One of the biggest features lacking in most small games and even larger games is some form of intelligent computer player. This article series is aimed to get you, the developer, to start thinking outside of the box when it comes to creating your game’s AI players. We will eventually be discussing what a genetic algorithm is as well as neural networks but for now, we need to start with the basics.

» Read more: Genetics for Games: Part 1

Having trouble with your blurring and/or glowing? Well have I got a sample for you! The Blur and Glow Sample (2225) shows you how to do both with great results. An Xbox 360 version is included as well and the code is written for the XNA 3.0 Framework.

Soon after making the decision to get started on Galactic Wars [3] 2.0, I ran into the problem of managing users and their profiles in a way that was not going to limit what I could do with the game. This article gives you a closer look at how I am handling users in the game. » Read more: A Closer Look at Profile Management

During the last part of this little article series I mentioned how I used a queue in each state object to allow for continuous transitioning to occur. The reason for this is to allow for complex transitioning to occur. One example for this is a logo screen where it needs to fade in, stay on screen and then fade out again. Rather than relying on managing the states manually, we can add states on to a queue so they occur automatically.

» Read more: Advanced State System: Queues and Removal

There comes a time when simple state management just will not cut it anymore. I found this out while building up the code base for Thrust’s GUI library. As the objects on the screen became more complex, so did their states. This article covers a new way of thinking about an object’s state, a design that has been proven in Thrust (v1.x). The goals of this state system include the following:

» Read more: Advanced State System: Concept and Base

This one is incredibly simple.

1. Connect Zune to computer.
2. Deploy / Run a game.
3. Open Device Center (in Start Menu)
4. Right click on Zune and select Take Screen Capture

And there you go!

In this fourth [page, second post] installment of the MGS: Pong article series, I am going to cover how to draw a background for the game. Before I start, I should tell you that there will be two more articles: one for creating the menu system and one for pulling all the classes together. Okay, let’s begin! The background class (Background.cs) is incredibly easy to create. First we need some private members to draw the background.

» Read more: MGS: Pong (Pages 4-6)

In part one of the mini game article series, I am going to show you how to create a very simple Pong game from scratch. The tools you will need include Photoshop (or any other painting program such as Paint.NET or even MSPaint), Visual C# 2005 Express, and of course the Xna framework.

First we need to create our project, to give us a home base for all of our work. Go ahead and fire up C# Express and create an empty windows project. I am going to call mine MGSPong for lack of any imagination or any better title. Once the project has been created, add a folder called “Content” and then another underneath that called “Textures.” This is where we will store out art, no matter how bad it may be!

» Read more: MGS: Pong (Pages 1-3)

Hardware Instancing is an interesting topic that has quite a few uses. The idea of instancing is to use the hardware to generate transformed vertices to reduce draw call overhead. Now I know that sounded like a bunch of senseless technical jargon, and it was. In plain English, sometimes it is faster to let the GPU do all the work for us so the CPU can go off and do other work; and this is what Hardware Instancing does. This article covers how to setup a simple program that uses instancing to render a few rotating squares. » Read more: Hardware Instancing (Windows)

Now that you have created you First Game, it is time to actually start drawing something. Right? How do you expect to make a real game without drawing anything? This tutorial shows you how to use the SpriteBatch object to efficiently draw 2D items on the screen. In the end you will be experienced with rotations, scaling, sprites and sprite sheets. So let’s get started! » Read more: Introduction to SpriteBatch