June 2009 - Brian Peek's Blog

The recordings for the session I gave on XNA Game Studio 3.0 and the XNA Framework to the Facebook .NET Programmers Group have now been posted.  In this session, I give an overview of XNA Game Studio 3.0 and the XNA Framework while building a simple Space Invaders clone named Alien Attack.  This game is gone into even greater detail with more features in chapter 1 of our Coding4Fun book.

You can find a quick, low-res, streaming version below, or you can download and play the recording at a higher resolution in Microsoft Office Live Meeting.  I had a great time presenting the topic and hope to speak to the group again in the future!

Meeting #13 - Coding4Fun: Designing a Video Game using XNA Game Studio 3.0 from Muneeb on Vimeo.

Update: See this post for a beta release

Ok, I get about 10 emails a day on this, so I figure a status update is in order.

The Wii MotionPlus extension for the Wiimote was released last week.  Since then, I and others have been working to figure out how the device works.  Unfortunately, it does NOT work as every other extension controller has worked up until this point, mostly due to the fact that the Wii MotionPlus accessory has an expansion port of its own so all of the other extension controllers can plug into it.

In the past few days, some progress has been made thanks to the folks over at wiibrew.org, although functionality is nowhere near complete.  For example, it’s currently impossible to have the Wiimote notify you when the Wii MotionPlus is inserted into the bottom of the Wiimote, like all of the other extension controllers do.

I have been working with the information at wiibrew.org and am trying to get things working reliably with my library so that developers can actually get some degree of functionality out of it.

So, all that said, expect to see a new (likely beta) version of WiimoteLib “soon” that has some bare-bones Wii MotionPlus functionality included.  It won’t be perfect, complete, or bug free, but it will allow you to tinker with the device a bit.  I will update my blog when the new version is available.  Thanks!

The very first episode of my new Coding4Fun Show is now up on Channel 9.  This is a show I plan on doing monthly, interviewing developers creating fun and interesting projects, and showcasing what they’re doing.

In this first episode, I interview Andy Beaulieu and we discuss his Physics Helper for Silverlight, Blend, and Farseer.  You’ll learn a bit about how he made the library, and how you can use it in your own applications for some pretty cool effects.  You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

Have a look and let me know what you think.  It’s my first time trying this out, so I’d love to hear your feedback.  Thanks!