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rogue
07-03-2010, 11:41 PM
1)So how does this forum work(besides painfully slowly round supper:P)? Is it exclusively XBox/PC etc?
2)If I make something interesting for ZuneHD shall I post it, or do people not really care(understandable, as theres only like 3 people who actually own one)?
3)Is this owned by NAG(forum and gamedev site), or do they just donate forum space?
4)Im sure theres a plethora of tutorials for XNA out there. Plus it seems no one actually uses XNA(in favour of GM). But is there any chance that people would be interested in a series of XNA/C# tuts?

dislekcia
08-03-2010, 12:35 AM
1)So how does this forum work(besides painfully slowly round supper:P)? Is it exclusively XBox/PC etc?
2)If I make something interesting for ZuneHD shall I post it, or do people not really care(understandable, as theres only like 3 people who actually own one)?
3)Is this owned by NAG(forum and gamedev site), or do they just donate forum space?
4)Im sure theres a plethora of tutorials for XNA out there. Plus it seems no one actually uses XNA(in favour of GM). But is there any chance that people would be interested in a series of XNA/C# tuts?

1. This forum exists to help people develop games and everything that goes with that. We tend to take a bit of an indie "build it and see" approach because it works much better than constantly re-coding useless engines until the end of time. It's not exclusive to any platform, that would be silly.

2. Post it. Be aware that if most people don't have the specific hardware you're developing for, they won't be able to play it. That will affect the feedback you get. Game.Dev is really what you make of it: Some people post things in ways that allow them to get huge amounts of useful feedback, others post once or twice and let it fizzle out. If I could suggest something: Emulate Nandrew as much as possible (seriously) and release a PC version if you're working for Zune as well.

3. NAG lets Game.Dev use their forum and we've benefited from that kindness immensely. Game.Dev is a separate entity and isn't owned or run by Tide Media. We do, however, have strong links with Tide Media because they're awesome people who want more South African games to be made :)

4. Quite a few users are into XNA. Game.Dev has produced a number of DreamBuildPlay entries and many of the professional developers that hang out here use XNA in their jobs. If you check out the information, resources and downloads thread (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=3452) you'll see several links to XNA tutorials already, but if you've got a unique or great way to get people into developing concrete games with XNA, go ahead and write some tutorials. I'm sure that they'd make it into Dev.Mag (http://www.devmag.org.za) if they're good!

So what are you working on?

Chippit
08-03-2010, 12:48 AM
1) We're for anything, PC games, mobile games, board games, online games, console games, game mods or maps, etc. If you can play it, it has place here. (Also, recently, it's been painfully slow all the time.)

2) Feel free to post whatever you make, though, as you said, I'm not entirely sure too many people around here actually own a Zune. I've personally never even laid eyes on one. So you might not get too much useful feedback, I'm afraid.

3) The forum is owned and run by NAG, who graciously let us govern ourselves on this subforum. Game.Dev itself is a separate entity related only to NAG in that it shares their space :P

4) Quite a few developers here have made use of XNA at some point or another. I use it quite regularly myself, and I'm quite an advocate of its use. The prevalence of Game Maker here is mostly because of its friendliness, accessibility and rapid prototyping capabilities. A lot of developers around here subscribe to the belief that if your design can't be implemented in GM, chances are a) it's not a particularly good design, or b) you'll probably never make it anyway. :P That said, anything that helps people get into something game devvy is generally welcome.

EDIT: oh goddamnit, dis, you bastard.

EDITEDIT: wow, it took me 10 minutes to type that? I'm getting sloppy.

EDIT^3: turns out we also said basically the same thing too. Creepy.

dislekcia
08-03-2010, 01:46 AM
EDIT: oh goddamnit, dis, you bastard.

EDITEDIT: wow, it took me 10 minutes to type that? I'm getting sloppy.

EDIT^3: turns out we also said basically the same thing too. Creepy.

Get out of my head, Charles!

;)

rogue
08-03-2010, 02:31 PM
Thanks for the answers guys.
dislekcia, there's 2 reasons I prefer developing for Zune as apposed to Windows(even though XNA makes them essentially the same): a) I enjoy mobile development more than desktop, and b) Most of the stuff I do relies heavily on touch and/or the accelerometer.

dislekcia
08-03-2010, 03:16 PM
Thanks for the answers guys.
dislekcia, there's 2 reasons I prefer developing for Zune as apposed to Windows(even though XNA makes them essentially the same): a) I enjoy mobile development more than desktop, and b) Most of the stuff I do relies heavily on touch and/or the accelerometer.

I totally get where you're coming from regarding not liking desktop development. Having known hardware that you're targeting is always a lot better... Supporting all the different possible configs and hardware issues makes PC not much fun come testing time.

Seems like the trick would be to come up with a good way to emulate touch/accelerometer functions with a mouse on PC. If you're just looking for feedback on gameplay choices, then I'm pretty sure the dev-savvy types here would be fine with a slightly dodgy mouse version and be able to look past that to how it should perform with the actual phone interface. Stuff like multi-touch is always tricky tho.

That said, VIDEOS! Great way to get people to see what playing the game on the device is like.

rogue
08-03-2010, 03:38 PM
Yeah thats a pretty good idea(WRT having a pc version with click). And would only take a couple lines to change. As you say though, it will only work well for single touch.
Yip, i make video's of everything, in the format of the one I put in durban devlan forum. Blurry is better than nothing ;)
Do many people here have Windows mobile devices? could be interesting to make a couple simple games for those.

AndrewJ
08-03-2010, 04:16 PM
@rogue: WinMo development can be fun! :-)

rogue
08-03-2010, 06:21 PM
@rogue: WinMo development can be fun! :-)
Cool. Do I have to use GDI, or is there a better way of drawing 2D?

edg3
09-03-2010, 07:01 AM
Well, as for Q4, I only work in XNA now. I just find game maker too much hassle to write code in. And as for tutorials, I write tutorials on my blog for XNA in my free time, and have even featured on Sgt. Conker and XNA Creators Club Communique's (whatever that spelling is meant to be). But more XNA tutorials would be awesome.

EDIT: featured probably wasnt the right word

AndrewJ
10-03-2010, 08:05 AM
@rogue: I haven't tried drawing 2D, sorry.