As promised, I’ve just uploaded the latest work-in-progress, so feel free to try it out. Get it here.

The main addition in this release is the Special Maneuver feature I talked about earlier.

When the Special Maneuver control is pressed, the  plane will perform a move appropriate to the direction it was flying.  Currently these moves are either a vertical loop (climbing or diving), or a horizontal bank & turn.  Very handy for avoiding mid-air collisions, or when trying to shake the foe off your six!  It’s a lot of fun when you get the hang of it.  The game play is a lot more dynamic, and 3D feeling now.  Especially fun with the 2 player multiplayer (the computer opponent has a very small brain).

I’m very happy with the new feature.  As often seems to be the case, it was a lot more complicated to implement than I ever imagined.  It exposed a lot of my “smoke ‘n mirrors” techniques, so I had to revisit quite a bit of the core code.  For the better I think, and I certainly learnt a lot.

The biggest problem is now in my skybox implementation.  So as to not expose its flaws too much,  the planes can occasionally leave the visible screen, but will bounce back eventually.  I’ll be working on resolving that next, but I thought it was worth releasing anyway.

Hope you enjoy it.  Your feedback is always welcome.  I highly recommend XBOX 360 (for Windows) controllers to play this  However keyboard is still supported, albeit a bit cramped with 2 players.

Get the new version from the Latest Build page here.

Update: Note that this release requires the latest version of the XNA framework recently released. (v1.0 “Refresh”). You can get that here

As a personal blog, my posts tend to focus on personal things, hobbies etc…  I could blog a whole lot more, but I do tend to wait till there’s something people might be interested in actually reading! 

Reading this blog, you’d probably think all I do is XNA game development,  occasional tutorials on the subject, and most notably journal my work-in-progress on the “Sharky’s Air Legends” game.

I do in fact have a day job.  Something has to pay the bills after all. And as we all know day jobs tend to take the majority of our precious time.

So breaking with tradition, I’m now going to introduce you to something very VERY cool that I’ve been developing in my day job.

At Intergen, I’m proud to be team-leading the software development of a great new product called “ActionThis“.

It’s is a Web 2.0 application that simplifies working as a team. I’m sure you’re all familiar with this problem: “you go along to meetings, agree a bunch of action items, then nothing gets doneâ€?. We’re going to fix that, and then some more! Where Project Management is all about planing & tracking, we’re adding execution & recovery to the mix.

Exciting times, and we’re going to be launching world-wide later this year.  I’m not allowed to talk much about this right now, but you can signup for the newsletter and get on the beta.

Now I started by saying that said that this isn’t strictly XNA game dev related. But hell, I can’t think of a single reason why this wouldn’t suit teams of indy game developers working on the next great XNA game.

Once again, apologies for the quietness of the blog lately.  Life’s got exponentially busy lately.

While I may not have been blogging about it, I have actually been doing quite a lot to “Air Legends”. 

I still have some polishing and bug fixing to do before I can release, but here’s what I’ve been doing…

• I’ve added a much requested Special Maneuver (aka. evade) feature!  I’m stoked about this.  It really makes the gameplay a lot more dynamic.  Essentially,  using the Special Maneuver button you can trigger the plane to pull the maneuver.  Currently there are two maneuvers.  When climbing the plane will pull back into a verticle loop ending in a dive. When in a dive, the plane will pull up into a climb. So you end up with a 180 degree turn.  The two maneuvers blend into one 360 degree loop if you hold the button down.  Besides the variety this adds to the gameplay, the coolest thing is how the plane flys towards or away from the camera during the maneuver.  Including the bullets comin’ right at ya 3D stylez!  This also makes the maneuver a natural way of evading a collision if you time it right.  I plan to add maneuvers for horizontal flight (left & right).  I’m also planning to add the ability to make any maneuver a fake maneuver, so you can “fake out” your opponent, fool them into following and then counter attack. :p
• I’ve added a geeky console option, to help me diagnose problems, even on release builds. The console is non-interactive at the moment, but overlays the text above the action while you play. It shows the conventional log of game events.  But my favourite feature is the unscrolling display of key game state, such as each plane’s position, rotation etc… I’m grateful for XNA’s new font support.  Pretty easy really.
• I had to tweak some controls a little to make the Special Maneuver feature more accessible.

There’s probably more good stuff that I’ve forgotten.  Anyway,   I’m looking forward to releasing these new features soon.  Just got to fix the bugs I’ve introduced first!

So I won’t be needing to rush out a new release to be compatible.  You’ll be fine with the last one.

YAY!!!

I saw this first at Mykres Space, but it’s out now.  More info at this XNA Team Blog post.

We’ve gone over many of the features outlined in the announcement we made at GDC 2007. One thing we didn’t really cover previously is compatibility. The entire team made a conscious effort to maintain compatibility with this release.

• Your game should just recompile in 1.0 Refresh with no changes required.
• Any game that is compiled should run fine if you have 1.0 Refresh installed.
• As mentioned, you can continue to use 1.0 on your Windows computer with 1.0 Refresh on the Xbox 360 console.
• Games that are built on 1.0 Refresh may run on 1.0; however, if you are using new functions or features in the XNA Framework (such as font functionality), it will not work properly.

I particularly like this bit…

Your game should just recompile in 1.0 Refresh with no changes required.

Go here to download it.  The runtime “redistributable” is also available here.

So, I guess I should get busy and re-release “Sharky’s Air Legends” for the new XNA (although it might just work regardless).  Tis a shame as I was in the middle of a pretty cool new feature too.  I just hope I haven’t broken too much to prevent me re-releasing real soon. 

Stay tuned.

p.s.  Today (25 April) is “ANZAC day” here in New Zealand, Australia & I think some Pacific islands too.  Go the ANZACS, you’ll never be forgotten!

I’m still stoked…

…and there were plenty of bigger sets too!

(thanks to Jeff for the phone cam pics)

Soul food

I recently revived another old hobby.  Surfing – the waves, that is. Actually Bodyboarding to be specific (which is why my gaming name is SharkBiscuit).

Anyway, this weekend the surf was absolutely pumping here in Wellington, New Zealand.  I went out both days and I’m stoked, and still buzzing.  Soul food.

A funny thing happened on the Saturday session.  I paddled out, caught one great wave, and the waves inexplicably stopped coming.  Must have been a good 20-30 minute wait before any worthy sets came through again.  During that time I got chatting with another surfer.  Inevitably, we discussed the option of paddling in closer to shore for some smaller waves.  Of course, we both realised that as soon as one of us did, a big set would roll in and we’d regret it.  Murphy’s Law/Sod’s law, whatever you call it.  Still, it got to the point where with nothing to surf I started getting pretty cold. I said to the guy, “You know, I’m gonna paddle in for some small dribbly surf, so that you guys don’t have to (because the big sets would surely start rolling in then) I’ll take the hit for the team. Y’know, for the greater good ‘n all”. yada yada yada.

So I did, and sure enough the big sets started rolling in again, and everybody was happy.  No regrets - I needed the exercise anyway.

It got me thinking though…

Here am I holding off on releasing my most exciting ”Air Legends” release yet.  Preferring to wait for Microsoft to release their latest and greatest XNA framework first.

So I’ve decided I’m going to invoke “Sods Law” once again, and take the hit for the team.  I’ll release early after all.  If the XNA release comes shortly afterwards then so be it.  You’ll all be able to thank me!

Get my best release ever… here.

(I’ll release an XNA v.next version just as soon as it comes out and I’ve done any conversions.)

Howdy folks.

I have some cool stuff waiting in the wings to release as soon as the new XNA comes out (and once I’ve done any necessary conversions).  The word is April, but when I wonder?  For me it can’t come soon enough. 

I’m wondering if I should just release it now anyway, and follow up with an XNA v.next release when it comes out. I’m open to persuasion…

Anyway, check out some more teaser pics of what’s coming in my next release…

Added a Lobby screen

The title screen no longer doubles as the main menu.  I’ve created this new “Lobby” screen where players can join-in/drop-out and choose their Aircraft, and daylight/dusk environments. 

Added a Help screen

This screen is simply to show you what the controls are. 

Revised Title screen

The title screen is simply a splash screen now, but I’ve tweaked it a bit. 

Yep, you can expect to live out all those BF109 vs Spitfire fantasies just as soon as I do my next release.  Since a new version of XNA is due out any day now, I’m thinking I’ll probably hold off till then. The texturing needs some work anyway, and I’ll need to refine the menus further.

Apologies for the quietness of this blog lately.   Rest assured I’ve been working as hard as ever.

/

So before anyone asks…

Are you playing the latest build of Air Legends and puzzling about the Player 2 keyboard controls?

Here’s the shakedown.  I chose to use the Numeric key Pad so as to avoid any nasty elbow injuries or intimacy issues with a Player 1 also sharing the same keyboard.

Now that’s all well and groovy, but just remember to check NumLock is ON.  Otherwise you’ll probably find you’re actually controlling Player 1.   With numlock off they seem to double as another set of cursor keys.  Now that could come in handy if the dogfight gets dirty.  Not that I’d condone that sort of caper. No, not at all.   

(for some reason Turbo Lax comes to mind)

BTW, the NumLock thing was a late discovery last night actually. But I was determined to get a release out in the wild.  I wonder If I can lock the NumLock ON somehow?