It's something I'll probably dodge with Titan but I had to remove all the function calls from the Droid Assault demo - saved about 1.5 milliseconds IIRC (but I was only joking).

PS - nice work with the LOS shader too.

Can you optimise it for the dodgy jitter on the XBox while you're at it as well please 

Made some good progress on the Titan Attacks conversion. Here's the latest video.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/kAvAe-NECnE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/kAvAe-NECnE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

This is running on Windows at the moment - I've a couple of systems left to implement then I can begin the XBox 'port' (mainly fixing garbage issues at a guess)

Not necessarily. If the standard weapon behaviour is to fire (a) number of (b) projectiles, in an arc from -(c) to +(c) radians with a reload factor of (d) milliseconds then they'd all have the same BEHAVIOUR wouldn't they. But your data would be different - that is the point.

You don't have to create 20 different classes - you only create a NEW CLASS when you need BEHAVIOUR that is different.

So make a simple weapon system.

*Disclaimer* I'm no Java guy but I'd do...

IWeapon {
    Some behaviours here like shoot or load, etc
}

Weapon : IWeapon {
    Some common functions for all weapons

  //virtual shoot() : spawn a simple bullet based on some data file (speed, effect, sound, damage)
}

//Weapons are data driven
standardWeapon = new Weapon(DATA FOR THE WEAPON)
flamerWeapon = new Weapon(DATA FOR THE WEAPON)

//Only need a sub class when BEHAVIOUR is different
ShotgunWeapon : Weapon {
  //Override shoot() to spawn x many bullets in an arc - randomise pellet speed
}

Something::setWeapon(IWeapon newWeapon) {
   etc
}

...and I've finally fixed the resource loader 



Input next - then I should be able to play it!

That's running on Windows at the moment - I'm still working through some resource bugs and graphical errors. As soon as I'm happy with it on Windows I'll compile an XBox version and see what's to be fixed up there. Resources are taking too long to load at present so I'll see what my options are for pre creating them.

...and here's a little YouTube of it in action...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/d7eGZmGPw84?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/d7eGZmGPw84?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

Cheers - been a bunch of hard work but ultimately satisfying when you get the game running. I looked at IKVM way back in the day but found it wasn't going to work for some reason (probably the closed nature of consoles but I forget now). If you want XBox then it's got to be XNA Game Studio (or pain of XBLA) and if you have XNA you may as well go MonoGame for the other targets.

I've delegated the few OpenGL calls that Cas uses to Direct X - it's a custom solution and while it's pretty basic it works well enough. Not sure what the plans are to be honest. I doubt there would be any value in it for others unless you were using the entire Puppy tool chain. But there's no reason the various libs couldn't be bunged on Github or whatever.

That link is nearly 4 years old - go start a new thread if you want to argue the merits of each language / IDE / Framework, eh?

Anyway, here's some WIP screens in various states of brokeness...

I don't usually like that shadow effect (looks pretty horrific in Monaco IMHO) but that looks very cool. Probably because it's really subtle.

Ah man, I was hoping this wouldn't descend into a silly argument about which language was better. They both have their good and bad points.

Puppy games are fun and I want to see them on more platforms. I want to play Titan Attacks in my living room on a huge TV on my Xbox or on my phone when I'm on the train to work - now I can 

What is it about C# that you don't like? It's pretty much Java by another name really.

I'm going to use MonoGame to target the other platforms. It's a cross platform conversion of the XNA framework (obviously using Mono).

It is now 

Because I've just spent the best part of the past month converting all of Caspian's libraries to C# - these are the desktop versions (I did some Android work earlier on in the year so I could build on the knowledge gained there).

Some Java classes and bits of LWJGL made the jump too.

I've blogged a bit about the process here if anyone is interested...
http://pumpkin-games.net/wp/?p=110

...and here...
http://pumpkin-games.net/wp/?p=139

It's currently in testing. I'm aiming for something like the initial title screen late Sunday (although the pre-widescreen version has been converted and is playable). Game saves, 'Steam' stuff and sound still to finish.

So, if you like Puppy Games and have an Xbox, PS Vita or an iOS device keep an eye out for some news probably early next year.

Paul.

Installed GDebi.
Right click 'google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb' Open With GDebi Package Installer...
"Error! Could not open 'google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb" The package might be corrupted or you are not allowed to open the file: please check the permissions of the file.

Download 4 times. Officially giving up now.

There's no open in software centre option.

GDebi is not installed by default (at least not in my version).

Seems like I've managed to bugger up Update Manager now due to the google / chrome commands...

E:Malformed line 1 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list (dist)

Contains...
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/stable/main
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/stable/main

I like the idea of Linux, just not all the faffing. GDebi should be installed and hooked up to install stuff seamlessly.

Thought I'd update the Linux Mint session gathering dust in my VM

Installing Chrome on Linux Mint...
Tried the Software Manager application - Google Chrome not listed.

So, old school then...

Click the big button
"Please select your download package"
    32 bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)
    64 bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)
    32 bit .rpm (For Fedora/openSUSE)
    64 bit .rpm (For Fedora/openSUSE)
Accept and Install...
You have chosen to open blah - What should Firefox do with this file? Open With [BROWSE] / Save
Choose Open - nothing listed that looks like it would do anything
Choose Save
App downloads
Right click, Open
Archive Manager opens and shows 4 folders - nothing installed
Got bored and cancelled the 'installation'

Fail!

Instructions on the Google help page don't reflect the actual experience.

Fail!

Off to Google to see if that helps...

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=linux+mint+install+chrome&oq=linux+mint+install+chrome&gs_l=hp.3..0j0i8i30l3.9495.13711.0.13817.2.2.0.0.0.0.50.50.1.1.0...0.0.twNg63MSwmQ&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=c72d84806ae8a6&biw=1324&bih=876

1st link: http://www.itworld.com/software/237571/install-google-chrome-linux-mint-12

Typing long commands into Terminal window

Fail

"ERROR: This command can only be run as root"

Fail

Persist with commands. Nothing installs

Fail

Really bored now - back to Windows 7, productivity increases.

PS - Installing Chrome on Windows...
One click on a big button

WIN!

http://ndpsoftware.com/git-cheatsheet.html
(hint, click the big coloured boxes)

I approach any programming task as follows...
  1) Try and get out of doing it altogether.
  2) Get somebody else to do it.
  3) Reluctantly do it but do the bare minimum.

As others have mentioned, (1) fits this scenario perfectly :-)

Search 'swept' circle to line collisions...

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=seb&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=swept+circle+line+collision&oq=swept+circle+line+collision&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=serp.3...195806.201583.0.201827.17.15.1.0.0.1.96.836.15.15.0...0.0.YsAR6aI1P34&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=42e46945646da5f5&ix=seb&biw=1394&bih=860


Consider all the collisions from t0 -> t1 and take the one that occurs first (this will be the line the circle hits first).

I recreated all of the Shaven Puppy Game Library rendering pipeline in XNA in less than an hour.

C#, Boo, Javascript - core engine is C++ I believe.


Well, you've constantly proved that you can write great games using Java :-)


Agree 100% - Microsoft really, really dropped the ball with Xbox Live Indie Games. Use for fun / hobby projects. Still, it's awesome to see your games running on your Xbox. Big smiles there. And you never know, you could get lucky (Fortress Craft or the Dishwasher guy). Only way for most devs to write code for it though unless you miraculously manage to get on XBLA (although would you really want to do XBLA certification *shudder*)

XNA 4.0 is brill - they did a great job of tidying up all the crud. Not sure why people think they broke it - Well, actually I do. Most folks don't realise there are 2 profiles in XNA; Reach and HiDef. And as Reach is the default they assume all the fancy shadery goodness has been nerfed so they could target the Phone. They didn't. They made the reach profile robust enough to hit a wide range of hardware and fix up all various driver problems.

Desktop deployment is sucky though.


But Java isn't available on the Xbox so no worthwhile comparison can be made. It's the cheap ass Compact Framework they used that is the reason for 95% of the performance problems. If they have built a framework specifically for the console it would fly. And the in order CPUs don't like the branch heavy code the CF jitter produces.


C++11 may take away a lot of the 'pain' of traditional C++ but having not used I couldn't really comment.

"Posted by Patrick Smacchia on January 19, 2009". Used an older version of Mono too.

There's also the MoMA tool: http://www.mono-project.com/Moma

In Java land, I've had a few folks recommend Slick as a decent framework.

 

 

I'm not resisting very hard though am I!

The tools are free for them all so download them and have a play with each one. Don't get caught in the trap of being a one language guy / language evangelist.  There's good and bad in all of them no matter what anybody tells you.

As per Kev's reply, the days of C# being Windows only are long gone. And XNA, most definitely, doesn't suck.

There's also game maker applications / frameworks (GameMaker, Unity, etc) that may be a better option if you just want to get games finished.

What sort of stuff do you want to write and what devices do you want to target? Answering that may help you decide which option to go for - at least initially anyway.


Oh, and Hi - first post :-)