XNA Team Blog

Creators Club Communiqué 10

We're back from stuffing ourselves with...well...stuffing and turkey and the like for Thanksgiving and boy howdy! There is a ton of news!

First up, we're opening up Singapore, Australia and New Zealand! Independent game creators in these regions will soon be able to sell their games on Xbox LIVE Community Games! You can read all the details about this over on XNA Creators Club.

Of course, the holiday saw no shortage of Community Games going up on LIVE Marketplace! We're at more than 60 games at last count! This means that the need for Peer Reviewers and Playtesters is greater than ever.

If you've got a game you're working on Playtest is a great way to get the feedback great Creators crave. If your game is in Peer Review or Playtest you should be Peer Reviewing and Playtesting other games! That's how our system works.

Our team has had a tiny sliver of downtime so they've taken it to offer up plenty for you to read! Aaron "Sapient Slyboots" Stebner wrote not one but TWO articles on creating installers for Windows games with XNA Game Studio 3.0.

It couldn't be a CCC without a post from our own Shawn "Intermediate Serializer" Hargreaves on serializing collections of shared resources.

Another member of our team, Frank "Laser Cat" Savage, served up an article about what's new with XNA Game Studio 3.0 on Gamasutra.

In the meantime, plenty of Creators have been sharing what they know. MVP Nick "La Enchanter" Gravelyn offered a glimpse into the life of a game built with the XNA Framework.

MVP George "Active Papa" Clingerman posted sage advice on making every second of the four-minute trial mode of your Xbox LIVE Community Game count.

MVP Michael "Ziggy" Morton shared a sample using LINQ in XNA for a particle system.

Finally, here's something the New York Times did called 'Immersion' and it is what your TV sees while you're playing Community Games.

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Xbox LIVE Community Games is Open for Business!

Hopefully you've managed to upgrade yourself to the New Xbox Experience already!

Some people are reporting having trouble logging on to Xbox.com to sign the new Terms of Use. If that includes you, try signing this through your Xbox 360 console instead.  That is probably your quickest and easiest route back to Premium Creators Club membership status.

We've also got a new area just for Xbox LIVE Community Games over on the Xbox.com forums. This will be where we can send those earnest voices that don't necessarily want to make a game, but simply want to offer their opinions on the games created. Each Community Game will have its own thread created once it is available through Marketplace.

On Creators Club we've opened up the last piece of the site to the Creators -- the "My Business" portion of your profile is now live. If you're selling a Community Game or plan to sell one you need to give us your information there so we know where to send the check!

This is a pretty incredible day for all of us. We've managed to do something that no one has really done before. We've opened up the console and given independent game developers a chance to sell their work to the millions of Xbox LIVE gamers.

Our creators have submitted more than 30 different games that you can download now through the Community Games channel on the New Xbox Experience. Each game has something incredible to offer and speaks to the potential that waits beyond today. We really can't wait to see what happens next!

Creators Club Communiqué 09

Here we are at launch! As of tomorrow millions of Xbox LIVE Gamers will have access to almost 30 of your games through Xbox LIVE Community Games! Let's take a moment to think about how freakin' awesome that is!

Alright, back to dropping knowledges on you. As ever, our amazing community of creators is hard at work sharing what they know and with the help of MVP Catalin "Link Conjurer" Zima we've rounded up some gems for this week's communiqué.

MVP George "Control Diva" Clingerman has a great post about different ways of educating the player about what button does what when.

Bittermanandy served up a second course on dealing with garbage in C# as it relates to the XNA Framework.

Team XNA's own brilliant and benevolent Shawn "Max-treme" Hargreaves explains what makes the skybox blue (or whatever color you decide it should be in your game).

Kyle Hayward shared a rad water game component to help you include elements of extreme damp in your game.

Uruguay Pete kicked out a three-part series on extension methods with the XNA framework and if that's not enough on the topic -- MVP Nick "Serious as a" Gravelyn also posted on the topic!

Finally, this week we got to scream "SHIP IT!" and really mean it so I felt it was time to share this with all of you.

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

New XNA Game Studio 3.0 Samples!

In anticipation of the launch of Xbox LIVE Community Games next Wednesday, November 19^th we're doing all we can to help all our creators get their games ready for the world with articles on playtesting and Peer Review.

Many creators are just starting out or still building their masterpieces and Creators Club offers many resources for you, too!

Along with updating all existing content to work with XNA Game Studio 3.0 (including the Spacewar Starter Kit!) this week we'd like to share three new samples!

Localization Sample

This sample shows how to localize an XNA Framework game into multiple languages.

Safe Area Sample

This sample shows how to make an XNA Framework game display correctly on a wide range of different televisions.

Invites Sample

This sample shows how to support invites in a networked XNA Framework game.

If you have questions about these or anything else our incredible MVPs are waiting in the Creators Club forums to answer your questions!

Creators Club Communiqué 08

We are just one week from the launch of Xbox LIVE Community games! Hopefully, you've at least already submitted your games for playtest and are getting set for peer review. At last count I saw six games ready to go on the Community Games Marketplace with more to come!

Many Creators have been working hard to get their games ready for launch. One such Creator is treasured MVP George "Jefferson" Clingerman. He chronicled some of the lessons he learned from our Best Practices and shares them on his blog.

Another, equally treasured MVP Nick "Jefferson" Gravelyn hosted a three blog-jam this week with posts on managing storage devices, serialization of network packets, and his personal reflections on what he thinks can help anyone make better games.

Our own Dax "Jefferson" Hawkins penned a fantastic article on Xbox LIVE Community Games over on Gamasutra. It is a must-read.

Want to see where your games will end up on the New Xbox Experience? The ZMan is sharing a walk-through video of Xbox LIVE Community Games over on his site!

Finally, if you haven't joined already be sure to posse up on the XNA Creators Club Facebook group. Facebooks are what all the cool kids are using these days!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Creators Club Communiqué 07

Hopefully, you've all been busy finishing your game up to have it submitted to the pipeline and passed through playtest and then Peer Review in time for the opening of Xbox LIVE Community Games on November 19! Many of you have still found time to post some really rad stuff and the Communiqué is here to gather it all together.

Last week was full of events for Team XNA! Along with the XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Xbox LIVE Community Games Launch Party (more pics and video and developer interviews coming soon!) there was also the Professional Developers Conference! Michael Klutcher and Frank Savage presented a talk on XNA Game Studio which you can find via Michael's blog.

Shawn Hargreaves delivered an impressive trifecta of blog posts on Texture Compression with the XNA Framework.

Physics is hard and game physics can be even harder. Sean James offers a pretty sweet tutorial on physics within his series on an XNA Game Engine.

If your game is done and you're ready to submit Jim Perry has some pro-tips on submitting your game for Xbox LIVE Community Games. He takes a bit of time to explain the differences between playtest and peer review. We're also working on a few articles for Creators Club that should answer some questions folks have had about that.

Link shepherd and MVP Catalin Zima even had a pretty cool post this week! He shows you how to put Powerpoint into an XNA application. Before you say, "Whaaa? Huh? Someone else is making Super Marketing Presentation: The Game??!" think to yourself -- where could I use a cool slideshow in my game?

Finally, today is Election Day in the USA. Hopefully, you got out and voted and got your sticker!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

XNA Game Studio 3.0 is LIVE

We did it! XNA Game Studio 3.0 is here and you can download it now!

Our ultimate goal with XNA Game Studio 3.0 is to continue to provide easy-to-use, approachable tools for hobbyists, academics and indie game developers capable of producing the best games to be shared with the world on Xbox 360, Windows PC and Zune.

XNA Game Studio 3.0 is required to submit games to Xbox LIVE Community Games. Visit our Quick Start guide if you'd like to know more about how to submit your game.

It is important to begin submitting your game for playtesting and peer review as early as possible to be sure they'll be available to the millions of Xbox LIVE gamers at the launch of the New Xbox Experience on November 19!

Many people worked really hard to bring this to you and it would not have been possible without your input! Thank you all so much!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

While CCO is Down, the Party is Going Up!

Creators Club Online is currently under a terrific transformation up in Redmond. Many members of Team XNA are busting their butts to have it ready for you in the morning. Meanwhile, in San Francisco we're preparing to greet members of the community and press at the Xbox LIVE Community Games and XNA Game Studio 3.0 Launch Event! Want to join us? There could still be room on the RSVP list! First come, first served!

We're just about ready to start welcoming everyone! We're also working on setting up a webcam. Hopefully, the tech fairies will smile on us and let it work. In the meantime, I'll update this as often as I can and post to the Team XNA twitter!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Creators Club Communique 06

Holy Moly! It is a crazy week for Team XNA! We've got a Launch Event on Wednesday (want to join us? The details are here!), we're shipping XNA Game Studio 3.0 on Thursday, and Friday we'll all be at the spa enjoying mani-pedis!

Dream.Build.Play winner and Indie Dev Darling James Silva recently posted about the joys of localization. This inspired our own Shawn Hargreaves to share some of his own experiences with making his games more worldly, too. They're both fun reads for anyone looking to share their Xbox LIVE Community Game with the world.

Do you know what Attract Mode is? Michael Klucher does and he shared his thoughts on this lost art in his blog. Incidentally, if you'd like to meet Mr. Klucher in-person he's at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles all week! Stop and say hello!

If you're looking to brighten up environments in your game you'll want to take a look at PhD Student Nicolas Menzel's media-rich tutorial on sun shaders with XNA framework.

Finally, this particular collection of images made my week totally awesome. It is Robocop and Unicorn - unstoppable team of win.

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

New Creators Club Coming Soon!

There is a heck-ton of exciting happenings over the next few days! I hope you're all ready (I hope Team XNA is, too!)!

First up: Creators Club Online will be down from Wednesday, October 29 at 8:00 a.m. (PST) until Thursday, October 30 at 8:00 a.m. (PST). During this time we'll be furiously constructing the tubes that Xbox LIVE Community Games will be channeled from you to millions of Xbox LIVE gamers. You won't be able to get to all your favorite places at Creators.xna.com, but come Thursday we'll be back and better than ever -- complete with XNA Game Studio 3.0!

During this time you'll also want to visit us here on the Team Blog where I'll be posting all about the happenings at our XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Xbox LIVE Community Games Launch Event in San Francisco! Do you live in the San Francisco area, are over 21, and would like to join us? Visit here to R.S.V.P. (first come, first served!)!

We'll also be announcing all the winners of 2008's Dream.Build.Play competition! It gets bigger and better every year and picking the winners wasn't easy. So many of this year's entries were amazing - we're all hoping we see many of them on Xbox LIVE Community Games when it launches on November 19th!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Creators Club Communiqué 05

We're in do or die time around here. We're nearly ready to go gold with XNA Game Studio 3.0 and it is a bit like Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome meets "The Office" (the BBC version). Meanwhile, our creators' thirst for knowledge increases!

Our friend Pete posted a very helpful rundown on Content Managers including not just what to do, but what not to do.

If you're making games with XNA you already know about Ziggyware, if not you should! Ziggyware is hosting a contest where you could win a whole heep of rad stuff (including an Xbox 360 Elite) just for writing a tutorial! Be sure to check it out.

You want to learn more about building cross-platform games with XNA Game Studio 3.0? Our own Stephen "Junior Mint" Styrchak drops knowledge on your brain pans.

Our own beloved Mitch "Grandmaster Chief" Walker expanded on some of the ideas we laid out in the Best Practices article as relates to storage in XNA and how to avoid the dreaded "Storage API Hang of Fun".

It wouldn't be a CCC without a super brainy post from our own indomitable Shawn "El Loco" Hargreaves where he offers several good ways to implement instancing using vfetch.

Want to meet us in person?! You can check out all the buzz around XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Xbox LIVE Community Games at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, October 27^th – 30^th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  Our own Michael "Doctor Demo" Klucher and Frank "Revered Ancient" Savage will be there to demo XNA Game Studio at the Microsoft Product Pavilion and they’ll host an introduction to XNA Game Studio 3.0 at Wednesday’s Lunch Session. If you’re at PDC, stop by and say hello!

As ever, many thanks go out to the entire community for working together to make everyone's games that much better. Special thanks to MVP Catalin "Link Maniac" Zima for calling many of these to my attention. Sadly, everyone (except me, of course) seemed to miss the chimp making an escape on a seqway.

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Inevitable Things: Taxes and Twitter

So, we've posted some very important information for anyone creating a Community Game that hopes to sell it through Xbox LIVE Community Games starting on November 19. The information relates to taxes and such so you should definitely check it out at Creators Club.

We've also started our own Twitter feed! You can follow us by visiting http://www.twitter.com/XNACommunity!

One last bit of news -- we got a visit from Major Nelson this week! He was kind enough to check in and ask us about Xbox LIVE Community Games! We're thankful to the Major for his time and attention - I hope we get to visit him again soon!

Xbox Live Community Games

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Creators Club Communiqué 04

As the launch of Xbox LIVE Community Games draws near I'm seeing tons of excitement building. The Internet is en Fuego with Creators creative juices. I'm so looking forward to seeing the games you guys are making! I really cannot wait! Of course, to this end as with every Communiqué, I share with you some of the cool game making stuff from the far corners of the world.

Our own Aaron "Bunny Harbinger" Stebner wrote a fantastic post about upgrading your XNA Game Studio 2.0 projects to the 3.0 beta. This is a great idea for anyone hoping to submit their game to launch with Xbox LIVE Community Games on November 19. It will make you that much more prepared to convert the project when Xbox LIVE Game Studio 3.0 becomes available on October 30!

Treasured MVP Nick Gravelyn shared some interesting opinions on the pricing of your Xbox LIVE Community Game on the Creators Club Forums. Check it out and share your own brain thoughts, too.

The IndieCade: International Festival of Independent Games is taking place October 10 through 17 in Bellevue, Washington. Joystiq has been running a feature all week on the 25 finalists featured at the festival. There are some amazing games and it is certainly worth checking out!

Finally, in the "Warming Your Icy Developer Heart" category -- A marriage proposal via Little Big Planet. I hope someone is already making a marriage proposal Community Game, too!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Are you ready for Xbox LIVE Community Games?

There is lots of news lately! Last week, we announced that The New Xbox Experience will go live globally on November 19, 2008! Xbox LIVE Community Games is a new channel within NXE and will launch in the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, and Spain at the same time.

We've also just announced that XNA Game Studio 3.0 will be available for download on October 30! This is an exciting time for our creators -- to help everyone make their games the very best they can be we've published our first version of Community Games Best Practices. You'll want to take a good look at this to help put the final spit polish on your game.

If you want your game to be part of all the excitement surrounding the launch of Xbox LIVE Community Games on November 19 you'll want to be ready on October 30 to convert your game to XNA Game Studio 3.0 and start play testing your title. That way your creations will be ready to be bought and played by the millions of Xbox LIVE gamers on day one!

If you've got questions, concerns, opinions, or photos of unicorns you'd like to share the Creators Club forums are waiting for you!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager

Creators Club Communiqué 03

Last week we had to bid farewell to Charles Cox, content producer and all-around swell guy. Thankfully, this community and this team doesn't let that slow them down. We're all working hard to help you create the best games you can in preparation for the release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 on [REDACTED], 2008 and the launch of Xbox LIVE Community Games on [REDACTED], 2008!

One of the features that we added in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta is ClickOnce publishing support for XNA Framework-based Windows games.  Aaron "Code Paladin" Stebner  went over the behind-the-scenes details for this feature and explained how to configure and use it in a Windows game.

In a fit of productivity Pete took it upon himself to convert all of the Creators Club XNA Game Studio 2.0 samples to 3.0 using the beta! Check them out! Like anything we link here, they aren't official so use them with care. Let Pete know if you find any problems, too.

XNA MVP George "Maverick" Clingerman fashioned a cool way of placing controller images inline with the text in his game. He shares this sample on his website, xnadevelopment.com.

Having trouble with collision detection? Sure, we all do. Four-Two games offers two sweet tutorials on 2-D Collision Detection and Response.

Our own beloved Michael "Rock Star" Klucher has a sweet inside look at the new XNA Game Studio Connect complete with secret screenshots. Have a look at his blog!

Finally, this week many people head to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show. I highly recommend this particular eatery, because you are served by trained monkeys.

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager