Website may be up and down over next few months. I'm currently doing a complete overhaul of everything. Going back to simple individual .htm pages, new overall site theme, sanitizing and cleaning up html of all pages and blog posts, attempting to implement a new tooling and publishing system etc etc.

I have just uploaded the third release of my still in progress Zider game engine for XNA. You can find the download on the Zider page.

Features or changes for R3
  • Updated the xGameConsoleXNA library so commands now have an array of string arguments and a new "usedAsFunction" boolean parameter. usedAsFunction when set to true means that the command is being used as a function and allows the command logic to be aware of that.
  • Added Actor support
  • Added a SceneManager to the
  • Added an abstracted "UserInputService" service (Work in progress)
  • Full 360 controller support added. So virtually everything can be done using just a gamepad controller.
  • Added layering support, so a map can have multiple layers.
  • The zider project is no longer a standalong exe, it has been change into a class library.
  • Added SMLOP: Heroes which is a game that is being developed by me that uses the zider engine to run it.
  • The engine now makes use of the content pipeline for loading game files

Well I just uploaded Release 2 of my Zider game engine. You can download the source code from the Zider page. I have also posted xFripperyXNA Release 1, xGameConsoleXNA Release 1, and AxiomXNAControllers Release 1. These three libraries are used by the zider engine and are included in the Zider Release 2 download.

I have also posted a introductory video for the xGameConsoleXNA library that you can watch here. Now that the preliminary zider engine is working, I will try to spend some time making a series of video tutorials that will walk through how to use the zider engine as well as the related projects that zider makes use of.

And just to change the subject, a few minutes before posting this I had started watching the first 20 minutes of National Lampoon's Pledge This! ... Good god, that series of flicks has gone down hill. I'm glad I only wasted 20 minutes of my life (that I'll never get back), rather then watching the whole movie. Wow,... I didn't think they still made movies that bad.

I have not made any blog posts in the last week or so. I have been working on getting some minor issues worked out of the Zider engine. I am planning to make availible release 2 some time very soon. I also have been getting my xFripperyXNA and xGameConsoleXNA projects converted and up and running so I can post the first releases of each library.

I am also starting to make a few tutorial videos that will walk through some of the various aspects of each of these projects. Stay tuned for more details...

First Zider blog post

Published 1/15/2007 by createdbyx in Games | News | Programming | XNA
Tags: , , ,

I have just made public a new project that I have started called the Zider game engine. The Zider game engine will be a 2D/3D hybrid game engine focusing on 2D side scrolling, and top down game play styles.

Below lists the current status of the various features that are either currently working or on the drawing table.

Working features

  1. Load/Save Maps in xml format
  2. Edit map blocks with left and right mouse buttons
  3. Can pan the map to expose other parts just by moving mouse near edges of screen or use WSAD keys on keyboard
  4. Supports full screen and windowed modes
  5. Basic, easy to use GUI system with anchoring support like in windows forms
  6. Texture selection, and block selection so user can choose specific blocks to use for drawing with

Features on the drawing table

  1. Layering. Currently Zider only supports one map layer.
  2. Moving platforms (elevators, falling platforms)
  3. Particle system using the Mercury Particle Engine
  4. Ability to erase blocks
  5. Characters, Actors, Items etc
  6. Move over all sprite based drawing to full 3D geometry primitives.
  7. Animation systems
  8. Implement Farseer Physics Engine for physics, or develop custom phisics implementation. I may have come up with a superfast way of doing 2D Collision detection/response in the works.
  9. Possibly an in game console. I already have one written but it's in VB.NET and MDX so it will have to be converted to C#.
  10. Purchase a XNA creators club subscription and get code working on 360.
  11. Keep all data files in xml format for easy of use and ease to editing. Notepad!

Created by: X

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Name of author Dean Lunz (aka Created by: X)
Computer programming nerd, and tech geek.
About Me -- Resume