Game Development Resources

If you're having the java.exe not found problem while installing android-sdk ( failed to find java version for 'C:\windows\system32\java.exe' :   The system cannot find the specified file ." , you might want to check out the following steps. Firstly you must install JDK to your windows and it's a must as the android-sdk depends on the JDK. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1637583.html Now download and install the android sdk from the location below. http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html If you've installed JDK, you may still facing the same problem as java installation path might not already exist in the environment variables. Go to the system settings by  right click my computer->properties->advanced system settings->advanced tab->click environmental variable. Finally add JAVA_HOME varible and value as the path of your jdk installation files. Here is where the Android SDK is locate

Unity announce it's latest version of 4.0 a while ago and revealed all the new features included in Unity 4.0 at Unity 2012. New great features includes  - Direct X 11 Rendering Supports  - New 3D GUI framework  - Mecanim animation system and so on. Unity is now offering the beta access to version 4.0 for it's licensee which pre-ordered the 4.0 license. If you're still using unity 3.x, it's recommended to not install Unity 4.0 as you might have to upgrade to all your projects done so far and you can downgrade the previous project once you've done upgrading of your project into version 4.0 . Here is the way of installing Unity 3.x and 4.x together for more comfortable uses of Unity 4.0 Note : Please do backup of projects before installing Unity 4.0  Step 01 Rename your current Unity folder located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Unity to some obvious name such as Unity3_5 . To rename, just right-click the mouse and hit rename or you can just press F2 to rename t

The greatest CloudyRec feature among other backend service provider is the Code Generator where it can generate the native modal source code with the specified schema in the previous " Getting Started " section. Sandbox Environment When you’ve satisfied the attributes and resources for the applications, you can start loading into the sandbox to make the apps ready for testing.  Go to the Define tab of the dashboard and click the “Load to sandbox” button located at the right side of the application name as shown in the figure below. Figure 1.0 Loading to Sandbox environment Note : In CloudyRec, there are two types of development modes available called Sandbox and Production. Sandbox is for testing the applications while developing and it’s totally free and developer doesn’t needs to pay a penny while using Sandbox.  I would recommend to put into production mode once you’ve published the apps as the data from the Sandbox will be flushed in timely manners and it

Part I Creating a new CloudyRec App Welcome to the CloudyRec. CloudyRec is the fastest mobile backend solution for your great applications. Let’s see how fast you can integrate CloudyRec in your project. After you’ve registered a new developer and logged in, you can go to the dashboard and define a new app. In this example, I will create a project named “ TodoList ” as shown in the figure below.  Figure 1.0 Creating a new app Let’s define the resource called “user_account” and make it authenticable. Authenticable means that you want to include username and password attributes in this resource and also there will have “Authenticate” function available when you’ve generated the code and you can call this method to authenticated users of your application. I’ll discuss more about this method in the later sections. Note : if you click the “user_account” resource, you can see the “_passwd” and “_uname” attributes are already added automatically as you’ve marked as aut

If you're really into the app development, WinRT is one of the most interesting new platform which is coming to release soon. App developer like myself can't wait to develop fun and utility apps for the new platform. Nowadays, every app contains social and backends features to make the app always connected through different devices and platform. WinRT main feature is the connectivity and you can imagine how beautiful your app will be if they looks the same on the Desktop PCs, Tablets and Phones as well. What even all the data are sync through all the devices. For example, a to-do list which is created with the desktop PCs can also be able to view the same data from the mobile while going out? With the help of CloudyRec, it becomes to add backend service in a very easy and handy way. CloudyRec is a server-side backend platform for mobile apps and games. Backend implementation for mobile apps typically requires complicated server setups, API developments, server monitoring

Monogame is the opensource XNA development framework where the XNA developers for XBox, Windows and WP7 can be able to port their games for iOS, Android, Mac OSX, Linux, Windows 8 Metro Style apps and PlayStation Mobiles. As XNA framework is not allowed to create Windows 8 Metro App anymore,  Monogame becomes the best framework to port the current games written in XNA. Monogame framework rewrite the XNA wrappers using SharpDX which is the current fastest Direct X Wrapper for C#. Although there are opensource game development frameworks for WinRT is available, Monogame is the one that shouldn't miss if you're a former XNA developer or C# programmer. You will need the following software and tools if you're really new to WinRT development environments. Windows 8 Release Preview   Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate   They're currently in beta, so you can go unlimited trials for these until the final releases comes out. If you're not planning to

Building asset files to be used in Monogame for WinRT Let's start preparing the assets (.xnb) files for used in Monogame using XNA Game Studio 4.0. If you missed the article about installing XNA Game Studio, please have a look at @ http://gamedevresources.blogspot.sg/2012/08/installing-windows-phone-7-sdkxna-game.html Step 01 Create a new XNA Game Project for windows as shown in the figure below. Step 02 In the project pane, you will see that the WindowsGame1 project is referenced to the Content project where you can actually add all the contents that you required for the game. In this example,  I added several folders where each folder contains relative assets to be built to use in Monogame WinRT. SpriteFont are also accepted in Monogame and you can also put your spriteFont in the content folder to get built too. Step 03 Now hit, F5 button or run the project and the blank windows will comes out as you're running the game. By the time the game is runn

Installing XNA Game Studios 4.0 on WinRT/ Windows 8 Microsoft is going to release it's newest windows codenamed WinRT in this October. There are already many developers who are using WinRT environment to further develop their software and applications in Metro Style App. There are rumors that XNA game studio will be dead as the new WinRT comes out. XNA games for windows will still work but Microsoft claims that they will be launching a new windows apps store and the guidelines are quite restricted. They won't allow to put non-Metro style apps on their app store and they are planning to heavily promote the Metro-Style apps which looks the same on all three platforms Windows Phone 8, Surface tablet and desktop/laptop PCs. The biggest problem is that Windows Phone 7 development kit and XNA game studio is not compatible to install on WinRT version. This is a serious problem is you’re developing games using monogame in metro style app to be able to put in the new Windows App

Integrating Monogame with XAML Metro UI If you're coming from the previous section, you now have a metro UI application project with blank page and also have monogame.windows8 library reference to the project. Now Let's fix some source code for the  pages to get XAML working with monogame. Step01 ( Hacking App.xaml.cs file) App.xaml.cs delivers the most important start point while rendering a particular page in Metro UI application. I added gamePage and mainPage as  a public variables as they become accessible from other classes to for page nagivations. Here is the source code for to see what it looks like for the final App.xaml.cs file. sealed partial class App : Application     {         public ContentManager Content { get; set; }         public GameServiceContainer Services { get; set; }         public GamePage gamePage;         public MainPage mainPage;         public Frame RootFrame { get; set; }         /// <summary>         /// Initializes

Introduction Since I am planning to develop games for WinRT, I found out that the MonoGame is the most suitable framework for people like me who has experience with developing games with XNA framework. Although Windows Phone 7 offers to integrate Silverlight components with XNA, WinRT architecture is completely different from the previous framework. XNA games are not allowed to upload and showcase to new appstore because of the new terms and condition requirements and there's no way to integrate new Metro UI with XNA either. MonoGame solves this problem by creating XNA framework like wrapper over SharpDX which is the best and fastest DirectX wrapper available on current opensource projects.  However MonoGame offers XNA looks alike framework, the best solution would be combining Metro UI with MonoGame framework. Here is the tutorial of how to integrate MetroUI with MonoGame framework. Thanks to  Petrroll  on MonoGame forum for the sample code of MonoGame with XAML. If yo