Another week in review!  This week I have been bug fixing the editor and deploying new builds.  In particular improving the visualisation of the ranges of "Creature Generators"... which as the name indicates spawn creatures in to a level.

More Fable II in the press this week, I hope the buzz increases... there's Forza 2 Fable II paint job, and a real NASCAR going out soon with Fable II all over it. http://www.joey-logano.org/nationwide/gamestop-fable-ii-paint-scheme.html

Kev has been writing a few interesting blog entries about .Net 3.0 stuff... check it out here: http://kevmooresblog.blogspot.com/

I figured out that a bad 512meg memory bank in the Home Server I've got running was causing problems, not before I seem to have loose the ability to restore it back to how it was... because I didn't work out what the problem was until I was already in the middle of reinstalling it because I thought it was the software.  Whoops.  So I don't think I've lost anything terribly important, but I would like to figure out how to restore the laptop backups.  I did mail the internal WHS discussion mail group but have not got any joy from them yet.

Played a little 4 player Castle Crashers on Wednesday at lunch (forgot about yoga... doh) - completely different game couch co-op to single player.  It's amazing how much better some games are when you play together.

Thursday I was wandering around the Studio and noticed a really interesting locomotion prototype being demoed on someone's screen.  It is the amazing the research and development that goes around the place... even the prototypes look futuristic and cool.  I remember seeing Adams combat prototype before it was integrated in to Fable II and being blown away.  The creativity that blossoms around the place is so energising and inspiring to be around!

Friday I spent trying to track down the real cause to a crash bug in the editor.

Sorry this Friday Entry was late... I draft it over the week but for whatever reason didn't get to publish it until today!  Bad Paul, Bad!  Still at least I managed to get a Lionhead Blog posted: http://community.lionhead.com/blogs/lionhead_ctg/archive/2008/09/26/3080599.aspx

Another week in review!  A friend is leaving Lionhead to pastures new stateside, and his party is on Saturday.  During this week I have worked a little on Fable II and testing it, but most of my time has been spent on the tools and thinking about the future of the Lionhead Text System.  In the news Fable II has been getting good amounts of buzz thanks to the efforts of the pr and community teams.  Dev news, in .Net land Shawn Burke announced that new controls are coming, source and all, delivered in an agile way.  XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta is out and ready for those who like to be on the bleeding edge to play with. 

It is sad to see Neil go - he made an effort to make me feel welcome and part of the Lionhead family - which was great because when I first joined Danni was away in the States at a funeral and I was left to start the whole moving house thing.  It is an excellent opportunity he's got at the new place though.  That's the thing about the software industry... seems like you have to move between jobs (or at the very least departments / sites) to get on the next step of the career ladder.  I am sure it was a tough decision because I would wager there is nowhere else like Lionhead in the world, even within the wings of MGS - but the move is very understandable.  I am def looking forward to the party though, I'm sure it will be a blast!

I don't think I should talk details about Fable II - although I am looking forward to having the opportunity to properly look at the tools bits of the LHTS when the dust settles some more.  There are a number of .Net technologies I think that could be applied to an improved version that would make the whole thing more accessible and the entire process more controlled.

In other news, have started looking in to throwing an unofficial launch party for Fable II for partners, friends and alumni of the project.  It will be interesting to see if we (wife and I) can pull it off :-)

Some Fable II links:

• Podcast (audio) of Technical interview with a testing slant on the MS side of things: http://platformbiased.com/2008/09/06/podcast-007-who-will-you-become/
• Tons of news stories covering the game:
• http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/fable-2/preview/fable-2/a-2008091516058765032/g-20061010115312575037
• http://www.shortlist.com/technology/article/peter-molyneux-interview
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/moslive/article-1054011/Fable-II-Do-right-thing.html  / http://www.dailymail.co.uk/moslive/article-1054735/Fable-II-trailer.html
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/05/20/dlfable120.xml
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/09/15/dlfable115.xml
• http://www.totalvideogames.com/articles/Fable_2_-_Hands_On_13761.htm
• http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=197123
• http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=6171
• http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=197123
• http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/fable-2/preview/fable-2/a-2008091516058765032/g-20061010115312575037
• http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/fable2/news.html?sid=6197696&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;1
• http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/2109/Fable-2/p1/
• http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/fable_2/preview-1250-2.html
• http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86239-Fable-2-Fans-Influenced-Game-Still-Drive-Developer-Mad
• http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/09/03/peter-molyneux-reviews-fable-2/1
• http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=55711
• http://www.lionhead.com/?newsid=41
• http://games.kikizo.com/features/peter-molyneux-interview-sep08-p1.asp
• http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/digitaljoystick/archives/147977.asp
• http://community.lionhead.com/blogs/fable_2_development/archive/2008/09/02/3047689.aspx
• http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/photos/pax-08-its-pax-in-pictures/1011698/

 

XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta has been released - here's the blog advisory :-)

XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta is GO!

That's right! You can download it now! We'll be asking your help to put this baby through her paces as we lead up to the official release later this year. It is your input that makes us stronger, faster and better.

Download XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta at Launch Center

If you do find any bugs or just have a suggestion on ways we can make XNA Game Studio 3.0 more awesome head over to Microsoft Connect to submit them to us.

In case you missed Michael's post last week here is a list of the changes:

Zune

• Compatibility with the upcoming Zune 3.0 Firmware release. Please note that the XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP will no longer work once you have upgraded your Zune device to the 3.0 firmware.
• Improved deployment stability.
• Support for Zune deployment on Windows Vista x64 Systems!
• You can now use the Remote Performance Monitor for Zune games.

Xbox 360

• Xbox 360 project templates (You will not be able to develop on the Xbox 360 until our final release. We felt this was important to include so that you could get projects converted over and look at the system, even if you are not able to run the games, yet).
• Support for the Big Button Pad.

Framework & Visual Studio Features

• Enumerate and play back media on your Windows computer or Xbox 360.
• Simple sound effect support on Windows computers and Xbox 360.
• Support for Rich Presence (lets friends know what’s going on in your game).
• Support for Invites (ask your friends to join you in a multiplayer game) and Join Session In Progress (after you see what your friends are doing, you can join their current session with just a couple of button presses, even if that’s a different game to the one you are currently playing)
• Compress your content and save space with the new content compression features!
• ClickOnce packaging support for distributing your XNA Framework games on Windows.
• Upgrade your project from XNA Game Studio 2.0 using the Project Upgrade Wizard!
• Take screen captures of your game running on Zune through the XNA Game Studio Device Center.
• Support for .NET language features like Linq
• Create multiple content projects and leverage cross project synchronization in Visual Studio.

FBX importer improvements: read materials containing multiple textures, and export custom shader materials directly out of Max or Maya.

This week I have spent quite a bit of time playing the game.  Fable II is lots of fun to play - the customisation of is fun on its own.  Want to be a physically strong hero?  Sure.  Really spending your experience beyond a certain level turns you from toned to beefcake - perhaps not the look you want but it's a choice you make :-)

A term I've heard bounded about in Lionhead for a function that write to memory not their own is "scribbler", which can be particularly tricky to track down.  I subscribe to a few development blogs, recently Cowboy Programming posted a blog titled Debugging Memory Corruption in Game Development - if you are interested in debugging unmanaged applications, games or not... it's a good article to read.

I've not had time to mess around with Silverlight myself, but I enjoy reading about it and getting familiar with it.  Silverlight being a browser hosted platform that can run .Net stuff.  There are some excellent Flash games out there, and I have a feeling that Silverlight games are going to become more common.  Mike Snow has an awesome Silverlight blog with a game dev slant.  I think Flash and Silverlight probably give some developers a playground for decent ideas.  The last few evenings I've found myself making Fantastic Contraptions :-)

Completely non-dev related, last night I watched a film called "The Freedom Writers" - pretty inspirational really.  Based on a true story, it is about how one teacher made a huge difference on a class of kids when the rest of the school system had more or less given up - to the point of getting two other jobs and giving up her personal life... though she just oozes positive energy.  Acting is really good throughout, and the extras on the dvd are interesting as the actual teacher is interviewed.

Hopefully I'll get around to working on some XNA stuff over the weekend, though the house needs a good tidy before I can settle down and work on code.

This body of this entry was written in April... but never made it out of my drafts.  I'm going to try again to keep a blog entry going at least once a week.  Perhaps every Friday would be good - with possible other extra entries through the week.  But I think every Friday would be a good goal.

Gamefest 2008 notes are up here: http://www.xnagamefest.com/presentations08.htm

The tools team has shrunk down in size as people are poached to help polish other parts of the game.  Right now I'm supporting the tools and working a bit on the game too.  At one point I was actually in charge of the tools team... though at that point the editor team was just me ;-)  Congrats to Sam who had another little girl and took some paterinity leave. He's back at work now and looking after his other baby... Concrete and the editor :-)

I don't think I can blog much detail at the moment - I want to write something for the Lionhead blog but not sure what I *can* write about.  Or what might be interesting to the diverse community there.

So my original draft follows below - a little essay on style...

---

Style in code is a religious thing - something that makes perfect sense to you might look like an abomination to someone else.  Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.  Lets see...

Do you like your local variables:

• likeThis
• LikeThis
• like_this
• Like_This

Then of course you have the warts.  Lets say for class fields:

• likeThis
• _likeThis
• m_likeThis
• m_like_this
• m_Like_This
• m_pLikeThis

Sometimes a standard mixes the above up to differentiate for use... so...

• Local variables: are_like_this
• Class variables: m_AreLikeThis
• Read only / const: AreLikeThis
• Properties: AreLikeThis
• Functions: AreLikeThis(int parameters_like_this)

Thing is *you* might be used to something else.  *You* might believe in something else.  Well time to suck it up :-)  I'm still guilty myself of lapsing against the established standard of a project sometimes, because of being used to something else... but as a developer you just want to write beautiful code, right?

So lets make an analogy between a book and a code project.  Changing style per book (project), well it doesn't matter very much at all.  It does mean that developers moving from one project to another will accidentally (or otherwise) slip up though. Per paragraph (file), well I guess it's not so bad. Is it?

Per sentence (function) changing style looks really bad. 

So beautiful code probably has more to do with consistency of style applied rather then the style itself.  Spacing is less of an issue then naming, because of the glories of Control+K and Control+D in Visual Studio.  Of course that gets rid of tab aligned variable declarations where your equals is always x amount of spaces away from your value.  But who wants to maintain that anyway?  If you just set up a style in Visual Studio that can automatically be derived... the auto-formatting takes care of the rest for you.  This includes sticking braces on separate lines and taking out stray spaces from your parameter lists.  Or perhaps putting an opening brace on the same line as the function declaration. 

I guess the standard I use at work is starting to come through as the standard I use by choice at home.  I'm kind of glad the braces go on separate lines here myself :-)