DyvionBack in Sunny Florida!!Registered Userregular
edited March 2009
Woohoo... I managed to accomplish my previous spoilered goals in Solar.
Some of the options available when you complete various %'s of the challenges make it much much easier. Spoilerish info ahead...
So I was a red star, created a blue star to orbit me... was playing around with feeding it planets to make it bigger when I flew through a large amount of asteroids and snagged a hefty planet with a lot of asteroids around it, so I went for making my Trinary system. The only problem was I kept snagging little planets that kept getting in the way, so I just ate them... Cruising along I finally get my second blue star orbiting me and I call over to my wife (who was impressed, surprisingly, she doesn't normally go in for video games, but she likes this one). I then proceed to take the last planet orbiting me and try to go for a quadruple star arrangement (I don't even know what that's called, or if any of them exist) and I hit A one too many times and consume this huge planet on the verge of becomming a star and I go black hole and eat the entire affair. Oops.
Good times were had by all.
Dyvion on
Steam: No Safety In Life
PSN: Dyvion -- Eternal: Dyvion+9393 -- Genshin Impact: Dyvion
So, I just downloaded a couple community games from Xbox Live (from the other room). When I try to play them, it says, "To play this game, sign in to xbox live." Is that one time for a DRM check or something, or am I totally screwed here because of how my house is setup?
No, you must always be connected to live when launching a community game. Once the game is launched and running, you can disconnect from live and it'll keep running, until you quit. You must be connected to Live for each launch.
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
No, you must always be connected to live when launching a community game. Once the game is launched and running, you can disconnect from live and it'll keep running, until you quit. You must be connected to Live for each launch.
Thanks for the post.
That sucks terribly, so I guess this may be the last time I'll buy a community game unless they change their policy.
Top Community Games NEW! (Full Versions purchased)
1 RBR - Fading Memories
2 RC-AirSim
3 Rumble Massage
4 DrumKit
5 TV Calibration
6 ZenHak
7 Aquarium HD
8 ZP2K9
9 A Fading Melody
10 Remote Masseuse
RBR - Fading Memories & ZenHak are both attrocious games so it's a real shame to see them on there. Nice to see A Fading Melody on the list though. Oh and I'm guessing we might see A Fading Melody up higher next week since it seems to be doing really well (2nd place last I checked) on the popularity list on Live (which I'm guessing is a day by day popularity tracker?).
OremLK, your game makes me want to scream and hurl the controller. That said, it was well worth the 200 points I spent.
I really wish I had time to more aggressively pursue XNA development and learning the codebase, since artwork has always been my forte. But, alas, these things take time. I'd dump my girlfriend and quit my job but I don't think the math on those add up.
EDIT: And I'm starting to get really, really antsy about download and purchasing figures. I hope A Fading Melody is doing well because it's a good game and it's very popular as opposed to being a minor standout amongst anemic XNA purchases. I really hope XNA Community is as popular as we wish it to be.
Thanks Alejandro I hope it does well too, would certainly help my wife and I financially at the moment. Other community games, as well--I'd just love for this to be a viable market for everyone involved. The more good games out in the wild, the more people who can make a living doing something they love, the better.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I wonder what the remaining lifespan of the 360 is, and exactly how well community games will transfer to the next hardware iteration. I mean, I'd like to think Sixchamber will be done before the 360 dies, but curiosity abounds.
I wonder what the remaining lifespan of the 360 is, and exactly how well community games will transfer to the next hardware iteration. I mean, I'd like to think Sixchamber will be done before the 360 dies, but curiosity abounds.
The absolute bare-minimum for the 360 at this point would be a year. As in it would be physically impossible to have a 720 (or whatever) ready before then.
Realistically, I would bet at least 2 years probably 3.
Good point, Delzhand, but a great interim answer to that would be, even in a worst-case scenario, you could always just switch gears and use the XNA framework to release your game on the PC. Not ideal for finding a publisher, self-publishing, or defending against piracy, but it's eminently reasonable.
Glad to hear that Community Games has the potential to be lucrative. A judicious googling said that average U.S. per capita income was $38.6k, which is... a lot of downloads! I hope MS didn't rely on some sort of crazy twisted logic to arrive by that assertion.
mntorankusuI'm not sure how to use this thing....Registered Userregular
edited March 2009
I finally got around to activating this Creator's Club trial I got a long time ago, and I'm working on porting my Wii game over to XNA (just the engine, since my Wii game only has three crappy levels anyway...)
I know I'm a dork, but it's so cool to see something that I made in the list of games on my 360:
So I figured out how to take screenshots of XNA games. It's pretty easy; you just go to XNA Game Studio Device Center while you're debugging the game, right click on your console and select the "Take Screen Capture" option.
Spoilered because the awesomeness of my game's graphics are too much to be allowed to roam free. Behold Molly the Were-Zompire in all its 720p glory!
[/quote]
Yeah, graphics aren't exactly my game's forte. Hopefully people will enjoy the gameplay and story.
You know, I really do like how that looks, despite how simple it is. Very clean and well-organized.
However, I should note that you have a lot of stuff outside the safe area (the inner 1024x576 of the screen), which will cause you to get failed out of Peer Review very quickly if you don't take care of it. I had to deal with a lot of headaches fixing my game. It's really frustrating because you lose a lot of screen space.
I'll look forward to playing your game!
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I finally got around to activating this Creator's Club trial I got a long time ago, and I'm working on porting my Wii game over to XNA (just the engine, since my Wii game only has three crappy levels anyway...)
I know I'm a dork, but it's so cool to see something that I made in the list of games on my 360:
Exciting!
Wait 'till you buy your own game. It'll blow your mind.
Ouch. I knew about the whole safe area issue, but I hadn't realized that the requirement was so big. Right now, I've got a 40 pixel horizontal & 25 pixel vertical buffer around the screen, but according to your statistics, I'm going to need a 128 x 72 buffer. I have to admit that seems more than a little ridiculous (any TV that has that big of an overscan problem shouldn't be hooked up to a modern system in the first place), but if it's necessary to get my game passed, then it can't be helped. Thankfully, XNA development has the inner workings & the outer workings separate so it shouldn't be too hard to change (in fact, I was already considering writing some extra code to adjust the visuals for full screen 480i display for SDTV), but it's still a bother.
I finally got around to activating this Creator's Club trial I got a long time ago, and I'm working on porting my Wii game over to XNA (just the engine, since my Wii game only has three crappy levels anyway...)
I know I'm a dork, but it's so cool to see something that I made in the list of games on my 360:
Exciting!
Wait 'till you buy your own game. It'll blow your mind.
Ordering my own book from Amazon was cool.
Of course, it hasn't gotten here since it isn't OUT yet, so my mind has yet to be blown.
Ouch. I knew about the whole safe area issue, but I hadn't realized that the requirement was so big. Right now, I've got a 40 pixel horizontal & 25 pixel vertical buffer around the screen, but according to your statistics, I'm going to need a 128 x 72 buffer. I have to admit that seems more than a little ridiculous (any TV that has that big of an overscan problem shouldn't be hooked up to a modern system in the first place), but if it's necessary to get my game passed, then it can't be helped. Thankfully, XNA development has the inner workings & the outer workings separate so it shouldn't be too hard to change (in fact, I was already considering writing some extra code to adjust the visuals for full screen 480i display for SDTV), but it's still a bother.
Yeah, 128x72 on all sides sounds right. It's a huuuge border and I think it's ridiculous that we're expected to conform to such a strict standard, especially when commercial games (like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and many others) don't. But people can and will fail your game for it, so I would definitely suggest taking care of it now so you don't have to worry about it later.
This thread also summarizes common "gotchas" that will get you failed if you don't take care of them.
It's a pain in the ass.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Ouch. I knew about the whole safe area issue, but I hadn't realized that the requirement was so big. Right now, I've got a 40 pixel horizontal & 25 pixel vertical buffer around the screen, but according to your statistics, I'm going to need a 128 x 72 buffer. I have to admit that seems more than a little ridiculous (any TV that has that big of an overscan problem shouldn't be hooked up to a modern system in the first place), but if it's necessary to get my game passed, then it can't be helped. Thankfully, XNA development has the inner workings & the outer workings separate so it shouldn't be too hard to change (in fact, I was already considering writing some extra code to adjust the visuals for full screen 480i display for SDTV), but it's still a bother.
There is a really good document on the XNA site about all the technical requirements for your game.
Ouch. I knew about the whole safe area issue, but I hadn't realized that the requirement was so big. Right now, I've got a 40 pixel horizontal & 25 pixel vertical buffer around the screen, but according to your statistics, I'm going to need a 128 x 72 buffer. I have to admit that seems more than a little ridiculous (any TV that has that big of an overscan problem shouldn't be hooked up to a modern system in the first place), but if it's necessary to get my game passed, then it can't be helped. Thankfully, XNA development has the inner workings & the outer workings separate so it shouldn't be too hard to change (in fact, I was already considering writing some extra code to adjust the visuals for full screen 480i display for SDTV), but it's still a bother.
Yeah, 128x72 on all sides sounds right. It's a huuuge border and I think it's ridiculous that we're expected to conform to such a strict standard, especially when commercial games (like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and many others) don't. But people can and will fail your game for it, so I would definitely suggest taking care of it now so you don't have to worry about it later.
This thread also summarizes common "gotchas" that will get you failed if you don't take care of them.
It's a pain in the ass.
Thanks for the link. Looks like I'm going to have to spend several hours after the game is working for me just making sure it passes all of those requirements. Still, it beats putting it up in review, having it rejected, and then having to wait a week before I can resubmit it.
I'm really looking forward to having this game done. I've been trying to write my code in a versatile manner so that for future games, I can reuse most of my existing code & add onto that rather than having to start over again. I wouldn't be surprised if my second game ends up taking a lot less time to make despite being longer & more complex than my first game.
EDIT: Thanks RiemannLives for the link. That's another page I'll be sure to go over thoroughly before releasing my game to Peer Review.
Yeah, if you meet the stuff listed in both of those articles, and don't have any other crashes/game-stopping bugs, you shouldn't have any problem getting passed.
Even if your game is perfect, though, I'd still suggest you plan to give it a week in the Playtest forum there before going to Peer Review. You could always throw up an unfinished build at any time, just make sure it gets in there as a token measure, because people tend to rip you to shreds if you try going straight to Review. I learned that one the hard way.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Fellow devs, lend me a hand. My game is set to run at 1280x720, like the best practices guide suggests, but when I grab the viewport.TitleSafeArea, it's just {0, 0, 1280, 720}. I mean, if I can draw to the whole screen, cool, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.
Edit:
Nevermind, I found it.
On Xbox 360, this computes an 80-percent safe area region, but on Windows, it returns the entire screen area, because overscan is not a problem on Windows. You will notice that when you run this sample on Windows, the text labels are in the very corners of the screen, but when you run it on Xbox 360, they are moved in from the corners. This is a good technique to use for any overlay components such as score, health, weapon selection indicators, and so on.
Fellow devs, lend me a hand. My game is set to run at 1280x720, like the best practices guide suggests, but when I grab the viewport.TitleSafeArea, it's just {0, 0, 1280, 720}. I mean, if I can draw to the whole screen, cool, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.
Edit:
Nevermind, I found it.
On Xbox 360, this computes an 80-percent safe area region, but on Windows, it returns the entire screen area, because overscan is not a problem on Windows. You will notice that when you run this sample on Windows, the text labels are in the very corners of the screen, but when you run it on Xbox 360, they are moved in from the corners. This is a good technique to use for any overlay components such as score, health, weapon selection indicators, and so on.
EDIT: I see you found it. Cool
I never actually used Viewport.TitleSafeArea, so I can't really help you there... However, I can give you the image overlay I used, which has the correct safe area measurements. Here, you can use SpriteBatch and draw this at Vector2.Zero:
You'll want anything game-critical to be within the green area, including but not limited to menus and HUD elements. For my game, I also had to change my level design because I had platforms outside the safe area, and no vertical scrolling, so people with bad overscan wouldn't be able to see the platform to jump on it. Those are just examples, though.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I seriously want to beat my code with a large stick.
There's nothing wrong with it, but I've been coding for 9 hours a day at work and planning my wedding, so I haven't made much progress and it's driving me batty.
Hmm. 80% is pretty restrictive. I set up a lightbox to show the "safe" area, and I can't think of a single game that has all it's HUD in such a region.
Also, apparently windows' vertical borders cover that part of the backbuffer...
Both Gears of War games do, and Saints Row, off the top of my head. A lot of games don't, though.
Kind of a moot point though... I agree that it's stupidly restrictive, but people do regularly fail games for it.
Hmm. I dug up some GoW screens, and you're right. It also allowed me to notice something about how that works, though - you can have a box showing the current gun/ammo, and so long as the majority of the icon and all the number are both within the box, it doesn't matter how far the gui chrome extends.
Halo 3 detects the display and moves the HUD accordingly. I've never seen it go off the screen on any TV I've play it on. It's also kind of an optical illusion to make it seem smaller by slightly curving the HUD elements around the viewer's vision - less space used but the same information to your brain.
So an actual developer (CTXM LTD which has apparently worked with PopCap in the past) released an XNA Community Game today. SuperCow. Looks to be a solid platformer with surprisingly good graphics. 400 points.
Also, we got a softcore porn game. A breakout clone where the twist is that you unlock pictures of the creator in various states of undress. Yeesh.
So an actual developer (CTXM LTD which has apparently worked with PopCap in the past) released an XNA Community Game today. SuperCow. Looks to be a solid platformer with surprisingly good graphics. 400 points.
Also, we got a softcore porn game. A breakout clone where the twist is that you unlock pictures of the creator in various states of undress. Yeesh.
So an actual developer (CTXM LTD which has apparently worked with PopCap in the past) released an XNA Community Game today. SuperCow. Looks to be a solid platformer with surprisingly good graphics. 400 points.
Also, we got a softcore porn game. A breakout clone where the twist is that you unlock pictures of the creator in various states of undress. Yeesh.
Posts
Some of the options available when you complete various %'s of the challenges make it much much easier. Spoilerish info ahead...
Good times were had by all.
PSN: Dyvion -- Eternal: Dyvion+9393 -- Genshin Impact: Dyvion
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
Thanks for the post.
That sucks terribly, so I guess this may be the last time I'll buy a community game unless they change their policy.
1 RBR - Fading Memories
2 RC-AirSim
3 Rumble Massage
4 DrumKit
5 TV Calibration
6 ZenHak
7 Aquarium HD
8 ZP2K9
9 A Fading Melody
10 Remote Masseuse
RBR - Fading Memories & ZenHak are both attrocious games so it's a real shame to see them on there. Nice to see A Fading Melody on the list though. Oh and I'm guessing we might see A Fading Melody up higher next week since it seems to be doing really well (2nd place last I checked) on the popularity list on Live (which I'm guessing is a day by day popularity tracker?).
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
I really wish I had time to more aggressively pursue XNA development and learning the codebase, since artwork has always been my forte. But, alas, these things take time. I'd dump my girlfriend and quit my job but I don't think the math on those add up.
EDIT: And I'm starting to get really, really antsy about download and purchasing figures. I hope A Fading Melody is doing well because it's a good game and it's very popular as opposed to being a minor standout amongst anemic XNA purchases. I really hope XNA Community is as popular as we wish it to be.
The absolute bare-minimum for the 360 at this point would be a year. As in it would be physically impossible to have a 720 (or whatever) ready before then.
Realistically, I would bet at least 2 years probably 3.
Glad to hear that Community Games has the potential to be lucrative. A judicious googling said that average U.S. per capita income was $38.6k, which is... a lot of downloads! I hope MS didn't rely on some sort of crazy twisted logic to arrive by that assertion.
Oh and details on this year's Dream-Build-Play competition are apparently going to be released April 6th.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
I know I'm a dork, but it's so cool to see something that I made in the list of games on my 360:
Exciting!
What is that like a 400pt thing?
I'm not racist, I swear. Everyone is just misinterpreting everything!
Spoilered because the awesomeness of my game's graphics are too much to be allowed to roam free. Behold Molly the Were-Zompire in all its 720p glory!
Yeah, graphics aren't exactly my game's forte. Hopefully people will enjoy the gameplay and story.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
However, I should note that you have a lot of stuff outside the safe area (the inner 1024x576 of the screen), which will cause you to get failed out of Peer Review very quickly if you don't take care of it. I had to deal with a lot of headaches fixing my game. It's really frustrating because you lose a lot of screen space.
I'll look forward to playing your game!
Wait 'till you buy your own game. It'll blow your mind.
Steam: Handkor
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Ordering my own book from Amazon was cool.
Of course, it hasn't gotten here since it isn't OUT yet, so my mind has yet to be blown.
Yeah, 128x72 on all sides sounds right. It's a huuuge border and I think it's ridiculous that we're expected to conform to such a strict standard, especially when commercial games (like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and many others) don't. But people can and will fail your game for it, so I would definitely suggest taking care of it now so you don't have to worry about it later.
This thread also summarizes common "gotchas" that will get you failed if you don't take care of them.
It's a pain in the ass.
There is a really good document on the XNA site about all the technical requirements for your game.
Edit: And here it is.
Thanks for the link. Looks like I'm going to have to spend several hours after the game is working for me just making sure it passes all of those requirements. Still, it beats putting it up in review, having it rejected, and then having to wait a week before I can resubmit it.
I'm really looking forward to having this game done. I've been trying to write my code in a versatile manner so that for future games, I can reuse most of my existing code & add onto that rather than having to start over again. I wouldn't be surprised if my second game ends up taking a lot less time to make despite being longer & more complex than my first game.
EDIT: Thanks RiemannLives for the link. That's another page I'll be sure to go over thoroughly before releasing my game to Peer Review.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Even if your game is perfect, though, I'd still suggest you plan to give it a week in the Playtest forum there before going to Peer Review. You could always throw up an unfinished build at any time, just make sure it gets in there as a token measure, because people tend to rip you to shreds if you try going straight to Review. I learned that one the hard way.
Edit:
Nevermind, I found it.
EDIT: I see you found it. Cool
I never actually used Viewport.TitleSafeArea, so I can't really help you there... However, I can give you the image overlay I used, which has the correct safe area measurements. Here, you can use SpriteBatch and draw this at Vector2.Zero:
You'll want anything game-critical to be within the green area, including but not limited to menus and HUD elements. For my game, I also had to change my level design because I had platforms outside the safe area, and no vertical scrolling, so people with bad overscan wouldn't be able to see the platform to jump on it. Those are just examples, though.
There's nothing wrong with it, but I've been coding for 9 hours a day at work and planning my wedding, so I haven't made much progress and it's driving me batty.
Also, apparently windows' vertical borders cover that part of the backbuffer...
Kind of a moot point though... I agree that it's stupidly restrictive, but people do regularly fail games for it.
Hmm. I dug up some GoW screens, and you're right. It also allowed me to notice something about how that works, though - you can have a box showing the current gun/ammo, and so long as the majority of the icon and all the number are both within the box, it doesn't matter how far the gui chrome extends.
Also, we got a softcore porn game. A breakout clone where the twist is that you unlock pictures of the creator in various states of undress. Yeesh.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Female creator?
http://catalog.xna.com/en-US/GameDetails.aspx?catalogEntryId=b0596e3e-6589-4c06-9634-ffd2e2edc3b1&type=2
I would say the in the strictest sense, the screenshots on that page might be considered NSFW
edit: huh, well look at that. Play breakout, look at some titties.