It sure has been a while, but at long last I’m happy to announce my latest “Air Legends” release. Downloadable here.

There are major changes in the version. 

• Most notably I’ve fitted proper menus for everything.  This was no small task, I might add – quite a bit of code refactoring was needed on my part.  Microsoft’s Creators club “GameStateManagement sample” is awesome and forms the basis of all of my screens now.
• I’ve improved my Skybox, and made the sky textures all seamless.
• Added a brand new “Morning” scene to play in.
• Added gun overheating.  Sound to come.
• Replaced numerous uses of photoshopped textures for text, with new SpriteFont textures.
• New and improved Lobby screen.
• Help (aka. Controls) screen is now accessible while in gameplay from the pause menu.
• Changed keyboard controls a little.
  • F1 & F2 are now used for dropping in and out instead of 1 & 2.
  • Shifted Player 2 keys along one to avoid confusion with Enter key for menu selection.
  • So Player 2 now uses ] for shoot, [ for throttle, P for Skywrite & O for Maneuver.
• Improved the installer.
  • Now based on WiX v3 (Windows Installer XML).
  • Automatically uninstalls older versions already installed.
  • Checks .NET v2.0 is installed. Just a check at this stage.

Go grab the new version from the Latest Build page here. It’s free, so no excuses.

Check this out.  A great buddy & workmate Jeff, of SharePod fame, has been getting into XNA lately.

His new blog is the *imaginatively* named “XNA Game Development“!

His first game in-progress is very cool.  Check out his FPS styled, and code-named “Platform Jumper“

Hi folks.

I’ve been enjoying some productive coding sessions on “Air Legends” lately.  No one big feature in particular, but a lot of little tidy ups and improvements. So far, the next release will have:

• All models now produced and exported straight out of the new Softimage|XSI Mod Tool. No other tools necessary! 
• improved the Skybox.  Horrid seems are gone.  I’ve pulled out some photoshop magic to make the  Textures tile nicely, and the box (well cylinder) now has a ceiling, so I don’t have to avoid certain camera angles like before.
• Guns can now overheat, so controlled bursts recommended.   No more bleeding ears from trigger happy kids. 
• Thanks to the skybox improvements, your aircraft should no longer leave the screen occasionally.  Well maybe very briefly during some maneuvers, but good enough for now.
• …more to come… maybe Menus, 3D sound…

On another note, CrazySheep has asked me about how to create a Windows Installer.  Good idea, so I plan to blog a wee article/tutorial + sample about my “Air Legends” installer.  (If I blog about it now, I’ll be forced to actually do it!).

Before I do that I plan to update my installer from WiX v2 to WiX v3, and do a couple of improvements on the way.