles the connection, and got functions to check if you are having a internet connection. You need to have your own Windows Azure account, and set up the service/datatable yourself.
• Snap view
• Tiles
• Settings charm implementation

Let’s get you up and running!

Follow this guide to get everything up and running with the starter kit.

1) Install the tools

2) Get an account on Windows Azure

3) Create your Mobile Service and Database

4) Configure

5) Build your solution and make sure it works

Go back to the solution, make sure you have the correct URL and Application Key in your solution, and then Build and run the project.

The game starts up, and when you die, your score will be uploaded to this table. Check that the column Score is created, and that it contains the correct score value you wanted.

Go to the Data tab and the table to see your scores:

Now, be creative. There are a lot of funny little games you can create by just modifying this simple template.

...

Download now

Here's a snap of the Solution;

And a snip, once you've set everything up, on how easy it is to talk to Windows Azure Mobile Services

If you're creating a Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 app (or iOS or Android) Windows Azure can really ease your cross platform data needs (Yeah, I know the irony in that, but it's true).

So anyway.. you've got your starter kit, you've got your cloud storage, now just add some "You"...

• [00:36] Windows Azure: Active Directory Release, New Backup Service + Web Site Monitoring and Log Improvements (Scott Guthrie)
• [02:13] Walkthrough #1: Adding Sign-On to Your Web Application Using Windows Azure AD (Vittorio Bertocci)
• [03:28] Game Starterkit for Windows 8 with leaderboard in Windows Azure (Petri Wilhelmsen)
• [04:53] Channel 9 Highlight: Building Windows Games with Unity
• [08:06] Unity for Beginners Tutorial
• [11:30] Complete guide to dynamic keyword in C# (Punit Ganshani) [Found Via: Complete guide to Dynamic keyword in C#]
• [12:45] Philips Hue Lighting Controller (Clint Rutkas, Jarem Archer)
• [13:58] How to Create a Database-First Code-First Entity Framework 5 Model (Mike Christian)
• [15:08] Make Testing the Untestable Easy with Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 and the Microsoft Fakes Framework (Doug Rathbone)
• [15:50] Free SQL Server Training Videos for Developers (Brent Ozar)

Picks of the Week!

• Dan's Pick of the Week:[17:46] GunPowder - Rogue Rocket Games
• Rick's Pick of the Week:[19:20] How To Draw Einstein's Face Parametrically (Mike James)

• [00:31] Build 2013
• [01:04] #785 – Using the Visual Profiler Tool, #783 – Downloading and Installing the WPF Performance Suite (Sean Sexton), WPF Performance Suite
• [01:45] Brew 1.0 has arrived! [Found Via: The Morning Brew #1321]
• [02:23] Backbone 1.0 (Jeremy Ashkenas) [Found Via: The Morning Brew #1321]
• [02:50] Git Patterns and Anti-Patterns (Luca Milanesio)
• [04:03] Developing an app with the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit, part 1 of 3 (Roberto Sonnino)
• [04:51] GDC 2013 Windows Developer Content Direct3D Game Templates
• [05:29] New middleware makes porting games to Windows Phone easy (Todd Brix)
• [06:06] Windows Phone Apps - Watch Your Code for Hidden Activity (Den Delimarsky)
• Channel 9 Highlight:[07:08] Build Windows 8 Apps with YUI (Jeff Burtoft)

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[07:40] Arena.Xlsm, an RPG built using Excel, carywalkin.wordpress.com, Version 1.1, Arena.Xlsm wiki
• Clint's Pick of the Week:[08:11] Dynamic Lockscreen Changer for Windows Phone 8, Built With ASP.NET MVC and Azure Mobile Services (Clint Rutkas, Den Delimarsky)

• [00:20] Android Developers Welcome to Azure Mobile Services (Joel Citizen)
• [01:57] Azure Mobile Services managed client – now also from NuGet (Carlos Figueira)
• [02:39] Do you understand how your app is being used? (Lee Stott)
• [03:47] Three Essential Tips For Async - Introduction (Charles, Lucian Wischik)
• [05:07] Building a Simple REST Controller with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and WebAPI (Peter Kellner)
• [05:45] HTML Game Dev with Construct 2
• [06:49] Using Phone Resources in Windows Phone 8 (Rob Tiffany, Andy Wigley)
• [07:47] Web Development Goodies in Visual Studio 2012 (Adil Mughal)
• [08:47] A new resource for your icons… (ROUSSEAU Michel )
• [09:07] JavaScript API for Office (wall poster)
• [10:13] New Unit Test functionality in VS2012 Update 2: Test Playlist (Ricci Gian Maria)

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[11:42] Tech Fails in film (Scott Hanselman)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[12:57] Battery powered Kinect on wheels!

Construct 2

Physics

Add realistic physics effects to your games in a few easy clicks.

Special Effects

Over 70 visual effects to make your games look exceptional.

Preview over Wifi

Instantly preview your games on mobiles & tablets over Wifi.

Complete Manual

Full access to our comprehensive documentation.

Friendly Community

Get help and share your experiences with our welcoming and friendly community.

Extendible

Use our fully documented Javascript SDK to extend Construct 2.

No Programming Required

Make your game do what it needs to do in a visual and human readable way with the powerful event system.

There's no need to memorise cryptic languages. Focus on what really matters: designing your game!

It's ideal for beginners, and powerful enough to let experts prototype faster than ever before.

...

Okay, that sounds great... But how do you get started (and given that I did mention free...)

Construct 2 [Download]

The Free HTML5 Game Engine

Download Construct 2 Now

Construct 2 Free Edition has been downloaded by tens of thousands of people. Download Construct 2 now and start making your own games!

106mb for Windows XP, Vista & 7

Free Bundle Download

The free edition of Construct 2 also comes with sprites, sound effects and original music for you to add to your games!

13.1 MB - Free Music/SoundFX/Sprites

Want more features?

Unlock Construct 2's true potential by upgrading to a license today.

A license is required if you want to make money from your games!

How hard is it to create a Windows 8 App? I had my first, using one of the sample projects, in under 3 minutes...

How to make a Windows 8 app

Creating a game for Windows 8 is easy with Construct 2. If you haven't already, download the Free edition and get going with the Beginner's guide!

You might also be interested in exporting to Windows Phone 8 as well (which must be done separately).

Setup

You'll need Windows 8 (RTM or newer - it won't work on the Release Preview or older). You then need to install Visual Studio 2012 Express on Windows 8.

If you're installing Windows 8 and have never installed an operating system before, please take care during the setup. You may need to adjust BIOS settings and format or partition a disk. Making a mistake could cause data loss or result in a system that is difficult to recover. If you're not sure you should ask someone for help while setting up, since the steps involved are out of the scope of this guide, and be certain to make backups of any important data beforehand.

Development

You'll need to add touch controls. See this tutorial on touch controls for help on that.

Different devices have different size screens. See supporting multiple screen sizes.

You can add the Windows 8 object to your project to take integrate with Windows 8 specific features like snap and roaming storage.

Exporting from Construct 2

First, ensure your project has the right Name, Description and Author properties set, since these will be used in the exported app.

In the Export Project dialog, choose Export for Windows 8 and follow the next steps as you would for exporting an ordinary project.

In the export directory you will find a Visual Studio project. Note there are three image files for the app icons, app-logo.png, app-smalllogo.png and app-storelogo.png. You should replace these with your own images but keep them exactly the same dimensions.

The main project file has the extension .sln (solution). Double-click it in Windows 8 and Visual Studio should open it.

..."

Yeah, you read that right, the export results in a Visual Studio Solution.

I install Construct 2, created a new Space Blaster project, exported to Windows 8, set my Publisher cert and BAM! I had my Win8 Modern UI game up and playing. That's pretty cool...

Start:

Create:

Export:

Build:

Play!

Yep, you have a ready for the Windows Store game...

What kind of games can you create? Just check out the arcade, http://www.scirra.com/arcade. But be careful as you might not see the light of day for a while... there's some pretty funny games, for example the NSFW My Irrational Fear of Unicorns had me laughing out loud.

What? You want even more power and capabilities? You want to mesh this with the very cool Azure Mobile Services? Well I've got a plugin just for you...

Azure Mobile Services Plugin for Construct 2

This plugin for Construct 2 makes it easy to integrate the power of Azure Mobile Services into your games for Windows 8. Saving to the cloud is a great way to seamlessly store data for achievements, leaderboards, save games, user data and lots more!

Features:

Conditions

Data

• On Query Completed
• On Record Deleted
• On Record Inserted
• On Record Updated

Data Error Handling

• On Query Error
• On Record Delete Error
• On Record Insert Error
• On Record Update Error

Identity

• Is User Authenticated
• On Authenticate Success
• On Logged Out

Identity Error Handling

• On Authenticate Error

Actions

Data

• Delete Existing Record
• Insert New Record
• Query Table
• Update Existing Record

Identity

• Authenticate User
• Log Out

Expressions

• LastData
• LastFullName
• LastUserID

That enough to keep you busy this weekend? I think so...

Torque 3D Open Source 2.0 Launch

Back on September 20, 2012, we launched the MIT licensed version of Torque 3D on GitHub. This was based on the T3D 1.2 commercial version with some changes to accommodate the MIT license. Since that time we’ve had 800 people star and 300 people fork the open source repository

Now today, nearly three months following our open source launch, we present the first new release under this license: Torque 3D 2.0.

What’s New for 2.0

Torque 3D 2.0 has focused on three areas of development: the new Project Manager, Linux Dedicated Server, and improvement and bug fixing.

Project Manager
The commercial version of Torque 3D 1.2 included an application called the Toolbox. It was used to create custom projects based on the included T3D templates, among other things. Unfortunately, it was made with components that could not be open sourced, so the Toolbox had to be dropped.

In its place is the new Project Manager. The Project Manager has been built using the open source version of Qt to allow it to work across platforms, and currently fills the role of creating projects based on T3D’s templates.

You don’t need to use the Project Manager to create your own projects (the manual steps of creating a project from a template are included in T3D 2.0’s readme), but it sure can be a time saver. The Project Manager will continue to be updated and new features added over time.

Where to Find Torque 3D 2.0

As always you may find Torque 3D over on GitHub. Here is a list of all repositories:

• Main repository: Torque3D
• Documentation: Torque3D-Documentation
• Project Manager: Torque3D-ProjectManager

With the release of Torque 3D 2.0 all changes in the development branch have been moved into the master branch. The development branch will now be used for changes related to the next release of Torque 3D. My T3D Open Source Launch blog has a section on Working with Torque 3D that describes how to get the source code, either through cloning the repository or using GitHub’s ZIP functionality.

In addition to GitHub we also have our own ZIP package that combines the Torque3D repository with the updated TorqueScript documentation, the Project Manager, and compiled versions of each of the templates. This package is ideal for those that do not wish to compile Torque 3D on their own, and is available here:

Complete Torque 3D 2.0 zip package

It’s here! The MIT licensed Torque 2D GitHub repo is ready!

The day you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. The MIT licensed version of Torque 2D is now available on GitHub. For those that just want to jump in and fork or download the engine, the link to the repository on GutHub is listed below. While it's cloning, keep reading to find out what makes Torque 2D a great choice for your game development?
Main repository with source code and twenty toys

If you just want to grab a precompiled version of the repository, you can download it here: Torque2D-2.0.zip. Note that this is not hooked up to the GitHub repository. This is just an export.

History of Open Source Torque 2D

Previously, Eric and I both posted blogs announcing our upcoming release of Torque 2D under the MIT license. If you haven’t already read through those, please head over to them now before continuing:
Torque 2D MIT Coming Soon
The Future of Torque 2D is Open Source!
Open Call: Join the Torque 2D Steering Committee

We are expecting that moving Torque 2D to a MIT license will greatly expand both the engine’s reach and our community. That means more developers to talk with, a larger audience for your tools and art packs, and more games, simulations and other products being created and released.

...

What is Torque 2D?

In simple terms, Torque 2D is an extremely powerful, flexible, and fast engine dedicated to 2D game development. The following is a breakdown of the core facts about the engine:

Currently supported platforms:
* Windows
* OS X
* iOS

Support for new platforms is surely on the way. In fact, YOU get to help us decide what we should work on, be it Linux, Android, editors, or just simple bug fixing.

Languages:
* Core: C++
* Windows: C++ and Windows API
* OS X: C++, Objective-C, and Cocoa API
* iOS: C++, Objective-C, and Cocoa touch API

Main Features:
* Box2D physics
* Simple and flexible sprite system
* Composite system capable of rendering thousands of images and animations with little performance impact
* Integrated asset system that manages all your asset loading and unloading in an optimized manner
* Flexible module system that makes rapid prototyping a snap and code reusability a simple matter
* TexturePacker Support
* TAML serialization format (like XAML and XML)
* Batched rendering
* Multiple collision shapes
* Built-in unit testing framework, cross platform
* Solid behavior system for packaging reusable game logic that can be applied to multiple sprites in different projects

In addition to the core engine languages, you can script all your game play via TorqueScript. This is a C-like syntax language that is very simple to learn and utilize for your projects. Additionally, persistent files such as particles, levels, GUIs, and more are stored as "TAML" (Torque Application Markup Language). If you have ever edited XML or XAML in the past, you should feel more than comfortable with TAML.

...

I was able to grab both engines, compile and run them with no problems at all. It was very smooth and easy...

I liked the Torque3D Project Manager feature. Made getting the starting structure for my own game really quick.

The Torque2D project was also fun to play with.

The Torque2D Toys were fun to play with...

...there's nothing like a little deathball...

These two engines are ready, open and looking for you...

Of course, given who two the the instructors work for, I might get in trouble for highlighting this, but hey, HTML5 is HTML5 right? Game dev is Game dev, right? We're all one happy HTML5 web world now, aren't we? It's about the code and learning, man, not "the man" we work for, man! (I'm so getting fired from this gig...lol

Udacity - HTML5 Game Development

Class Summary

This course will walk you through the major components of building GRITS, an HTML5 game. We'll talk about how to take standard game development techniques, and use them to create high performance HTML5 applications.

What Should I Know?

Knowledge of HTML, Javascript, and how the web works is necessary for this course. There is an optional unit on the specific parts of Javascript and the DOM that you'll need for this class as a refresher.

What Will I Learn?

At the end of this course, you'll understand how to develop an HTML5 game. You will gain familiarity with HTML5 features such as 2D canvas and techniques for improving performance.

Syllabus

• Unit 0 - Optional HTML/Javascript crash course
• Unit 1 - Introduction to Canvas rendering
• Unit 2 - Atlases and Map rendering
• Unit 3 - Basic Input, handling events
• Unit 4 - The entity hierarchy
• Unit 5 - Box2D, and using external libraries
• Unit 6 - Adding sound
• Unit 7 - Asynchronous Loading

Instructors

• Colt McAnlis
• Peter Lubbers
• Sean Bennett

So there you go! A very cool course, free from Udacity. Now get working on your next cool HTML5 game!

• [0:34] Announcing Release of Windows Azure Media Services (Scott Guthrie)
• [1:42] Broadcast push notifications to millions of mobile devices using Windows Azure Notification Hubs (Scott Guthrie)
• [2:33] Now Available: Windows Phone SDK Update for 7.8 (Cliff Simpkins )
• [3:25] Fall Fury: Part 1 - Introduction (Den Delimarsky, Brian Peek, Clint Rutkas, Dan Fernandez, Rick Barraza )
• [5:16] Tile design guidelines for Windows Phone 8 (Shubhan Chemburkar)
• [6:08] Building the Bing apps for Windows 8 (Jigar Thakkar)
• [7:18] Building HTML5 Games for the Atari Arcade
• [8:36] Introducing SvcPerf - An End-to-End trace Analysis tool for WCF (Sajay Antony), http://svcperf.codeplex.com/
• [9:36] CODEMINE: Building a Software Analytics Platform for Collecting and Analyzing Engineering Process Data at Microsoft (Jacek Czerwonka, Nachi Nagappan, and Wolfram Schulte)
• [10:40] GoingNative 13: Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit, Meet Roberto Sonnino

Picks of the Week!

• Clint's Pick of the Week:[11:43] Everything you need to know about the Lumia 820 and 3D printing (Joel Willans)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[13:00] Visual Studio ​Achievement​s; they're not Xbox live right? (Cheevos!)

• Windows Store 8 App? Check
• SurfaceRT? Check
• MonoGame? Check
• XAML? Check
• DirectX? Check
• Separation of concerns, with server (Linux in this case) handling logic and client the display? Check
• SignalR? Check

Creating a Windows 8 Store Game with MonoGame (XAML) and SignalR

In previous posts we’ve looked at how we could create a cross-platform game that relied on HTML and JavaScript. What we also did was moving the server-side code over to a server that runs on Linux and uses Apache and Mono with SignalR! Now let’s take this a step further and convert this game client to a Windows 8 Store application using MonoGame with XAML!

Prerequisite; what you’ll need to install first

Before we can dig into the coding part we need to have some tooling installed first. I am going to use Visual Studio 2012 for this. There are however a lot of resources around that tells you how to use MonoGame with MonoDevelop on for instance a Mac.

All you really need to install if you already have Visual Studio 2012 installed is MonoGame. You can grab the latest version (3.0 Beta) over at the MonoGame CodePlex site.

After installing this you should be able to see the MonoGame (XAML) project template in the “New Project” dialog as seen in the image below.

...

...

Recap

This post has gone through a lot of interesting topics and just scratched the surface on many of them. But the idea was to wrap up all the cool things that we’ve looked at with SignalR and Windows 8 for the last couple of months. This post is far to long to fit in a tl;dr but here is a bullet list of the awesome things used in this post:

• Getting started with MonoGame
• Adding basic textures with MonoGame
• Understanding how to add basic images such as PNGs as XNBs with the annoying work-around
• Creating a basic application that uses both XAML and DirectX
• Running MonoGame on Surface
• Communicating with a server using SignalR which runs on Mono, Apache and Linux!
• Wrapping it all together and porting the Tic-Tac-Toe client to a Windows 8 “XNA” Game that runs on Surface!

I probably forgot one or two things in the list above, but you get the point! We looked at some very interesting things and I think that you can take it from here and make some amazing cross platform games and not be limited by what server software you are running (read: this works on linux with Mono and Apache!).

Code? Oh yeah...

Where can I get the code?

Don’t worry, you can download the entire solution that I worked on here. Remember that a lot of the code is based on the other SignalR posts that I’ve done:

• Introduction to SignalR – Creating a Cross-Platform game
• Running SignalR on Mono

Don’t forget to check out my screencast on SignalR, here it is again so you don’t forget:

• [0:42] Windows Phone 8 Emulator Skin Switcher 1.0 released on codeplex (Geert van der Cruijsen )
• [1:43] Maps in Windows Phone 8 and Phone toolkit: a winning team – Part 1 (Matteo Pagani)
• [2:35] What Is New In WPF 4.5 (DevToolsGuy)
• [3:36] Developer Tools Screencast: LINQPad - Part 1 (Latish Sehgal)
• [4:46] Integrating Search with OData Service for Team Foundation Server in a Windows Store App (Nisha Singh)
• [5:37] Part 1 of 9: Creating a Complete Windows 8 Game (minus the game) (Lindsay Lindstrom)
• [6:34] Introducing Blend for Visual Studio 2012 – Build a simple Windows 8 Store App (Pravinkumar Dabade)
• [8:10] Entity Framework - Pro and Con (Bnaya Eshet)
• [9:18] Understanding Mock and frameworks – Part 3 of N (Punit Ganshani)

Picks of the Week!

• Clint's Pick of the Week:[10:38] Obama crushes Death Star dreams (Mike Hoffman)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[11:41] Creating your own Kinect Night Vision with help from the IR Stream, IR Emitter and Abhijit (Abhijit Jana)

Today's project is an "end-to-end" Windows Store game that runs great on PC's (x86/x64) and the Surface RT (ARM).

And as an added bonus you get to see MVVM in action, Sharing contracts (so you can share your awesomeness with friends and family) and is even packaged in such a way as you can use the "engine" with other WinRT supported languages too!

Oh and finally there's good bit of documentation that details how everything works.

Reversi XAML/C# sample board game app

The Reversi sample is an end-to-end board game app that shows some common features of Windows Store apps in a real-world setting. It also shows the use of XAML and C# features to create a layered (MVVM) app structure that is helpful as an app becomes more complex.

For a general introduction to the sample, see Developing Reversi.

To learn how the sample uses some features without having to understand the whole sample, see Reversi feature scenarios.

To learn how the overall sample works, see Reversi app structure, which describes the layers of the app and the parts in each layer. 

The Reversi sample shows you:

• Windows Store app features, including:
  • Tile and splash screen
  • App bar
  • Toast notifications
  • Settings flyouts
  • Share contract
  • Windows Runtime component creation and usage
• The use of the Common classes generated by the Visual Studio app templates to support:
  • Data binding
  • App navigation
  • Dynamic layout for screen orientation changes and snapped view
  • App lifecycle management (suspend, terminate, and resume)
• XAML and C# features, including:
  • Data binding and code separation patterns (MVVM)
  • XAML-based animations and states, including keyboard focus and mouse hover states
  • Custom controls and user controls
  • Asynchronous programming and thread cancellation
  • LINQ and related syntax features

This sample represents a work in progress. Not every scenario has documentation coverage, and some scenarios have only simple implementations. The sample is provided as-is, with no guarantees that it meets store certification requirements. However, the goal of this project is to provide accurate guidance on designing and developing a complete Windows Store app. Additional work is currently planned to ensure that the app is fully compliant with store requirements.

Changes in the 12/6 release

This release differs from the initial release in the following ways:

• The share contract has been implemented to share an image of the current game, including text info describing its state. This info is shared in a variety of formats to increase the number of compatible share targets.
• The ReversiGame project has been refactored into a Windows Runtime component to make it reusable in Windows Store apps based on other languages (such as JavaScript), and to enable replacement with a C++ implementation in order to optimize performance.
• The ReversiGame and ReversiTests projects have been renamed to ReversiGameComponent and ReversiGameComponentTests to make their roles clearer.

Developing Reversi, a Windows Store game in C# and XAML (Windows)

The Reversi board game app is an end-to-end sample that shows some common features of Windows Store apps in a real-world setting. It also shows the use of XAML and C# features to create a layered app structure (using the Model-View-ViewModel or MVVM pattern) that is helpful as an app becomes more complex. This topic introduces the sample and provides links to additional documentation.

For a short intro to MVVM, see Using the Model-View-ViewModel pattern.

To learn how this sample uses particular features without having to understand the whole sample, see Reversi feature scenarios.

To learn how the overall sample works, see Reversi app structure, which describes the layers of the app and the parts in each layer.

Note  This documentation reflects the current state of the sample at the time of writing. See the following links for the latest code and info about any updates.

...

Reversi is one of the most common board games implemented on computers. This is because the rules and artificial intelligence (AI) are relatively easy to implement, and the rules are over a hundred years old and are thus not under copyright. It also represents a programming problem that is not too hard but also not too easy.

The Reversi sample app includes features that let a player:

• Read the rules of the game.
• Play against other humans or against an AI at several difficulty levels.
• Pause the clock when the game isn't active.
• Show and hide the clock.
• Show and hide visual indications of the legal moves and the spaces affected by the previous move.
• Undo and redo moves to explore alternate plays.
• Play the game on different board sizes.

This set of features provides enough complexity to represent a truly "real world" app, but with enough simplicity to keep the app relatively small for learning purposes.

Reversi feature scenarios (Windows)

In this article

• Tile and splash screen
• App bar
• Toast notifications
• Settings flyouts
• Sharing content
• Data binding
• Asynchronous code
• Using a Windows Runtime Component
• Related topics

The Reversi sample uses several common features of Windows Store apps using XAML and C#. This topic describes how the sample uses some of these features, and provides links to key feature topics.

This topic does not require you to understand the whole sample, but it does assume that you already know XAML and C#, and already understand the basics of each feature, or are willing to learn by reading the linked topics. For info on app development fundamentals, see Create your first Windows Store app using C# or Visual Basic.

...

Reversi app structure (Windows)

In this article

• App layers
• The model layer
• The view layer
• The view-model layer
• Infrastructure and common code
• Unit tests
• Related topics

The Reversi sample uses a layered structure known as the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern. This structure separates UI from non-UI code, which can simplify debugging, testing, and future development. This topic describes each layer in the sample, the parts in each layer, and how all the parts work together.

The Reversi sample differs from simpler XAML samples that put most of their non-XAML code in code-behind files. Reversi adds code to code-behind files in a few cases, but moves most of its non-XAML code to other layers and uses data binding to connect those layers to the UI.

The Reversi sample also differs from more complex XAML samples that use more advanced techniques, including separate MVVM frameworks. Such frameworks are useful for increasingly complex

...

Okay, okay... I think you now see there's a number of interesting things to read about, learn and see in the game.

Let's take a look at it. Here's a snap of the Solution. BTW, kudu's to the authors for including Unit Tests. It's great to see something like that included in a "sample".

So you can the game and game component are broken into the two pieces mentioned toward the beginning of the post (aka the 12/6/2012 note).

If you're like me, you're wondering if this really works on the Surface RT?

Yep! I'm here to tell, and show, you it does. There's just a couple things to do to get it run on the Surface RT, both pretty easy.

First, you need to change the Active Platform from x86 to All CPU's.

This is how it looks when first downloaded.

So obviously this will be a problem when trying to deploy it to an ARM device... Just switch the Active Solution Platform to Any CPU.

So now that it's possible to run it on a Surface RT, how do you get it over there? For dev's there's two primary ways. The approach I use is via Remote Debugging. Getting this setup isn't hard, but does take a few steps. Tim Heuer has a great write-up about that, Remote Debugging your Windows Store app on your Surface.

The other approach is to side-load an app package.

Which creates...

You'd copy all these to the Surface RT and then execute the included powershell, *ps1, script to install the app.

Both deployment schemes have their pluses and minus, where the remote debugger is much easier when both devices are on the same network, and the appdevpackage is perfect when the devices are not...

So I said I'd show you?

I think that's enough to get you started? Code, doc's screenshots, stuff to learn and a pretty complete game to play (where I... um... "invested" too much time in when writing this post up... . Now that's the way to start the year!

So what's a dev to do? We have all these devices, all with their own IDE's, SDK's, capabilities, languages and such. How do we get our apps on them without rewriting them for each? And it becomes even harder when we're building games or highly interactive, graphic intensive apps (read "need native level code"). We need a cross platform SDK that helps us build native apps for all the devices.

Today's post highlights one such SDK that's new to the Windows Phone 8 space, and while not free, has a tasty name (and of course some very interesting looking features!)...

Marmalade

Marmalade supports all open native operating systems

Marmalade uniquely provides the opportunity of deploying simultaneously to all platforms without compromising on performance. Marmalade’s patented technical architecture builds your application as a portable code binary containing native CPU instructions. All this is possible with a single click for the following operating systems (our ‘Supported Platforms’):

• iOS (4.2 and above)
• Android (2.1 and above)
• BlackBerry PlayBook OS
• bada (2.0)
• Windows desktop (7, XP3)... full-screen and windowed applications
• Mac OS X desktop... full-screen and windowed applications
• LG Smart TV (for Professional licensees and LG registered developers)

Marmalade does not support the BlackBerry Java platform.

We are also working closely with leading device manufacturers to create new distribution opportunities for Marmalade content.

Marmalade supports all devices within each operating system

Marmalade fixes fragmentation within each operating system by removing the need for developers to worry about individual device eccentricities. Here are just five examples, among hundreds, of things that Marmalade handles in the same way across all devices:

• Dynamic portrait/landscape screen switching
• Accelerometer API – despite the large number of bespoke device drivers and APIs in the market
• Device-application inter-operability – in other words, your application is guaranteed to 'play nicely' with the device software, for example to respond to incoming phone calls and messages
• Audio – by providing advanced software sound mixing, for example
• Drawing API – supports OpenGL ES 1.x, OpenGL ES 2.0 and super-fast software rendering, allowing your app to run with or without any form of hardware graphics acceleration

Features

Marmalade for Windows Phone 8

We're happy to announce that, starting today [December 14, 2012] our Marmalade Professional & Marmalade Plus customers can access our early Beta support for Windows Phone 8.

Marmalade is the only cross-platform SDK that lets you deploy OpenGL ES 2.0 based applications on Windows Phone 8. And with Marmalade Plus, you can start developing in one place for Windows Phone 8, iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10, LG Smart TV, and Mac & Windows desktops.

If you purchase the new Marmalade Plus license now, we can offer it to you at advanced pricing of just $1200 per License, a 20% discount on the normal price.*

Get Marmalade Plus License here and start developing for Windows Phone 8 today....

As I said, there's no free version, but the first tier that support Windows Phone 8 will be the Indie tier...

That said, there are ways to make it cheaper and maybe even free...

Marmalade offers an open, scalable and highly flexible environment for developing mobile apps. Create or port rich content faster using efficient desktop tools - and distribute your apps to most mobile operating systems and smart devices. If you join our Apps Program or Code Community projects you could get your license free of charge.

If you are a student or would like to use Marmalade for educational purposes, please Contact Us to find out how we could help.

This looks like a interesting and cool way to build very high performance cross platform apps and is something I'll be keeping an eye on.

We're about coding right? So how about we wrap up the year highlighting a open source, c#, game library that will help you build your own cool game? You've undoubtedly have heard of Minecraft? You've maybe wondered if you could create your own like "block" game? Well my friends, today's is just for you!

Voxeliq

Voxeliq is a block engine crafted with C# that can be used to develop block based worlds with any type of gameplay you can imagine. Sandbox games, RPG’s or even RTS games within a blocky world! Engine is still being developed & optimized for production though we already started kicking in our first games with it.

raistlinthewiz / voxeliq

voxeliq is an open source block-based game engine implementation developed with C#. It uses XNA or the Monogame as the basis. It can be compiled with Microsoft .NET or Mono, which means you can run it on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Please see the file LICENSE for license details.

Copyright (C) 2011 - 2013, Voxeliq Studios

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL).

Stay awhile and listen

• Read the FAQ and check the wiki before asking!
• Check out the forums.

More info

• Voxeliq website
• IndieDB
• Steam Greenlight
• voxeliq@github
• voxeliq@codeplex
• voxeliq@reddit
• voxeliq@twitter
• voxeliq@youtube
• voxeliq@facebook

DevLog Videos

• Devlog-IX - MonoGame support
• Devlog-VIII - Speed Test
• Devlog-VII - Bloom Effect
• Devlog-VI
• Devlog-V
• Devlog-IV - Infinitive Terrain 2.0
• Devlog-III - Infinitive Terrain
• Devlog-II
• Devlog-I
• Bonus - Techno Visualizer

The engine and sample game downloaded and ran for me with no problems. If you're using Visual Studio, you'll need to open it in VS 2010. Due to its usage of XNA, it won't load in VS 2012. You'll also obviously need the XNA Game Studio installed too.

Anyway, once opened, here's a snap of the solution.

Here's some snaps of it running on my notebook;

The cool thing is that this sample game really have very little code behind it itself, with the engine doing all the hard work.

There's bascially two CS files for the entire sample game;

The Program.cs is the usual setup stuff;

The VoxeliqGame.cs just setups the environment, UI, etc, telling the engine what's needed and then runs;

And that's about it. The engine does everything else.

Here's a snap of the engine;

So think you've got the idea for the next killer block game? Voxeliq might be just the thing to get your engine started!

Next Steps:
Step #1 – Download the Tools for Windows 8 App Development
Step #2 – Download Visual Studio Express for Windows 8
Step #3 – Start building your own Apps for Windows 8

Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, Zune, or RSS

If you're interested in learning more about the products or solutions discussed in this episode, click on any of the below links for free, in-depth information:

Websites:

• Getting started with Windows 8 Apps
• How to Sell Your Apps and Make Money in the Windows Store
• Attend a Windows 8 Developer Camp and Hackathon in your area!

Blogs & Articles:

• Ryan Joy’s Blog
• Learn more about GameSalad

Videos:

• Microsoft DevRadio: Managing Your Windows 8 Enterprise Apps with Windows Intune
• Microsoft DevRadio: Top 10 Windows 8 Secrets for App Success

Virtual Labs:

• Windows 8 Release Preview Virtual Labs

 In this video, we'll show you the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit, which is now available on the Visual Studio Developer Code Samples site for all editions of Visual Studio 2012 that support writing Windows Store apps, including Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8.  JP and Roberto walk you through this C++ code sample which shows you how to use common capabilities in 3D apps and games for the Windows Store, such as:

• Loading textures, models, shaders
• Working with a Camera class
• Creating a 3D Scene
• Using XAML with DirectX

We'll also show you how to use the Model and Image Viewers and Shader Designer which are included in retail editions of Visual Studio 2012.

Also check out the Towers of Hanoi project on CodePlex that Roberto shows in this video, which is an example of how you can adapt the Starter Kit for use in your own apps and games.

Update: This is a pretty hot topic and the team has been releasing additional information, projects and video's. Scroll down to see the latest...

Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit

This sample contains the starting point for a basic game. The sample contains a “Starter Kit” which provides support for consuming runtime assets produced by the VS tools. This includes loading and rendering assets (meshes, textures and shaders).

This sample demonstrates several features of Visual Studio useful in game development. It contains the starting point for a basic Direct3D game for the Windows Store.

Building the Sample

1. Start Visual Studio 2012 and select File >Open >Project/Solution.
2. Go to the directory in which you unzipped the sample. Go to the directory named
   for the sample, and double-click the Visual Studio 2012 Solution (.sln) file.
3. Press F6 or use Build > Build Solution to build the sample.

Description

This sample contains the starting point for a basic game.

It demonstrates using the Visual Studio Graphics tools for asset manipulation, along with using an MSBUILD task for converting the included assets to a format suitable for runtime consumption.

The sample contains a “Starter Kit” which provides basic support for consuming the runtime assets produced by the MSBUILD task. This includes loading and rendering assets, along with other functionality to enabled developers to work with the assets at runtime.

The sample also demonstrates using XAML to implement a simple 2D HUD over the 3D scene.

Viewing Assets

To view the included assets, open the Assets folder in Visual Studio 2012, under the StarterKit project. Double click on any of the assets included in the Assets folder.

Including the Assets in the Build

The assets included with this sample have been set up to be converted by the MSBUILD task to a runtime format at build time. For an example on how this is set up, right click on the GameLevel.fbx file, and select “Properties” from the context menu. Select “General” from the Configuration properties on the left. Notice how the “Item Type” has been set to “Mesh Content Pipeline”. The Visual Studio Graphics tools contain 3 different build types related to assets: Mesh Content, Shader Content, and Image Content.

In this example, the mesh is converted at build time to a file named “GameLevel.cmo”.

Using the Starter Kit

The sample includes the header VSD3DStarter.h, which contains code for getting started with the content produced by the build task described above. 

An example of using the starter kit to load and render the GameLevel can be found in the
Game.cpp file.

Source Code Files

• App.xaml/App.xaml.cpp – Application file for XAML app.
• DirectXBase.cpp/.h – Base class for Direct3D rendering
• DirectXHelper.h – DirectX helper code
• DirectXPage.xaml.cpp/.h – Used for hosting Direct3D content in a XAML app
• Game.cpp/.h – Game logic use to demonstrate use of the “Starter Kit”
• VSD3DStarter.h – “Starter Kit”. Provides runtime support for working with the assets in this sample.

...

While it's important you learn the basis and basics for what you are writing, it's also important to ship and to focus on your game logic and not worry too much about foundational/grunt code. This starter kit will can help you with both (learning and avoiding the grunt'ness)...

Just in: Looking for another example of using the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit? Here's a project by Roberto Sonnino and Xiaoji Chen.

Towers of Hanoi 3D

A simple Towers of Hanoi 3D game for the Windows Store.

Developed with the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit - http://aka.ms/vs3dkit

Update: Want to see it in action? Here's a hot off the press video from the team...

Visual Studio 3D StarterKit [Video]

Want to write a 3D game for Windows 8, but not sure where to start? 

In this video, we'll show you the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit, which is now available on the Visual Studio Developer Code Samples site for all editions of Visual Studio 2012 that support writing Windows Store apps, including Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8.  JP and Roberto walk you through this C++ code sample which shows you how to use common capabilities in 3D apps and games for the Windows Store, such as:

• Loading textures, models, shaders
• Working with a Camera class
• Creating a 3D Scene
• Using XAML with DirectX

We'll also show you how to use the Model and Image Viewers and Shader Designer which are included in retail editions of Visual Studio 2012.

...

• [2:10] MSDN Magazine Windows 8 Special
• [2:57] NuGet for Windows Store App Developers (Howard Dierking)
• [3:44] Inside the Kinect for Windows SDK Update with Peter Zatloukal and Bob Heddle (Peter Zatloukal, Bob Heddle), Kinect for Windows releases SDK update and launches in China
• [5:09] Web Platform Docs Debuts with Developer Resources (Eliot Graff)
• [6:13] Anders & Lars: TypeScript, JavaScript, and Dart (Anders Hejlsberg, Lars Bak)
• [7:09] Channel 9 Highlight: DevNuggets [Returns] with Leverage the maps app in your Windows Store (G. Andrew Duthie)
• [8:00] The essential guide to testing your Windows 8 game (Tom Rouse)
• [8:38] HTML5 Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 (Petri Wilhelmsen)
• [9:41] Large Datasets in Windows 8: Part 2 – Syncing Datasets to SQLite, Part 1, (Matt Hudson)
• [10:39] Improving Your App's Performance with PerfView (Brandon Bray)

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[11:30] In-Place: Interacting with Large Displays (Rob Knies)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[12:26] Freehand 3D Computer Interaction Without Gloves

Before we dived into what’s coming, we chatted about the Unity of today where I asked for a little background on why there was no Windows Phone 7 version.

“We wanted to, but Microsoft was not ready for native applications/engines and the work to rewrite our engine would have been...” [GD: In my notes I had “insane” and while he didn’t say that you get the idea…].

Let’s take a step back for a bit and talk about Unity at a higher level. Unity is made up of three basic parts, the Engine, optional platform deployment add-ons and the game development tool chain. The Engine is what you might expect it to be, it’s the C/C++ heart of Unity. The optional add-ons are those things that enable or help the engine run on different platforms (there are 13 different platforms for Unity including the upcoming Windows Phone 8 and Nintendo Wii U additions). Finally there are the tools. That’s where you come in.

All you need to worry about is writing scripts for your game, designing gameplay and levels, and providing media/graphic assets, and the add-ons and engine do the rest. How do you code it? C#, Unityscript (Unity’s version of Javascript), or Boo.

Yep, C#. “But Greg, Unity runs on phones, tablets, Macs, all these things!” Yep, that’s right, lots of different platforms. And you can use any of these three languages for all of them. That’s the magic behind the Engine. It takes your script code and compiles it to work on the platforms you are deploying to. It’s basically a native code generation engine. And it handles all the different graphic devices, sound, input, locals all of that for you.

Being a dev geek, I had to know, given that number of platforms, how much of the code was shared between them. Was there a totally different code base for each or was there some code sharing between them?

“90%”

90% of the code is shared across the different platforms.

As David spelled all this out to me, I quickly understood my “insane” note. Imagine have to rewrite that much code, just to get it to run on one device OS.

“Wait… but there’s a Flash version. Wouldn’t that require a rewrite too?” you ask? Yes, they do have a Flash version and yes, it did require a rewrite. That project was a major effort that took years. And let’s be honest, given the penetration of Flash, a logical step.

That’s today. What about tomorrow?

Unity 4, which is currently in beta, will allow the targeting of the new platforms coming from Microsoft. The v4 beta is available today, if you pre-order v4. That said the Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 parts of v4 are not yet available (but coming soon).

Windows 8 Store Applications and Windows Phone 8 will open a whole new scope of what’s possible with their new native application support. Native app’s on Windows Phone 8 means Unity can leverage that 90%. And so can you.

Again being a dev, I had to know how long it took to create the Windows Phone 8 version of the Engine. Was it months and months using massive numbers of people or…?

“6 Weeks and 1, 1 ½ teams.”

The hardest part?

“The locked down nature of Windows Phone 8, even when doing native code. Also the platform is a moving target”

With the earlier talk of “pre-order” I got a little concerned about the free version…

“We will have strong support for the free version in v4, including being able to build Windows Store Apps with Unity. The free edition is very important to us. We started out as devs too and remember those days fondly. We want to give back and support the devs of today, to help build the hobbyist into the next pro gamer dev, to help the day-corporate dev who wants to code at home on fun stuff. That’s where we see the Free edition.”

As David was mentioning Windows Store Apps, I put forth the question of WinRT, i.e ARM vs Intel… Will the Unity engine run on Windows RT (i.e. ARM) tablets? Will it run, will games created with it run, as seamlessly as a Windows Store App as it runs on the Windows 8 Desktop?

“We really want that to happen and that’s our intent. But we’re in the early days of WinRT and there are not many devices available yet, so… But again, we intend too!”

As we speak about different devices and platforms I began to wonder how they deal with the different sensors and capabilities of all these devices. Did they build the “one framework to rule them all,” was every platform unique or was there a middle ground?

“We have a different approach to sensors than Flash/Java. We do provide a common set of device/sensor capabilities in the Engine, but we don’t lock people into just those. You can extend the Engine, using C++, to create extensions that provide new device specific capabilities which then others can use when writing their C# game code. We provide a base, on which others can build on and extend, giving them the power to adapt to the changes and new devices faster than we ever could…”

As I’ve already mentioned a couple times, the Unity devs use scripting to code their games/apps behavior. Does this mean that something like the .NET Framework is deployed to all supported platforms? What “version” of C# is that? 4.5?

“Unity relies on Mono (http://www.mono-project.com) for its C# development framework. So where Mono is, Unity can be (in general). Since we are coupled to Mono and Mono can be a version or so behind the latest .NET Framework, and due to the needs to have a stable platform to build into our Engine, we might be a version or so behind the latest version of Mono…”

“That said, on Windows 8 we plan on supporting the full .NET Framework 4.5. So if that’s your only platform target, you can take advantage of everything that’s in .NET Framework 4.5.”

That seemed a good time to ask when Unity 4 was going to be released.

“We’re an engine, a platform that tens of thousands depend on. We have to get it right. I can’t give you a date, but it’s our intent to not be too far beyond the generally availability date of Windows 8/Windows Phone 8”

At that point we were running out of time, so I asked what some of the more unusual or coolest things he’s seen built with Unity.

“There was one project where a dog lived on a wall and using AI interacted with people…”

SNIFF, As you walk down the street you are approached by a dog. He is on his guard trying to discern your intentions. He will follow you and interpret your gestures as friendly or aggressive. He will try to engage you in a relationship and get you to pay attention to him.

Sniff is an interactive projection in a storefront window. As the viewer walks by the projection, her movements and gestures are tracked by a computer vision system. A CG dog dynamically responds to these gestures and changes his behavior based on the state of engagement with the viewer.

“There was another one on Kickstarter what was a game that taught you how to develop Unity games with playing a game…”

Code Hero: A Game That Teaches You To Make Games, Your Code Ray shoots Javascript in Unity. Hack the planet: Become a code hero!

“There’s military simulators, a Rifle Range game that uses a real rifle and so many more… Our Gallery, http://unity3d.com/gallery/made-with-unity/game-list) is a great place to see some of the things people are making with Unity”

Finally I had to ask about the Kinect, if there were plans for it?

“Unity for the Xbox 360 already supports the Kinect. As for Windows 8, there are a number of people who have already created Unity extensions for the Kinect for Windows Device/SDK. Also while I can’t commit to it, we do have something working in the lab…”

I’d like to thank David for his time and Melissa for setting up the opportunity. After talking with him, I’m really looking forward to Unity 4!

So it kind of seems fitting to highlight a Game Sample that mashes all this up...

Farseer Physics 3.3.1 and Gleed2d XNA 4.0 Game Sample

Farseer Physics Engine 3.3.1 and Gleed2d for XNA 4.0 combined into playable VS10 solution

Motivation for this project was to create a platformer game on XNA 4.0 using Farseer Physics and Gleed2d level editor. Problem was that tutorials for using Farseer are usually for version 3.2. Also most of the tutorials for using the Gleed2d were outdated, since there's new version for XNA4.0. So I spent some time researching the Farseer 3.3.1 Game Samples and Gleed2d forum discussions to get a grip how to implement this on newest versions.

In a sense this is not actual game but only a skeleton and sample from which you can try and see how to get these two technologies work. There's a movable character for testing if the tileblocks and stuff really are where they should be.

To fully use this sample (create your own levels that are better than supplemental testlevel.gleed) you also need to download Gleed2d for XNA 4.0

Documentation

Fully functionable solution that has MyLevel.cs that can import Gleed2d level. Tile.cs that can create rectangle body and PathTile.cs that creates a path from gleed information. It also has an animated player character to show how the level physics work. Character can run and jump using arrow keys and spacebar, respectively. Character has some problem with movement: when you jump or drop down it begins to stutter like a car with broken wheels.

The character was made with this code. The original character code works fine but when I added it to my solution, something went wrong. But it actually isn't the most important thing of this project.

Some things you have to remember:

This project comes with a leveltest.gleed level, that might or might not work out of the box, if not, then you should make a new one with Gleed2d and add it to project.

Gleed2d saves the texture paths like "content/something/image.jpg" and as you know, passing this to content.load() methods doesn't work. That's why in MyLevel.cs LoadTiles() ...

Here's game sample Solution;

And some snaps of it running;

As you can see, it's a simple example, but again, as the author noted, that's the intent, to be a simple example of using GLEED and Farseer.

Here's a snip of code that does the level and tile loading;

/// <summary>
   /// Creates a new level, sets up Farseer world object and loads tiles
   /// </summary>
   /// <param name="serviceProvider"></param>
   public MyLevel(ContentManager serviceProvider)
   {
       content = serviceProvider;

       if (world == null)
       {
           world = new World(new Vector2(0f, 80f));
       }
       else
       {
           world.Clear();
       }

       LoadTiles();
   }

   /// <summary>
   /// Tile loading method, reads gleed2d xml-file and sorts out paths and textures
   /// </summary>
   protected void LoadTiles()
   {
       tex = content.Load<Texture2D>("Tiles/blockHat");

       using (Stream stream = TitleContainer.OpenStream("Content/Levels/leveltest.gleed")) //#1 change gere you level file path
       {
           XElement xml = XElement.Load(stream);
           level = LevelLoader.Load(xml);
       }

       tiles = new List<Tile>();
       pathTiles = new List<PathTile>();
       textures = new List<MyTexture>();

       foreach (Layer layer in level.Layers)
       {
           if (layer.Properties.Name.Equals("Collision")) //2# change here your layer's name
           {
               foreach (LayerItem item in layer.Items)
               {
                   if (item.Properties is PathItemProperties)
                   {
                       PathItemProperties pathProperties = item.Properties as PathItemProperties;
                       pathTile = new PathTile(pathProperties.LocalPoints, pathProperties.Position, world);
                       pathTiles.Add(pathTile);
                   }
                   if (item.Properties is RectangleItemProperties)
                   {
                       RectangleItemProperties pathProperties = item.Properties as RectangleItemProperties;
                       tile = new Tile(TileCollision.Impassable, pathProperties.Width, pathProperties.Height, pathProperties.Position, pathProperties.Rotation, world);
                       tiles.Add(tile);
                   }
               }
           }

           if (layer.Properties.Name.Equals("Textures"))
           {
               foreach (LayerItem item in layer.Items)
               {
                   if (item.Properties is TextureItemProperties)
                   {
                       TextureItemProperties textureProperties = item.Properties as TextureItemProperties;
                       string filename = "Tiles/" + Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(textureProperties.TexturePathRelativeToContentRoot); //3# change here your tile textures' file path
                       Texture2D texture = content.Load<Texture2D>(filename);
                       myTexture = new MyTexture(texture, textureProperties.Position, textureProperties.Rotation, textureProperties.Scale);
                       textures.Add(myTexture);
                   }
               }
           }
       }

       hero = new Hero(this, new Vector2(70, 0), 20f);
   }

So if you've seen GLEED and wondered how it could be used in a game, want to see a simple game sample that uses Farseer or just looking for something easily approachable, here you go...

Loot-Tables, Random Maps and Monsters - Part I

This is something that ran through my head for a long time, until I finally sat down and started thinking logical about it. While I thought through the requirements such a system has to fulfill, it became clear, that almost everything that happens in those games, from the items a vendor offers for sale, to the loot a monster drops when it dies, and even the spawn of monsters (is it a rare mob or a normal monster, any kind of elite creature, whatever) can be put under the same hood: it is a kind of random generated ... thing. Even random generated maps are nothing else than a "drop of map segments".

Almost every game has things that happen "sometimes". If you are happy with code like "if (new Random().Next(1,10) < 5) ..." then you should probably stop reading  - But if you want more than that, if you want to be able to just "design" probabilities for things to happen, if you do not want if...else if...else if... constructs running through random values, then this one here will be a pearl for you. I am quite confident. Go ahead. Read on!

I will show you my all-in-one solution to the "loot-problem", a class library called "RDS" (Random Distribution System) that creates recursive loot-tables, probabilities, result sets and has a set of properties that allows you to control its behavior. To my own surprise, the library was way smaller than I initially thought it would be when finished. The classes are slim, fast and easy to understand; somehow the RDS seems to be more than the sum of its parts. With only a few lines of code you will be able to create fantastic randomized content!

No fancy graphics, no designers, just the core code creating loot for you. It's totally up to you and your imagination, what those classes can do for you and which designers you might want to write to create those tables (SQL based, File based, whatever). Would be great if you'd share some of your ideas with those classes here, too.

...

...

Summary

We created a RDS that allows us to do these things:

• Drop any number of... things with given probabilities in a recursive structure
• Drop nothing
• React on events (or overrides) when certain things happen
• Simulate loot behavior of big players in the game industry
• Add values or references, re-create instances of living objects
• The option to replace the default.net Randomizer with something more sophisticated
• Basically you can delegate every random decision and chance in your game to RDS

All we need to have fun while making and playing our games is there. The only thing you have not seen so far is, how that all comes to live. Fortunately there is a Part II, which will exactly do that!

Loot-Tables, Random Maps and Monsters - Part II

So you have gone all the long path of dry theory through Part I and want to see, how it runs? Welcome to Part II of the RDS article!

I will show you now the "how-to's" with a group of small demos (you find all the demo code in the downloadable source code) - it's a simple Console Application as I promised in Part I "no fancy graphics, no designers, just code" that will output the results of RDS.

...

Demo 4 - Creating (spawning) a group of Monsters, maybe even with a rare mob?

Ok, we need a group of Goblins. Urgent! Shamans, Warriors and, with luck, the almighty BOB! The Goblin the world fears since it heard of him the first time! . Let's find out how we can create a random set up group of Monsters. This demo shows the usage of the RDSCreatableObject class.

The preparation for this demo includes creating a "Goblin" base class (which is basically just the same as the "MyItem" class from the other Demos) , from which we derive the Warrior and the Shaman. The allmighty BOB, our rare mob will be of course a Warrior, so we derive BOB : Warrior. We then set up a RDSTable that will contain 5 Shamans, 5 Warriors... and BOB.

Why 5 of each class? As I want to show in the demo one possible way to have monsters spawn with different levels. For the Demo we set a variable "AreaLevel = 10" as the level of the Area where we want to spawn our group of monsters. We then add 1 Shaman with AreaLevel-2, 1 with AreaLevel-1, one at par with AreaLevel, and one with +1 and +2. Same for the Warriors. The +2/-2 mobs have a lower probability to spawn, and the even level mobs have the highest probability.

And last but not least, we add BOB with a significantly lower probability to spawn. BOB is rdsUnique of course... there can be only one BOB.

Play around with this demo, run it over and over again, until you finally hit BOB. See how the group of monsters looks like in their distribution of levels and types (Shaman, Warrior) and you will see, that this spawns totally random groups of 10 shamans each.

Maybe you want to enhance this demo to make the count of Goblins spawned random, too. Try to add a NullValue or set up another table of RDSValue<T> objects (or just roll a dice) to determine the rdsCount for the table.

...

Demo 6 - Random generating a simple map.

Short demo of selecting 25 map pieces randomly to create a 5x5 map. You can create any map size with this system, of course.

The setup here is to demonstrate a new technique: Dynamically enabling and disabling entries of one single table in the PreResult override, based on the exits a map segment has.

We create a class named MiniDungeon : RDSTable. This table contains lots of MapSegment objects, that derive from RDSObject. Each Segment has four exits: North, East, South and West. Those boolean flags represent the possible exits of a Segment and are used to modify the states of the contents of the MiniDungeon.

MapSegment gets a constructor that takes four boolean parameters, each one describing one of the possible exits. We want to loot only Segments, that can fulfill the needs of the map (i.e. have the desired exits).

In the PreResult override, each MapSegment disables/enables itself based on the requested exits, so that only those Segments stay active that can fulfill the desired exits.

The algorythm of the Map is clearly not the most high sophisticated you have ever seen, but thats not the point of the demo. A demo output of a 5x5 map could look like this, in simple semigraphic console output:

...

I hope you have now a good idea of what RDS can do for you. I think it is a library with very high value that takes away lots of decision work from you if you agree to really implement (inherit) the RDS classes. It all works together fine and you have almost every thinkable freedom with lots of virtual methods to override.

So you want to see it in action? Here's another demo of his RDS library;

rdsCards - A card deck library using RDS

This article uses the Random Distribution System (RDS) library I published the last days here on Code Project. You can look it up here: Part I and Part II.

I thought about another use case for the library and came up with the idea of creating a simple card deck class with a shuffle and deal method.

Supported are standard deck sizes (at least what is considered "standard" here in the middle of europe ... ), which are:

- Ace to Ten 20 card deck
- Ace to Seven 32 card deck
- Ace to Deuce Standard 52 card deck (Poker deck)
- Rummy (104 cards + jokers)
- Canasta (156 cards + jokers)

...

And here are some of the outputs to show:

20 card deck: Dealing 4 x 5 cardsT♥ T♦ T♠ K♥ T♣J♠ A♦ A♥ K♣ J♥Q♦ Q♠ K♦ K♠ J♣J♦ A♣ A♠ Q♣ Q♥Poker Deck: Dealing 10x Holdem hands (2 cards)T♦ J♦2♣ 6♦K♣ 4♠5♦ 7♠Q♣ 4♦5♥ 8♣T♣ A♦8♦ 2♠8♥ 9♠K♠ 4♥Dealing Flop : 3♠ Q♠ J♠Dealing Turn : Q♦Dealing River: 6♣

OK, this was another short example of what you can do with RDS and there may be a time when you do some card (or: "stack-of-things") simulation and then maybe you will remember this one here and pick up some ideas.

Have fun with it!

As Mike says, it might not be perfect, but it sure beats starting for scratch, doesn't it?

Photo Credit: one tiny spark/Violet with her loot!

Racing, who doesn't like racing (or at least the thought of racing)? Yet, that's just not something the average guy and girl gets to do very often. So what's the next best thing? Racing Sim's of course! And what makes it best++? Having the source to a racing sim!

Welcome to TORCS

This is the official site of TORCS, The Open Racing Car Simulator. TORCS is a highly portable multi platform car racing simulation. It is used as ordinary car racing game, as AI racing game and as research platform. It runs on Linux (all architectures, 32 and 64 bit, little and big endian), FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, MacOSX and Windows (32 and 64 bit). The source code of TORCS is licensed under the GPL ("Open Source"). You find more information about the project in the menu bar on the left. If you need help have a look at the FAQ first, I added a new Researchers section. You can contact us on the torcs-users mailing list (you need to subscribe to use it because of spam).

There are various sites on the Internet dedicated to TORCS with additional content (cars, tracks, documentation, patches, etc.), you can find them in the "Related Sites" section in the menu on the left. If you are interested in racing visit the sites listed in the Racing section.

If you need new tracks use the online track generator.

About TORCS

..

TORCS features more than 50 different cars, more than 20 tracks, and 50 opponents to race against. Your can steer with a joystick or steering wheel, if the device is supported by your platform. It is also possible to drive with the mouse or the keyboard. Graphic features lighting, smoke, skidmarks and glowing brake disks. The simulation features a simple damage model, collisions, tire and wheel properties (springs, dampers, stiffness, ...), aerodynamics (ground effect, spoilers, ...) and much more. The gameplay allows different types of races from the simple practice session up to the championship. Enjoy racing against your friends in the split screen mode with up to four human players.

TORCS was initially written by Eric Espié and Christophe Guionneau, substantial parts have been added by other contributors (have a look into the "Credits" section for details). The TORCS source code is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), most of the artwork is licensed under the Free Art License, have a look into the packages for details about copyright holders and the licensing.

The next big development goal is an online racing mode.

TORCS 1.3.3 Download & Installation

Binary Installer Package For Windows

• Download and run torcs_1.3.3_setup.exe. It requires at least an i686 compatible CPU to run.

Sure you can get the binaries and just play the game, but I did mention source?

For Windows From "all-in-one" Source Package

1. Requires VS 6.0 (tested with sp6) or VS 2008 (tested with sp1).
2. Download the source package torcs-1.3.3.tar.bz2.
3. Unpack the package with "tar xfvj torcs-1.3.3.tar.bz2" or any application you like, be careful to select a path without whitespaces and other special characters.
4. Hint: You can build a release and a debug version side by side, the required step for the debug version is showed in brackets "()".
5. Open a command prompt and cd into the torcs-1.3.3 directory.
6. Run setup_win32.bat (setup_win32_debug.bat).
7. Run setup_win32-data-from-CVS.bat (setup_win32-data-from-CVS_debug.bat).
8. Open the file TORCS.dsw with VS 6.0 or the TORCS.sln with VS 2008.
9. Select the TORCS project and the win32-Release (win32-Debug) version.
10. Compile the project (0 warnings).
11. cd into the "runtime" ("runtimed") directory.
12. Run "wtorcs.exe".

I grabbed the source (note, it's a 300+ MB download and 1.2+ GB uncompressed) and followed the above instructions. Now VS 2010 is not mentioned, but that worked for me with only one very minor tweak.

I was getting an error compiling the Learning.dll.

To fix this all I had to do was comment out the message export in the learning.def

Once I did that (make_message was previously commented) everything compiled with no warnings or errors.

Here's a snap of the Solution;

As you can see, both in the solution and the site, this is not some little, simple, project but a very mature and complex project.

What, you want more? Well what if I was to tell you that you can also code your own robot/AI drivers?

4.4.2 Can I develop a robot using Windows?

Yes, you can. Here is a rough guide:

• Download the TORCS source and manage to compile and run it.
• Download e. g. the bt robot package, it is a little enhanced version of the robot developed in the tutorial, so there is good documentation available to understand it.
• Copy the sources into a new directory, e. g. when you choose the name "myrobot" create a directory /src/drivers/myrobot.
• Copy all the bt files into the myrobot directory.
• Now rename all "bt*" files into "myrobot*".
• Edit myrobot.def and also change all bt strings into myrobot.
• The same for myrobot.dsp, .xml, perhaps more, you get the idea.
• Change the "bt" module entry point in myrobot.cpp to "myrobot", also make the strings for the robots names and description match with those in myrobot.xml.
• Add the myrobot project to TORCS, open the project with vc++ and try to compile it.
• If you want to deploy the files you have to do that manually, create a directory in "runtime" where the other robots are and copy the required files there (myrobot.dll, .xml, setup subdirectories etc.).
• Now TORCS should pick up your robot.

There's more information and tutorials on the wiki too...

If gaming, sims, racing, AI, cars or c++ are your thing, or your just looking for something different to do, TORCS' rev'ing engine might be music to your ears...

So when I saw the two mixed in this proof of concept, a example of running XNA inside of Unity3D (let alone that the Platformer Sample was used), well...

Announcing UnityXNA – XNA Inside Unity3D

I had a theory that it would be straightforward to get XNA games running in Unity3D so I decided to give it a go.

This is a proof of concept showing the Platformer XNA sample running inside Unity3D. Zero code changes have been made to the original game code. Using a mixture of new code and some code from MonoXNA I’ve implemented XNA emulation by having a game object with a script attached run an XNA game performing updates and drawing.

You can see the game in your browser here and download the source here.

Implemented so far:

1. Basic game loop and GameTime calculation.
2. ContentManager loads Texture2Ds, SoundEffects and Songs, each wrapping the relevant Unity3D object.
3. SpriteBatch Draw implemented using a draw queue, specifically created for the purpose. Currently supports colour tinting, source rectangles, and sprite effect flip modes.
4. SpriteBatch DrawString has limited support, rendering the text in the correct position and with the correct colour.
5. Support for playing Songs through MediaPlayer and playing SoundEffects
6. KeyboardStates emulated for a limited set of keys which are mapped from their XNA values to Unity3D KeyCodes.
7. Zero code changes to the game needed to run Platformer sample

Known issues, immediate areas for improvement:

1. SpriteFont is not supported, all DrawStrings render with the default GUI Label font.
2. Frame rate is currently vsync’d at 60 frames per second. When vsync is disabled GameTime is not calculated correctly.
3. Windows Media Audio (.wma) is not supported by Unity3D, so I’ve converted the sample audio files to Ogg Vorbis (.ogg).
4. Keyboard input is currently limited to a small set of keys, more mappings between XNA Keys and Unity3D KeyCodes need creating.
5. Mouse, gamepad and touch input are not currently implemented.

If you're interested in seeing how it's done, check out the source on Github here.

If you just want to see it work, via the Unity3D Web Player, check it out here.