Don’t Feed the Trolls available on Xbox Live Indie Games!

I am proud to tell you that my last game Don’t Feed the Trolls is now live on the XBLIG market. Here is the trailer: Please download the game on the marketplace and tell me what you think about it! As usual, I’ll post sales figures in a few weeks/months for the curious. Have fun… Continue reading Don’t Feed the Trolls available on Xbox Live Indie Games!

Useful C# and Visual Studio tips you might not know

While working on my next game, I tried to keep notes of interesting tips I used. They are related to C# and Visual Studio. Overriding ToString() When debugging or prototyping, you often need to display complex objects on the screen on in the debugger output. A handy way to do this when dealing with complex… Continue reading Useful C# and Visual Studio tips you might not know

Never released game design and prototype #2 : DJ Machine

This is the second post of the series, you can read the introduction of the series in the first post. Project 13 I will talk about a prototype called “DJ Machine” (Project 13), that I started while Spring Up Harmony (PC X360) was being approved for Xbox Live Indie Games. I was looking for something… Continue reading Never released game design and prototype #2 : DJ Machine

My Experience Converting from XNA Game Studio 3.1 to 4.0

Microsoft released a big update to XNA Game Studio with version 4.0. The main improvement is Windows Phone 7 support. I will probably not develop for WP7 (see reasons below) but I still need to upgrade my current Xbox 360 project from XNA 3.1 to 4.0. The process was not as smooth as I though… Continue reading My Experience Converting from XNA Game Studio 3.1 to 4.0

3 Simple Tips to Avoid Memory Allocations with XNA/C#

Long time without posting. I’ve spent a lot of time working on the game, contracting art, buying sound effect and music assets, designing the levels… New screenshots/video should come very soon. Anyway, back on topic: when developing from C++ to C#, I found out very strange that you can allocate memory but you cannot free… Continue reading 3 Simple Tips to Avoid Memory Allocations with XNA/C#

Yes, multi-threading in XNA/C# can be that simple!

Multi-threading is often causing problems for multiple reasons: synchronization, deadlocks, concurrent access to memory… But with my recent experience with multi-threading in XNA/C#, you can really do simple and efficient optimizations. While looking for possible performance improvements in Spring Up Harmony for Xbox 360 (PC), I have seen a simple situation really suited for multi-threading.… Continue reading Yes, multi-threading in XNA/C# can be that simple!

On-screen profiling for XNA

A few days ago, I read an article called Among Friends: How Naughty Dog Built Uncharted 2. The interesting screenshots on the third page gave me the urge to create what I call an “on-screen profiling” tool for Spring Up XNA. I talked before about profilers and how to use them to find which sections… Continue reading On-screen profiling for XNA

First Run on Xbox 360 : Problems and Solutions

I decided about a month ago to start working on the Xbox 360 version of Spring Up in April. I think it can be interesting to share my experience about that. Part 1 : XNA Creator Membership Basically, you just need to pay creator membership (99 € for one year in Europe), launch XNA Game… Continue reading First Run on Xbox 360 : Problems and Solutions

Measuring game performance : framerate is not everything

I am currently having a few problems with performance in Spring Up XNA. I have two features that are too expensive in processing power : the background effect and the computation of the preview trajectory of the ball. I know these features are not usable at this cost because as soon as I activate one… Continue reading Measuring game performance : framerate is not everything

NProf : A Simple, Efficient and Free XNA Profiler (3.1 and 4.0)

Update: I have many visitors coming here from search engines. So here is a quick update if you want to use NProf with XNA 4.0. When you run NProf with your game, if the UI of NProf stays empty after running your game, it’s because you are running a XNA 4.0 game. There is a… Continue reading NProf : A Simple, Efficient and Free XNA Profiler (3.1 and 4.0)