Channel 9 - Entries tagged with zune marketplace

ScriptTD: So You Want To Build a Tower Defense Game?

Larry Larsen — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:50:33 GMT

As you may have heard me say before, I love Tower Defense games. In fact, I've always wanted to build one or two but the main problem is that I'm better with ideas than programming. On the other hand, TD games are all very similar—creeps go in, creeps (try to) go out. Meanwhile you try your best to build a maze of defensive towers that make sure no creep is left standing. The biggest difference between many TD games is graphics and gameplay. From this the ScriptTD Tower Defense Game Engine was born. Under the patient shepherding of Coding4Fun's Clint Rutkas and with the coding prowess of Michael Quandt, we built this game engine that will let you tweak some graphics, sounds, and XML to make any kind of Tower Defense game you can dream up. If you thought you couldn't make a Windows Phone game, you're probably wrong.

After you hit http://ScriptTD.CodePlex.com for the source code, this tutorial will walk you through each of the XML files that make up ScriptTD and how they should be tweaked to create your own TD game. You are free to submit your game to the Zune Marketplace and hopefully make a little lunch money. If you make a game from ScriptTD, please let me know so I can help get the word out.

To get started with ScriptTD, please check out the ScriptTD Coding4Fun project and download the code from Codeplex, and to try playing the game on your Windows Phone, visit the Zune Marketplace.

Windows Live Messenger for Zune HD Released

Terry Walsh — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 16:43:52 GMT

Love Zune? Love Windows Live Messenger? Love the idea of Windows Live Messenger on Zune? Well there’s great news for you today. Check out the Zune Marketplace and you’ll see that a Windows Live Messenger app for Zune HD is available to download.

According to Brandon over at the Windows Experience blog the app provides full integration with Windows Live Messenger, including shared photos from Flickr, Facebook and MySpace as well as the usual instant messaging fun. The new app also supports Facebook Chat, so you have your choice of platforms depending where your friends hang out.

Bear in mind that Messenger for Zune HD can publish what your listening to, so be careful when you get all nostalgic for Ace of Base and drop a revival hour on the Zune. No-one will hear, but they’ll all know.

Whilst you’re at the Marketplace, also check out three new games for Zune HD which were released yesterday - WordMonger, Castles and Cannons and Dr. Optics Light Lab.

Missed the Big Day? Watch it on Your Xbox or Zune

Sarah Perez — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:14:00 GMT

It seemed like the entire world was watching the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday, but if you weren’t one of them, you probably now feel like you missed out on some serious history-making in action. Don’t worry, though - you can get caught up easily using either your Xbox or your Zune. (Or both!)

For Zune Owners

You can download Obama's Inauguration speech through C-Span - Podcast of the Week audio podcast or CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Daily video podcast. You can also visit the Obama Inauguration feature page in the Zune Marketplace that offers links to Inauguration music playlists, videos and podcasts.

For Xbox Owners

Xbox LIVE is offering a special series of downloadable content available through the Spotlight Channel – for this week only. Here, you’ll find videos of President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, swearing in as the 44^th President of the United States, his speech and other Inauguration Day content.

On Inside Xbox, you can find out what Xbox 360 community members what Obama to address. You can also watch highlights of the inauguration and other video content provided by MSNBC.

(Thanks to Technologizer for the Obama-ized Xbox image. Nice one!)

Reverse Sync Your Zune

Sarah Perez — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:56:00 GMT

A little known feature to those that don’t use a Microsoft Zune is the fact that Zunes have the ability to “reverse sync” back to a computer. What this means is that you can connect any Zune to any PC running Zune software and copy over music, videos, or pictures back to the PC. Matt recently blogged about this over on ZuneInsider when he surprised a friend by showing him how to he could copy an album from his friend’s Zune back to his own PC. He notes that he already owned the album in this example, but the secret here is that un-DRM’d content – like much of the content sold in the Zune Marketplace as well as on sites like Amazon’s MP3 store – makes this possible. With less restrictions on how the content can be moved around, accessed, and played, you aren’t as locked down as when you purchase DRM’d content like the majority of the music still sold today on iTunes. Not only is this helpful for letting friends share music with each other, it’s also a great feature for anyone with a multiple-PC household and more than one Zune or for taking your tunes to your office PC. For step-by-step instructions on how this is done, check out Matt’s post.

ZuneLinks Have Launched

Sarah Perez — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:06:00 GMT

Podcast producers will like this one, but so will anyone who’s ever wondered how to directly link to an artist, album, playlist, or podcast on Zune. Now there’s a new page of Zune Social to help with that: http://social.zune.net/links/ZuneLinks.aspx.

Here, you can do a search for anything available on Zune and get links that look like this:

There’s a link for the Zune Marketplace and another for Zune Social, which takes you right to a page where you can preview the tracks, read reviews, see the top listeners, and more.

(Thanks to the Addicted to Digital Media blog for the tip!)