2-D Multiplayer Space Game [modified]
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When I was in the navy back in the 70's there as a startrek game available for playing on the NTDS consoles. It was nothing more than a big 2-dimension galaxy that allowed dozens of players to play in a single game. It used standard symbols for the players, and you were always at the center of the screen. I was sitting here thinking it wouldn't (or shouldn't) be too hard to come up with a .Net version of this game with several enhancements beyond its rather simplistic game play. I figure it would be a DirectX game, and written in .Net 3.5. I've never coded a game like this, or even done anything tin DirectX, but since it woill be 2D, and will have simple shapes and icons, it should be fairly low impact in that regard. It will be severely multithreaded, and have an inordinate amount of physics requirements, and require some knowledge of DirectX. I've already got some basic ideas drawn up, and I know what the various shapes would be. Is anyone up for talking about it? EDIT ------------ I found SlimDX[^]. It's a free open source replacement for Managed DirectX 1.1 (Microsoft's abandoned this product in favor of XNA).
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001modified on Monday, December 28, 2009 2:03 PM
Are you going for something similar to one of these? Starflight[^] SubSpace[^] There was a StarFlight 3 project going awhile back, not sure of the status: StarFlight 3[^] Maybe you can "borrow" some ideas from these.
- S 50 cups of coffee and you know it's on! Code, follow, or get out of the way.
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When I was in the navy back in the 70's there as a startrek game available for playing on the NTDS consoles. It was nothing more than a big 2-dimension galaxy that allowed dozens of players to play in a single game. It used standard symbols for the players, and you were always at the center of the screen. I was sitting here thinking it wouldn't (or shouldn't) be too hard to come up with a .Net version of this game with several enhancements beyond its rather simplistic game play. I figure it would be a DirectX game, and written in .Net 3.5. I've never coded a game like this, or even done anything tin DirectX, but since it woill be 2D, and will have simple shapes and icons, it should be fairly low impact in that regard. It will be severely multithreaded, and have an inordinate amount of physics requirements, and require some knowledge of DirectX. I've already got some basic ideas drawn up, and I know what the various shapes would be. Is anyone up for talking about it? EDIT ------------ I found SlimDX[^]. It's a free open source replacement for Managed DirectX 1.1 (Microsoft's abandoned this product in favor of XNA).
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001modified on Monday, December 28, 2009 2:03 PM
In addition to the above XNA book suggestion, I'd like to suggest Learning XNA 3.0. I read that myself and found it to be useful. It may also be a lighter read than the book suggested by the previous poster, which could be a good or a bad thing. XNA is really easy and there are already lots of examples online of how to do common tasks. You can get started by installing Visual C# 2008 Express in addition to XNA Game Studio 3.1 (currently the most recent version). There are various tutorials, but you'll probably want to get started with the 2D games tutorial. Once you install Visual C# 2008 Express and XNA Game Studio, you can start a new XNA project by selecting File --> New Project --> Windows Game (3.1). FYI, XNA for XBox didn't support multithreading last time I checked (that very well may have changed), so if you create a game for the XBox just keep in mind that you may not be able to use multiple threads. However, you should be fine working with multiple threads on a Windows XNA game.
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When I was in the navy back in the 70's there as a startrek game available for playing on the NTDS consoles. It was nothing more than a big 2-dimension galaxy that allowed dozens of players to play in a single game. It used standard symbols for the players, and you were always at the center of the screen. I was sitting here thinking it wouldn't (or shouldn't) be too hard to come up with a .Net version of this game with several enhancements beyond its rather simplistic game play. I figure it would be a DirectX game, and written in .Net 3.5. I've never coded a game like this, or even done anything tin DirectX, but since it woill be 2D, and will have simple shapes and icons, it should be fairly low impact in that regard. It will be severely multithreaded, and have an inordinate amount of physics requirements, and require some knowledge of DirectX. I've already got some basic ideas drawn up, and I know what the various shapes would be. Is anyone up for talking about it? EDIT ------------ I found SlimDX[^]. It's a free open source replacement for Managed DirectX 1.1 (Microsoft's abandoned this product in favor of XNA).
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001modified on Monday, December 28, 2009 2:03 PM
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Is anyone up for talking about it?
Talking? Sure, create a thread in the soapbox :) XNA will take away all the pain of managing sprites, leaving the communication among the players as your mayor challenge. There's the sweet-spot for this application; near realtime sharing of imformation. If you're on a 2D-map, then you'd only need everyone's positions (for the mini-map) and some information about your neighbours. Still, quite the challenge.
I are Troll :suss:
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In addition to the above XNA book suggestion, I'd like to suggest Learning XNA 3.0. I read that myself and found it to be useful. It may also be a lighter read than the book suggested by the previous poster, which could be a good or a bad thing. XNA is really easy and there are already lots of examples online of how to do common tasks. You can get started by installing Visual C# 2008 Express in addition to XNA Game Studio 3.1 (currently the most recent version). There are various tutorials, but you'll probably want to get started with the 2D games tutorial. Once you install Visual C# 2008 Express and XNA Game Studio, you can start a new XNA project by selecting File --> New Project --> Windows Game (3.1). FYI, XNA for XBox didn't support multithreading last time I checked (that very well may have changed), so if you create a game for the XBox just keep in mind that you may not be able to use multiple threads. However, you should be fine working with multiple threads on a Windows XNA game.
I'm not at all interested in supporting the xbox, and I hardly need anything labeled "express" from Microsoft.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
I'm not at all interested in supporting the xbox, and I hardly need anything labeled "express" from Microsoft.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I'm not at all interested in supporting the xbox
Sweet, then you won't have to worry about the lack of multithreading. Although, I don't have an XBox 360 and I bought a wireless USB XBox 360 controller to use with a game I made on Windows. Using a joystick is pretty fun for omnidirectional navigation. Although, one could also use a mouse for the same type of navigation (I added support for joysticks and mice).
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I hardly need anything labeled "express" from Microsoft
At one point, XNA would only work with the express editions of Visual Studio (i.e., didn't work with professional editions). That may have changed, but if you want to use XNA then you may in fact "need" an express edition. I'm not even sure if it will work with VB... might be C# only.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I'm not at all interested in supporting the xbox
Sweet, then you won't have to worry about the lack of multithreading. Although, I don't have an XBox 360 and I bought a wireless USB XBox 360 controller to use with a game I made on Windows. Using a joystick is pretty fun for omnidirectional navigation. Although, one could also use a mouse for the same type of navigation (I added support for joysticks and mice).
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I hardly need anything labeled "express" from Microsoft
At one point, XNA would only work with the express editions of Visual Studio (i.e., didn't work with professional editions). That may have changed, but if you want to use XNA then you may in fact "need" an express edition. I'm not even sure if it will work with VB... might be C# only.
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Yeah, I just opened Visual Studio 2008 Pro and XNA seems to work fine with it.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Is anyone up for talking about it?
Talking? Sure, create a thread in the soapbox :) XNA will take away all the pain of managing sprites, leaving the communication among the players as your mayor challenge. There's the sweet-spot for this application; near realtime sharing of imformation. If you're on a 2D-map, then you'd only need everyone's positions (for the mini-map) and some information about your neighbours. Still, quite the challenge.
I are Troll :suss:
I found SlimDX[^]. Preferable to XNA? I guess we'll see. :)
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I'm not at all interested in supporting the xbox
Sweet, then you won't have to worry about the lack of multithreading. Although, I don't have an XBox 360 and I bought a wireless USB XBox 360 controller to use with a game I made on Windows. Using a joystick is pretty fun for omnidirectional navigation. Although, one could also use a mouse for the same type of navigation (I added support for joysticks and mice).
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I hardly need anything labeled "express" from Microsoft
At one point, XNA would only work with the express editions of Visual Studio (i.e., didn't work with professional editions). That may have changed, but if you want to use XNA then you may in fact "need" an express edition. I'm not even sure if it will work with VB... might be C# only.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
I found SlimDX[^]. Preferable to XNA? I guess we'll see. :)
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Preferable to XNA?
"With support for many libraries, including DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, DirectSound, XAudio2, and XInput, SlimDX is the most complete multimedia library for .NET you will find anywhere." What version of DirectX does XNA target? 9, perhaps 10? It might outperform XNA, and it would be kinda cool to use DirectX directly, with a very thin wrapper :cool:
I are Troll :suss:
