Viewing Windows Phone 7 Marketplace on the simulator

Since I’m out of the countries where WP7 Marketplace is available it’s been a real pain to check out new games and most of all if Vizati was already available. Btw it’s out there, go give it a try, there’s a trial mode. It’s great fun 🙂 So searching some forums I found a neat code to check this on the simulator. Basically create a new WP7 Silverlight App and write this main page code ...

November 17, 2010 · 1 min · 129 words · David Amador

Using Isolated Storage to save/load files on Windows Phone 7

I’m seeing a lot of forum threads with people asking how to save/load files on Windows Phone 7, well for XNA 4 in general. You can use IsolatedStorage for that using System.IO.IsolatedStorage; Both save and load can be done by creating a IsolatedStorageFile, I then use a Filestream and write with a binaryWriter IsolatedStorageFile store = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication(); // grab the storage FileStream stream = store.OpenFile("test.txt", FileMode.Create); // Open a file in Create mode BinaryWriter writer = new BinaryWriter(stream); float myvar = 5.0f; writer.Write("something"); writer.Write(myvar); writer.Close(); For loading is pretty much the same thing: ...

October 10, 2010 · 1 min · 153 words · David Amador

Simulating tombstone (suspended state) on Windows Phone 7 emulator

Since Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have multitask, at least for now, Microsoft implemented a Tombstone notion in WP7 apps. It’s basically a suspended state where you receive a notification that it’s going to suspend but there is no guarantee that it will resume, it might be terminated so you must treat this as an exit and a might start again state. So depending on you app you might want to save the current state just in case the app really closes. ...

September 20, 2010 · 2 min · 218 words · David Amador

What are your target platforms for games?

I decided to run a little poll to track what platforms do you target as a game developer. I think this should be interesting. Please share this post link or the direct link to the poll (http://twtpoll.com/dar51l) so that we can have more accurate results. The poll closes in about 6 days and you can select various options of course.

July 26, 2010 · 1 min · 60 words · David Amador

Developing on Mac and Basalt running on the iPhone

It’s been around two weeks since my last post. Basically because I’ve been busy porting my engine Basalt to iPhone/iPad. If you follow me on twitter you might have known this already since I ranted pretty much at start, moving platform and language is always painful if you are used to other conventions/shortcuts etc. So it all started with my wish to port Vizati to the iPhone, since the game is already running on PC, Xbox360 and Windows Phone 7 one can only wish for an easy and quick port since pretty much all base code is done. ...

July 9, 2010 · 4 min · 688 words · David Amador

Who wants to try Vizati Demo?

Ok, I know I’ve been making far too much posts about Vizati but this time it’s for a good reason, anyone interested in trying out the game can do it…right about NOW… http://www.differentpixel.com/2010/06/vizati-demo-available/ Also on a quick update, yesterday I had the chance to test Vizati at Windows Phone 7 Developer’s Hub on a real WP7 device, which was awesome. I want to thank João Antão, Nuno Costa, Ben Riga and Neil Hutson for the opportunity. ...

June 8, 2010 · 1 min · 100 words · David Amador

Yay, my first Game as Indie Developer is almost out

No, I’m not dead….yet… It’s just that I’ve been stuck on Different Pixel development dungeon for the past weeks finishing and polishing (bug hunting) my first game, Vizati. Most of you have been following the process and asking things every since we showed the beta version at XNA Pizza Night, after which we decided to finish the game and try to sell it to see how it goes. Three months later and here I am, making the final touches on the game before it’s release on 11th June. The game will be available thought GamersGate (maybe others, I’ll update in the future). ...

May 26, 2010 · 2 min · 249 words · David Amador

Vizati on Windows Phone 7

It’s been awhile since my last post. I’ve been utterly busy so I haven’t had the time for any tutorials. This week I got an invitation from João Antão to showcase Vizati as part of his XNA Framework presentation. This occurred during the Imagine Cup final on Portugal. I’ve been playing with the WP7 tools and I decided to try and port Vizati to XNA 4.0 and give it a try on the emulator so I could show all 3 versions running simultaneous. The result was pretty good i think. It’s virtually identical. ...

May 7, 2010 · 2 min · 311 words · David Amador

XNA 4.0 CTP and Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP now available for download

So I was watching Microsoft Mix10 and while talking about the new Windows Phone 7 Series, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP. What? But like now now? I went to http://developer.windowsphone.com/ and XNA Creator’s Club and there it was. The packages contains: A CTP of the new Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone Tools and framework to develop Windows Phone applications and games with Silverlight A CTP of XNA Game Studio 4.0 that allows you to develop Windows Phone games with the XNA Framework A Windows Phone 7 Series emulator that can be used to deploy and debug Windows Phone applications and games Add-on to allow you to use the Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Release Candidate to develop Windows Phone applications and games if you have it installed Pretty good right? For those who have been living under a rock the XNA 4.0 brings another development platform, Windows Phone 7 series, which leaves us with XBOX360, PC and the new mobile. ...

March 15, 2010 · 3 min · 443 words · David Amador