Seems when I migrated all the post off this blog I actually forgot to actually post about it.
If you would like to see more about XNA / Windows Phone / Windows and much more, check out my consolidated Game/App development blog at:
September 27, 2012
July 22, 2010
Well it has been a while since I blogged here, but rest assured we are very much still alive and active in the XNA space.
One of the major piece of works we have done recently is to move and upgrade the XNA-UK site, One of the main hubs in the XNA game space and the best place to meet likeminded people to make games, share ideas and get help.
One of the other signature pieces of the site it to bring devs / artists and testers / designers together in one place.
Come and check it out here:
Check back often for some exciting news coming soon!
Darkside
If you have missed my content, then check out my Dark Genesis blog (in case you missed the move announcement) on XNA-UK.NET
March 23, 2010
Talking about Autodesk Launches Free Online Game Development Curriculum – GameCareerGuide.com
Posted by Darkside under InformationLeave a Comment
Autodesk has recently announcing it’s going to be offering a free (yes FREE) online training course for those people who want to get into the creative side of game development.
Now it’s not quite ready yet as they are just refining the course and testing it out in the Laguna College of Art & Design (LCAD) in California.
So it’s not available as yet, but keep you’re eye’s peeled for the notice.
It’s also worth noting in this article that Autodesk are also offering a six-month student trial version of Autodesk’s Maya and a 30-day trial version of Mudbox to assit in the training with the goal to have game engine-ready assets and have them loaded and functioning in the game engine.
Check out the orriginal article over at Gamecarearguide here.
** Update
Looks like autodesk have some requirements for you to be elidgible for the course, see below
Access to the Curriculum
“Vehicle for Games” is available in English on the Autodesk Education Community, in the Level 4 content on the Industry Careers Framework micro site. Please note that the Autodesk Education Community is accessible only to faculty and students with a valid email address from a registered educational institution.
See – http://news.autodesk.com/portal/site/autodesk/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100311005038&newsLang=en
http://www.autodesk.co.uk/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=452932&id=12710676
So similar to Microsoft’s Dreamspark, it looks like this is only available for current education followers (read students 
), so it’s either time to go back to school or keep looking.
March 4, 2010
Nelson Hurst over @ Nelxon – http://www.nelxon.com/journal/entry-1002/xdsk/, (pronounced “nell-zahn“) has pulled together some of the best resources around the web to assist the indie development community in their prospective creations.
Links ranging from the different components of game engines like Physics, AI and Particle engines to full blown engine and lighting resources.
A lot of the links are codeplex projects which could be found by other means, but this list takes the cream of the crop and pulls them all together in one place.
What I really like is that Nelson has been very objective in this list, citing other projects over his own creations and showing the benefits of some above others. Even listing hi arch-rivals web/blog page.
So I highly recommend a visit and browse the links, you’ll find some cool gems in there.
Darkside
P.S
Nelson has also promised to keep the list up to date, so check back often.
January 11, 2010
It seems 2010 is going to be a bad start for me as the end of 2009.
In the latter part of 2009, my 3D blog (http://faux-motion.blogspot.com/) and my programming blog here were both plagued by a wholly mind crushing work schedule. No time to breathe and even my 2 games projects ground to a undeniable halt.
Christmas ended up being busy for other reasons but now with the arrival of 2010, my expectations and new schedule of research, dev and tutorials seem doomed with the latest revelations:
Mass Effect 2 (BioWare) – January 26
It arrived a little late, but the PC edition of space RPG Mass Effect improved many elements over its initial Xbox 360 release. This time around, BioWare plans to release the versions alongside each other. The game will import character and decision data over from the original game, so make sure you’ve got your save files lying around.
BioShock 2 (2K Marin) – February 9
The sequel to 2007’s acclaimed BioShock is being developed by a newly-built studio, but its creative leadership contains key figures from the original 2K Boston team, as well as some talented additions. The group has a lot to live up to, but early glimpses (of which there have been relatively few, thankfully) are promising.
You would think these game Companies would be a bit more sympathetic to us game developers, but no. They keep bringing out these smashing titles just to break us.
Oh well, I’ll just have to sort something else out 😦
(Also doesn’t help I picked up Fable 2 / Dragon Ages and Borderlands (which is great harmless fun) over Christmas)
Happy new year to all and hoping I will be out from under this rock soon.
On another note, I will probably be moving this blog over to XNA-UK, since I cannot stand the complete lack of spaces comment moderation. I personally like comments on blogs as it gives you a good feel for how well things are recieved but I’ve had to disable them here as I was getting too much spam. So instead (after some ear pulling from Nemo Krad (Charles Humphries), I’ll be looking to move soon.
Will keep you posted.
July 16, 2009
I am happy to announce that Nebulon has passed the peer review process for XBOX LIVE Community Games and is now available for purchase in the territories where XBLCG is available.
The game costs 200 Microsoft Points, and is a lot of fun. (As the Peer Reviewers have told us) This has been a great learning experience for Dark Omen Games, and we are happy to see that Nebulon is the first game from DOG to make it to XBLCG.
DaphydTheBard did a great job with the game, as the peer reviewers have told us, and we hope that you will check out the game and support us to continue developing for what will soon be called XBOX LIVE Indies.
Buy and Download the game from XBOX LIVE Marketplace.
“This game was classified by the community with the following category scores – Violence=0/3, Sex=0/3, Mature Content=0/3. Old School Arcade Action for the 21st Century! Featuring adaptive gameplay, a host of awesome weaponry, stunning effects and a thumping soundtrack to match. Get those trigger fingers ready – this is Retro as it was meant to be played…”
June 10, 2009
Ziggyware.com is one of the best sites for XNA resources and has been around since the beginning. It including Articles, Tutorials, News and even an Image of The Day section where you can look at what other people are doing.
But that’s not all. One of the things that sets Ziggyware apart from others is that about two or three times each year, it holds a “XNA Articles Competition”. The result of this competition usually takes form in lots of top-quality tutorials and articles about stuff you can do with XNA. Ziggyware wants to repay the talented people that make these tutorials, so he gives them prizes. Because of this, from time to time, there’s a call for donations, and now is such a time.
If you like to use the articles on Ziggyware, and if you want to help the site grow, prosper and continue to provide a constant stream of good XNA articles, you now have the chance to do so, by going on Ziggy’s site, and seeing how you can help.
![ziggyware[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.catalinzima.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ziggyware1.gif "ziggyware[1]")
I’m currently a bit out of action at the mo which is hampering my efforts to get anything done but It seems even my good friend Charles from Dark Omen games has been plundering on without my help now and created some interesting Blender results with his own hands and imagination, check it out here on his blog, there is another video on the same concept which just freaks me out.
June 4, 2009
So,as I have mentioned before, I am part of a group called Dark Omen Games, and we have finally got around to getting a Creators Club Premium membership so we can start to release our games on the Xbox Live Creators Games.
As my post title suggests, the first game we are putting up is Nebulon, the brain child of Dave Bonner.
Nebulon is a 2D top down shooter, you fly your ship around looking for alien “photons” to warp in so you can shoot them. You have to be quick though, they like to gang up and if to many get together there is the chance of a wormhole opening up and something nasty coming out..
Here are a few screen shots:
As you can see it can get pretty funky.
Here is a clip (pre play test drop):
If you have a Creators Club Premium account, please get on a give it a play test, we really would love to hear your feed back on it so we have a solid, robust game going into peer review.
You can leave your comments here, on the play test forum for Nebulon or on our blog.
So get your trigger fingers at the ready and start blasting some photons!
May 12, 2009
Looks like some people have been watching the new Star Trek film just a few times….
Posted on DeJohn’s blog is a screenshot of the new "Loading" image for your Avatar in XNA GS 3.1. I must say it looks cool and cannot wait, I think the first thing to try is to also crate your own loading annimation.
I’m all for just changing it to a Red colour, got to Love those Kilngon transporters.
Quote
http://blogs.msdn.com/dejohn/archive/2009/05/11/what-to-do-while-an-avatar-loads.aspx
April 30, 2009
Another month another visit to India.
The economy flying I can deal with, the food is fine, even the accommodation we are required to stay in to cut costs. the hardest part is leaving the family behind.
These past few months have been especially hard with over 6 weeks away in just over 3 months.
It’s not even as if I get any time to myself while I’m away to get my own things done, it’s all work work work.
That’s enough of a Rant…
It’s been really hard on my time, trying to et the next part in my 3D blog (featured below) done, I got several new game designs I need to work on and on top of that, I got the demands of my friends in Dark Omen Games as we try and see if we can get an entry for Dream Build Play up.
The latter of those I feel really ashamed at how little I’ve been able to do but I’m determined to do my part, trick is only my rig at home has the beef to run any serious 3D modeling software, my works laptop is really not up to the task 
So onwards and upwards.
in case anyone was wondering, the two game design projects I’m planning are very different indeed from previous work. One is a kids game that I got the inspiration from an arcade machine. The other is yet another spin off from my large project "Life".
Hack-1 Evolved isn’t being neglected either, I managed to get a little time to contribute to it’s outlying design.
For all three I’m determined to make them a reality but I am very conscious to get the designs just right.
The Beginnings of Game Development 