XNA Notes 010
- by George Clingerman
With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later!
Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community!
Time Critical XNA News:
    PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!)
    
        http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx
    
    
    Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock
    
        http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928
    
    
XNA Team:
    Nick Gravelyn
    
        Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2
        
            http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/
        
        
        And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games
        
            http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/          
        
        
    
    
XNA MVPs:
    Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit
    
        http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx
    
    
    Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit
    
        http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx
    
    
XNA Developers:
    Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games
    
        Wraps up GDC
        
            http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html
        
        
        And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!)
        
            http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html
        
        
    
    
    James Silva of Ska Studios announces
    
        http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/
        http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/
        http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/
    
    
    Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers
    
        http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx
    
    
    Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam
    
        http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php
        http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586
        And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year
        
            http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php
            http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php
            http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php
            http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php
            http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php
        
        
    
    
    Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview
    
        http://www.vimeo.com/20904070
    
    
Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG):
    Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th
    
        http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/
    
    
    Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games
    
        http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/
        http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/
    
    
    Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!)
    
        http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/
    
    
    Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel
    
        http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696
        http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx
    
    
    Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done!
    
        http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/
        There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones.
        
            http://www.armlessoctopus.com/
        
        
    
    
    GameMarx Episode 12
    
        http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx
    
    
    B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam!
    
        http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php
    
    
    German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro
    
        http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/
    
    
    XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!)
    
        http://xboxindies.com/
    
    
    Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk
    
        http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504
    
    
    Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action
    
        http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264
    
    
    TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage
    
        http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/
    
    
    XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7
    
        http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/
    
    
    Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement
    
        http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/
    
    
    Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..)
    
        http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/        
    
    
XNA Development:
    Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week!
    
        http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/
        http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/
        http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/
        http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/
    
    
    Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...)
    
        http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560
    
    
    Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder
    
        http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424
        http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/
    
    
    Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know!
    
        http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864
    
    
    New Sunburn Video Tutorials released
    
        http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx
    
    
    Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0
    
        http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/
    
    
    XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input
    
        http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html