Recently I used QuickPWN to jailbreak my iPhone, and one of the great tools not available in the official App Store is iBlacklist. As other Canadians know, there’s been an unfortunate increase in telemarketing calls since the National Do Not Call List went into effect.

With iBlacklist, I just add a number to the blacklist, choose an action (auto-hang-up, straight-to-voicemail, etc), and I never have to receive an unwanted call or SMS again. The application keeps a log of what it has blocked:

That’s three unwanted calls in the last few days that I never even got a ring for! (According to 800notes.com, this particular caller purchased my information from a credit card company.)

techknight Gadgets, General blacklist, iphone, quickpwn, telemarketing

One quick introductory XNA project before getting into Cannon III: The Simple XNA Application. It’s just a new version of a bouncing ball demo that was originally created as a regular Windows app:

It looks like the lessons could get a little tricky, as they were created with the XNA 1.0 Refresh. Version 3.0 is the current release, and I can already see that the content manager is structured differently. No problems so far though.

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, simple_xna

Cannon II is done now. It’s pretty much Cannon I, except using a (mostly) proper game loop and custom classes.

For fun I’ve changed the graphics and added sound effects using SoundPlayer from System.Media. I used a tool called sfxr to randomly create the sounds:

The graphical changes are the very worst in programmer art, but what the hell… Here it is in action:

Also, while I was looking for something else, I came across this tool for generating animated explosion sprites: Explosion Generator. Might be useful later.

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, cannon

That’s the end of Cannon I. The game is now fully playable with a title screen, lives counter, and increasing difficulty.

Here’s a video of it in action:

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, cannon

For the second game project in 3D Buzz XNA Xtreme 101 we’re writing a simple target-shooting game called Cannon. From a single initial design, the game will be implemented three times. First as a basic WinForms application, then as a more complex one with custom objects, and finally as an XNA framework game.

The mechanics of the first implementation are complete, with the rest of the gameplay to come in the next lesson.

The objects in Cannon I are PictureBoxes loaded up with some simple graphics supplied by 3D Buzz. Here is the player ship firing on the moving target:

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, cannon

Last week I completed the Hyperion lessons, leaving me with a finished engine and basic game about rearranging some objects into the correct rooms.

I worked a little on making my own original game with the engine, but in the end I wasn’t inspired. As much as I have fond memories of early text adventure games (Scott Adams’ Adventureland, Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), it doesn’t seem like I have anything to bring to the table. Plus I’d rather get on with the XNA lessons.

I added a couple of things to the engine before I finished though:

• Lots of command aliases like “get” or “take” instead of “pickup”
• Directional commands are implemented differently from the way that 3D Buzz guys did it
• Partial text matching for items so that you can “drop gre” instead of “drop green ball”

So, that’s it for Hyperion. On to the next block of lessons.

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, hyperion

The combining I mentioned recently is now complete. The old URL (www.gameslifeandstuff.com) will now forward here. Unfortunately the comments were not able to be imported along with the posts that I chose to save, but from here on the data should be more portable.

I’ll work on a proper Wordpress theme soon.

techknight General admin

I first tried Comté cheese at Matt and Dani’s place. Apparently it’s cheaper in Kensington, but this little block of heaven from St. Lawrence Market was totally worth it.

Yum!

techknight Food cheese

Instead of continuing to have two separate blogs, I’m going to rename and backfill this one with selected posts from gameslifeandstuff.com.

The RSS feed might become temporarily cluttered as a result.

techknight General admin

The Hyperion engine is now complete enough to start a game:

Next up are game rules and fleshing out the rooms and items.

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, hyperion

I’ve been continuing the 3D Buzz XNA Xtreme 101 lessons before work this week… Now the “Hyperion” text adventure game engine is starting to take shape. As the methods are discussed, I like to pause the video and fill them in myself before seeing how the instructors complete them.

I’m curious to know how someone new to programming would feel at this point. This early portion of Volume 1 jumps right into development with only a small amount of whiteboarding and explanations, promising in-depth discussion later on. It seems like a good approach, giving a feel for making something “real” before trying to lecture people on the intricacies of C#.

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz, hyperion

I’m starting over with a new set of instructional videos from 3D Buzz called XNA Xtreme 101. I opted for the monthly Member Sponsorship account that includes access to streaming versions of XNA Xtreme 101 along with various 3d modeling packages.

So far this approach feels better than following a book. Having multiple instructors explain things in different ways (with Photoshop used as a whiteboard) helps keep me interested. Even though the initial videos I’ve watched are going over material that I already understand, I haven’t been bored yet. In fact I’m a little bit impressed – the Hello World app is a text adventure game engine!

The only downside is that the videos are heavily watermarked, in an effort to discourage piracy. And let me tell you – it’s really fucking annoying. Check this out:

Yes, my full name and address plastered across every frame of every video that I watch. If you’re the sort of person driven to insanity by stuck pixels on an LCD, think carefully before making a similar purchase! :)

In fact I normally skip products with heavy-handed DRM, but the instructors are very enthusiastic and knowledgeable… They really give a damn about what they’re doing, so the Member Sponsorship seems to be worth the money.

techknight Game Development, Learning 3dbuzz