Xbox 360 Game Development Workshop 16 Aug - 15 Sept 2010

Want to learn more about how to build games for the Xbox 360?


Here's a chance to get hands-on experience to program, build and deploy your own Xbox 360 game in a 30-hour workshop I'll be conducting in August - September.

Find out more at www.cet.sp.edu.sg or email pace_marketing@sp.edu.sg.
Here's the print-ad that went out on yesterday, 28 July 2010.

Alan Wake talk at SP Auditorium, Monday 3 May 2010

Our friends from Microsoft Xbox 360 Singapore team have been working hard to bring in the developers from the upcoming Xbox 360 game, Alan Wake.

If you're keen to meet a game developer in the flesh, register online now!

Tobe's Vertical Adventure Released

Just wanted to share the following game release that 3 of our DIT GD alumni worked on.

http://tobesadventure.squarespace.com/

Credits : http://tobesadventure.squarespace.com/credits/

Soh Yiheng, Ikhwan and Nicholas Sim worked on the title after their graduation while waiting for NSF enlistment.

The company, Rayteoactive, was so impressed by their contribution that Raymond (founder) asked for internship and FYP collaborations.

The game is available on Xbox LIVE Indie games channel - go get a trial and buy it!

Achievements Unlocked!

Just yesterday during my XNA Game Studio class, a student asked me if we could include achievements in his Xbox 360 XNA game... yes, you know what he was thinking... 2 million gazillion gamer points!

Unfortunately, no. That's not possible with community games... yet. :)

That brought back fond memories of a spoof of metagaming late 2008.

Article: Making a Better Community Game

Xbox LIVE Community Games are a great place for budding game developers to show their talents, but very often, their games fall short in sales.

Ryan Langley's article on how to make our games better is a must read for XNA developers.

Force Feedback Class

XNA gives a good raw functionality for vibration on the controller, but here's a cool class for simulating force feedback.

DivX and Xvid on the 360!

The Xbox 360 can now play DivX and Xvid videos!

Kudos to the Xbox 360 dev team for making this happen, and further extending the accessibility and lifespan of the console.

My 360 died!

The good old (one year old to be exact) Xbox 360 at my home died on my birthday over the weekend. While munching on my cereal, I turned on the 360 and was greeted with a frozen screen after trying to log on to Xbox Live. Cycling the power gave me the dreaded Red Ring of Death.

It wasn't apparent at first, as I found out that the RROD was a misnomer. It's 3 red lights around the power switch, less one quadrant on the top right corner.

It's quite ironic, since I got it as a birthday gift exactly a year ago from my wife. The good news is that Microsoft has been very prompt on their responses and support. I got an email reply on evening of the 12th, apologising for the "inconvenience".

Since their hotlines were closed on weekends, I called in this morning and was greeted by a friendly operator, and after verifying that it was indeed "unfortunate" that my Xbox 360 has passed on due to hardware fault, they will be providing me with a "new Xbox 360 taken off the factory, in an unmarked box".

I'll be exchanging it a week later, so it's a belated birthday gift from MS to me! :)

POP News

Wow! Nearly 2 months since the last post!

Well, here's a treat for Prince of Persia fans. 2 treats actually.

First, there's the remake of the original Prince of Persia on Xbox Live Arcade. Yes, the old scroller is back, but with cutting edge graphics and cut scenes. If you've got an Xbox 360 at home, get on Xbox Live Arcade and download the trial - it's a full first level with a nice real-time intro cut scene with the Princess and the Vizier, Jaffar.

Next, for the budding game designers (yes, I can see more than a handful of you out there), check out the Gamasutra feature interview with Jordan Mechner, creator of Prince of Persia.