3-4
Slowly taking care of details. THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM. Also obscure bugs and a crude and ineffective editor thing.
3-3
I think timezones bit me again. Stupid wordpress not being psychic.
Slowly building the base of the behavior graph. It is a slow process.
3-2
Designing a nodey scripting language. It's... well it's hard to describe. But I intend to make it puplic, so you'll just have to enjoy it when it's ready.
3-1
Another month, another vow. This month, I want to finish Aliens Go Boom. I'd like to complete two graphical tasks for the game each day (Boss sprites count as four tasks, since they are rather large.) That's my main goal for this month.
2-28
Not much of anything done today. WPF is interesting. But it's missing something. Finished converting the editor to the docking control system. Drew some more backgrounds for the shmup. Be nice if more people who tried it left comments on the creator's club forum.
2-27
This docking library isn't perfect, but it has one huge advantage over it's competition. It's free! http://www.codeguru.com/csharp/csharp/cs_controls/custom/article.php/c12875/
2-26
So you might have noticed what appears to be a banner add show up under the task list over there. Well, it's not a banner add. It's a link - it's always going to show the same gif. The thing missing from Live Indie games is marketing, and the fine folks at Xbox Hornet have set up a site dedicated to pimping Live Indie games that are 'coming soon'. Aliens Go Boom is already on there. All they ask in return is that you link them, or advertise them in some way. Damn fair shake, and since I support wholeheartedly what they are doing - Go there! Now!
Still be nice if MS made the games a little more visible on live marketplace, though.
Speaking of Aliens Go Boom, I have a great idea for a simple way to do transitioning backgrounds. I upped the resolution to 768*480 (16-10 widescreen - swank) and I laid out five different background types and transitions between them, that will carry me through five distinct stages in the game. I also replaced one of the enemy sprites, and I plan to replace the others as well. The jellyfish sprite just turned out so perfect, that now I'm doing all my alien ship design off of that.
2-25
So far, everyone who has played the shmup has liked it. I think that makes it a success. But, I still want to at least get it running at true 480 p. Curse upon Hybrid mind, for making me write it at such a stupid resolution to start with.
Other things. Platformer editor - I'm transitioning it to a docking palette type UI, similar to what visual studio does.
A music synthesizer in XNA. I'm thinking something like http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix or http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/madgarden/
In XNA, though, I have to use samples, not a real synth. Shucks. Maybe I can trick someone into writing a sample-generator for me.
2-24
Back to the grind. Live Indie Games is not a platform worth investment. What that means is you will not get a return. You can't expect to make anything, not even a little bit. Marketing off the service doesn't get you a thing, and Microsoft makes no effort to market on the service. Your only chance - and it's a slim one - is to get enough ratings while you're in the new release section to crack the top rated list. After that, no one will notice your game at all.
That doesn't mean don't make a game. It means don't invest too much into it. Don't invest too much money, or time, or emotion. At the very least, make sure it works on windows too. So you can distribute it yourself if it comes to that.
