Casey Rayl and Scott McAndrew: Silverlight and Terralever's Zero Gravity

Posted By: Charles | Aug 1st, 2007 @ 2:51 PM | 14,784 Views | 9 Comments

Casey Rayl and Scott McAndrew were in town recently (meaning Redmond, Washington, USA). They work for a company called Terralever and have produced a really cool interactive game using Silverlight 1.1 Alpha, Zero Gravity. They were nice enough to stop by my office for a chat about the game. Of course, if they come to my office to talk about technology then I am going to film it and put it up on Channel 9.

Here, we learn from Casey, the lead interactive developer on the Zero Gravity project, about how the game is composed, his experience with Silverlight 1.1 and, of course, his feedback for the Silverlight people (Channel 9 has always been about Authentic Transparent Communication...).

Scott used to work in DPE as a Design (or I guess it's called UX now) Evangelist. Now, he's a big shot at Terralever, running their product strategy group.

Zero Gravity is an addictive game. It's really cool that it was written in Silverlight 1.1 Alpha to boot!

Enjoy!
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#Aug 1st, 2007 @ 6:48 PM
Minh
Minh
WOOH! WOOH!
The "Zero Gravity" link is bad. It should be pointing to http://zerogravity.terralever.com


Otherwise, great stuff. Silverlight is also a great platform for business apps... as soon as we get that TextBox! Smiley
#Aug 1st, 2007 @ 8:47 PM
Vasudev
Vasudev
Yes this is one of the coolest game. I had also posted about it and the Zero Gravity Team here.
But at present after installation of Silverlight1.0 RC, its not working as I think its based on Silverlight alpha.
Can it be tweaked to play on with all version of Silverlight?
#Aug 1st, 2007 @ 9:38 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
Oops. Thanks, Minh! Fixed...
#Aug 1st, 2007 @ 9:39 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
Vasudev wrote:
Yes this is one of the coolest game. I had also posted about it and the Zero Gravity Team here.
But at present after installation of Silverlight1.0 RC, its not working as I think its based on Silverlight alpha.
Can it be tweaked to play on with all version of Silverlight?


No. It requires the Silvelight 1.1 runtime (aka CLR)...
C
#Aug 2nd, 2007 @ 7:34 AM
mrtavares
mrtavares
Tiago Tavares
Running Windows Vista with the latest version of Silverlight. Doesn't work though. There's no keyboard input capabilities. The initial animation works and all, but just can't control the character. Does it have to do with the fact that my keyboard is not USB ?

Take care.
#Aug 2nd, 2007 @ 9:58 AM
swiatecki
swiatecki
.net - love it
mrtavares wrote:
Running Windows Vista with the latest version of Silverlight. Doesn't work though. There's no keyboard input capabilities. The initial animation works and all, but just can't control the character. Does it have to do with the fact that my keyboard is not USB ?

Take care.


Same problem here Sad both on USB keyboard and my laptops
#Aug 2nd, 2007 @ 10:13 AM
mawcc
mawcc
Make it so
swiatecki wrote:

mrtavares wrote: Running Windows Vista with the latest version of Silverlight. Doesn't work though. There's no keyboard input capabilities. The initial animation works and all, but just can't control the character. Does it have to do with the fact that my keyboard is not USB ?

Take care.


Same problem here both on USB keyboard and my laptops


Same thing here. I always wondered why the game was mentioned so often as a cool Silverlight demo, but couldn't be played due to broken keyboard input.
#Aug 2nd, 2007 @ 11:00 AM
caseyr
caseyr
Hey everyone, sorry to hear that you are having trouble playing the game.  I would like to resolve these issues for you, but I don't want to derail the channel9 forum here.

If you wouldn't mind, can you email Bennett@LtBennett.com with your issues.  Specifically, your OS, your browser, and if you are having keyboard input problems, let me know if you can use the password entry field or if you are using an international character set.

Thanks everyone, I will respond to you individually ASAP.

-Casey
#Aug 2nd, 2007 @ 11:57 AM
keeron
keeron
Obsessive Geek

Not using external keyboard/mouse, but it worked for me.

- Vista w/ latest updates
- IBM ThinkPad T60 (using built-in mouse/keyboard)

Pretty cool game! I also liked the idea of the password Smiley So that we can start the game where we left off (atleast level-wise, not pointwise).

Seems simple enough, but considering the platform it was built on and future capabilities, it's just amazing!

Can't wait for you to build the community around this start opening up (level editor, contests, source code!) Smiley

- Keeron

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