XNA Tutorials, Samples and Thoughts
Announcements
License Updated
Jun 5th
Hi all,
I’ve updated the license for all code downloadable from this site. The licensing terms can be read here.
In short, the code is licensed under MIT, so you can use it freely (unless otherwise stated specifically).
However, I need to protect myself and my collaborators, so all content (images, sounds, etc) is not licensed, so you may not distribute it or use it in other circumstances than to be able to build and run the code as provided here for educational purposes.
These terms should satisfy most visitors on this site 
Chickens Can Dream
Feb 27th
Well, this caught me off-guard… When we submitted the game last Sunday, I was hoping the game would get through certification sooner, but apparently it decided to come out just as I was starting my long trip towards Seattle. I’m proud to say that Chickens Can Dream just went live on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace on Friday.
Go ahead and download it (it’s free) if you haven’t already and let me know what you think
While Chickens Can Dream is just a milestone in the wonderful adventure that is the Chickens Can’t Fly project, it’s also a great achievement for me. While this is certainly not my first game, or not even the first game I’ve worked on that got published, I can certainly say it is the game I’ve put most of myself into, am most proud of and most excited about sharing with you (all 6 of you that still read my blog ).
It’s definitely not perfect yet, and we’re working on the next update for it as we speak (at least my team is, I’m on a plane flying over Canada), but our goal with Chickens Can Dream was to get it out there and get feedback on it.
Besides letting you know about the game and giving you the download link, I also wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank my team and people that made this possible, so here goes:
- Razvan and Razvan - for all the brainstorming sessions where they helped refine my design and especially for all the code they wrote.
- Hashu - for the great art he created for the game and for suffering through our feedback on the art drafts
- Gabi and Flaviu - for the last few weeks helping us get highscores and online services in the game.
- Lidia - for helping me see errors in my designs every time she played whatever build I had on my phone (and for coming up to our floor to make us take breaks from time to time). Even though she’s a gamer, she was invaluable in ensuring the game is suited for a large non-gamer audience.
- Robert, Gabi and Claudiu- for trusting us and giving us the opportunity and resources to create this game.
- All people who played various builds of the game – for being test subjects.
Thank you all!
Download the game now because we want to know how to make Chickens Can’t Fly better!
My first game and AmusedSloth site launched!
Dec 26th
The company I work at, where I’m leading the efforts of the Windows Phone 7 department, has just launched our new site, with our identity for all our current and future mobile games and apps (and possibly XBLIG games also).
I’m proud to point you to the AmusedSloth.com site, which is now online. Here you can find information about our games and apps.
Rebellion Rise
The first game that we launched is Rebellion Rise, a space shooter where you get to fight giant motherships. Watch the launch trailer below.
You can try the game on the Windows Phone Marketplace right now. Really… like… right now 
( Thanks ) Let me know in the comments what you think about it and if you have any technical questions I don’t want to ‘promise’ anything, but I plan to release a small sample showing off how we pulled the deformations and shockwave effects without using shaders.
I will also take this opportunity to announce what our next game will be. I can’t wait to release more information about it but right now it’s only going to be some screenshots ( gotta follow the marketing plan ). So, our next game is called…. Chickens Can’t Fly, and you can see two screenshots of it below (and a few more on the site)
Chickens Can’t Fly
You’ll be hearing more about it in January. That’s a promise!
Now you know what I’ve been doing in the last 6 months! I hope things go well, as WP7 is a great platform and having XNA to use as an API is absolutely terrific.
As I said above, comments and suggestion are welcome. Thanks!
P.S. I know there are some issues with the site, and our guys are working hard on fixing them early in January.
About my last post…
Apr 1st
I’m happy to say that my last post was just an innocent April’s Fool joke. If anyone was offended by it, I apologize.
With that, I’d like to thank everyone for their support, and assure everyone that it’s all ok: I’ve been renewed as an XNA/DirectX MVP. Also, I’d like to say that I love the XNA community, and I would contribute to it even if there was no MVP title. I’m doing it for the games and the community, not for the title. Even if Microsoft hadn’t renewed me, I’d still spent most of my free time coding stuff in XNA, reading the forums and responding where I can, and trying to release helpful samples.
I also take this opportunity to thank the XNA team again for their hard work and great product. I’m proud to be part of this community, and glad that I can help other people when I can.
Thanks again, to the XNA team, and all community members!
Seattle, here I come!
Feb 25th
In just a few days, I’m heading for Seattle again, to attend the 2009 MVP Summit. I’m very happy to get to see the other MVPs and XNA Team members, both old and new.
I also take this opportunity to thank the great people at iQuest for their support, and for making this happen again.
After the Summit, I’m also taking a short vacation in Paris, so it will be a while before any new sample will be released here. But when it’s coming, it will be good
See you all soon!
Introducing Game Features repliCATor
Jan 26th
Ok, so I’m not quite that crazy yet… While working on the logo for my new series of samples I created the cat featured in the previous post, and I was caught in the excitement of seeing something cute come out of my horrendous artistic skills, so I decided to give it some voice. Now, getting back to the purpose of this post…
This next year-or-so, I’ll be releasing samples under a new theme: “Game Features replicator”
What this means is that new samples will be created through the following method:
- Pick an interesting feature from games I play and like.
- Analyze the feature, and see how it works. I’ll also say some words about the analysis, about how I looked at the feature, how I assumed it works, and what objectives I set for the XNA sample.
- Try to make an equivalent implementation in XNA. This is not going to work/function identical to the original feature, but I will always try to reach each point that made that certain feature interesting, and provide a satisfying equivalent.
- Release the sample so anyone can learn from it and use it in their own games.
The first of these samples will look at a mouse cursor, as it appears in World of Goo, and I will upload it to the site soon.
I hope you’ll like this series of samples, and I’ll do my best to make each one special.
Coming soon…
Jan 22nd
Hi there!
I have just come to life from the hands of my creator, Catalin. He is so proud of me (and who wouldn’t be?) that he willingly agreed to let me post all my little XNA projects (which he writes guided by my genius) on this site from now on (hmm… this site needs some more pictures of me everywhere…).
Right now I sent him after some stuff critical for the survival of the universe (like treats and toys for me), so you’ll have to wait a few more days before I give you any samples.
I’ll see you soon! (now I go sleep and purr!)
