7 Days Left to Submit XNA GS 3.1 Games on App Hub

Until 11:59 PM PST on February 7th, 2011, developers creating games for Xbox LIVE Indie Games can continue to submit their games made in XNA Game Studio 3.1 to peer review on App Hub.

Beginning at 12:00 AM PST on February 8th, 2011, only games made in XNA Game Studio 4.0 will be accepted to peer review; any games submitted that are made in XNA Game Studio 3.1 or any earlier version will not be accepted by the system.

When the restriction goes into effect, games already in the peer review process will not be affected. However, developers who expect to enter peer review near the deadline should use caution: the restriction applies to all games entering the peer review process – regardless of whether they are being submitted for the first time, resubmitted after failing peer review, or are updates to games already on Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

For instance – submitting an XNA Game Studio 3.1 game to peer review on 11:58 PM PST on February 7th is allowed, and while in peer review, the game will not be removed or changed in any way by the restriction. If the game passes peer review, it will enter Xbox LIVE Marketplace. If the game fails after the restriction is in effect, the developer must upgrade the title to XNA Game Studio 4.0 before resubmitting.

Submissions of updates to existing games in Xbox LIVE Marketplace are also subject to the restriction; any updates to existing games after the deadline must be made in XNA Game Studio 4.0, even if the existing game was made in XNA Game Studio 3.1.

If you are developing a game in XNA Game Studio 3.1, you will still be able to deploy and debug the game on your Xbox 360 console using XNA Game Studio Connect after the deadline, but you will be unable to submit it for playtest or peer review unless you upgrade the game project to XNA Game Studio 4.0.

If you have a XNA Game Studio 3.0 or 3.1 game currently on Xbox LIVE Indie Games, it will continue to work. This release does not affect the ability to purchase or play any game currently on Xbox LIVE Indie Games.

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Japan?s prime minister, Cabinet resign so new leader can be named

TOKYO ? Japan?s prime minister and his Cabinet resigned en masse on Tuesday ahead of a vote in parliament to install former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda as the country?s new leader.

Noda was elected Monday to head the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, virtually insuring that he would be named prime minister in the parliament vote expected later Tuesday. He succeeds the unpopular Naoto Kan.

Cabinet spokesman Yukio Edano said Kan and his Cabinet agreed to resign in a conference Tuesday morning.

Read full article >>

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SOLID Principles For Game Developers

The SOLID principles are a set of 5 software development principles coined by ?Uncle Bob? (Robert C. Martin).� They are a set of guidelines for Object Oriented Design (OOD), specifically for class design.� They are widely used by agile business programmers however they are generally unknown amongst game developers.� This article describes the principles and [...]

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New Developer Education for WP7 Games Today on App Hub

Today, as part of the Create Games for Windows Phone 7 Educational Series on App Hub, we’re proud to announce the launch of nine brand-new educational items to make your Windows Phone 7 games even better.

 

Check out the Educational Roadmap to download these and other great educational items. Here’s what you’ll find there:

 

Honeycomb Rush Lab

Take this complete 2D action lab for a spin - avoid the bees and steal as much honey as you can before time runs out. Build it from scratch or modify the finished version; the choice is yours.

Card Game Starter Kit: Blackjack

Interested in building a card game? This starter kit for Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Windows includes an easily-extensible card game framework and drawing system; Blackjack is included to get you started.

Avoiding the Windows Phone Watchdog

If you're planning to take your game onto Windows Phone 7 hardware, read this article to learn about the Watchdog, and get tips on how to keep your application safe from it.

Camera Shake

Add an immersive camera shaking and controller or phone vibration effect to your Windows Phone, Xbox 360, or Windows game.

Path Drawing

Take full advantage of touch input; learn how to make a game object follow a path drawn on the screen by touch.

Split Screen

Render using multiple viewports in Windows Phone, Xbox 360, and Windows; used for multiplayer games - or anywhere you want multiple views of a scene at once.

Tilt Perspective

Using the accelerometer on Windows Phone 7, this sample gives the player's view an unparalleled sense of depth.

User Interface Controls

Use this set of extensible control classes to simplify scrolling lists, page flipping, and panels for your game's user interface.

Games for WP7 - Talks at PDC

Get real-world insight into Windows Phone 7 features and performance optimization for games by watching the pros at this year's PDC; available for on-demand streaming.

 

Grab all of these items today on the Educational Roadmap!

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If you must have in-house social tools, go with SharePoint

I've spent the past week working with and deploying the various social networking tools in SharePoint 2010. It's jam-packed with everything from individual blog sites and profiles to simple I Like It and Tags & Notes options at the top of every page. Microsoft believes that by adding these features, IT can keep folks on its intranet and thus increase communication and collaboration within an organization.

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Game Producer: The last barricade has been smashed: the future belongs to gaming portals

After seeing Avadon game by Spiderweb software in Steam I was amazed. And shocked. Jeff Vogel (guy behind spiders) has been making and selling games from his website as long as anybody or their mom can remember.

His new game Avadon is now appearing at Steam store (priced close to 10 bucks) and he also sells the game through his own site (price close to 20 bucks).

This is quite shocking.

While Cliff has any time left from kicking some pirate sorry arse, he is advocating selling games through your own site (although he too sells his game through Steam).

Jeff and Cliff are like the god fathers of indie scene, and they’ve been doing this stuff for long time (and are successful, moneywise). If these chaps get their games to Steam, that is a pretty sure indication about where the industry is going.

Sure, there’s exceptions about indies who sell (millions) only through their own site while battling against evil corporations that try to steal all their money if you use certain words in your game (hint: words like “scrolls”, “elder”, “isles”, “hunted”, “arena”, “rogue”, “warrior” are danger area to use in your games… sigh), but the point is (getting bit sidetracked here) that portals (or at least one) are getting bigger. Small indie sites are getting even smaller.

And let’s admit it. When you can choose to buy a game through (1) some random indie gaming site or (2) through Steam, which one you choose?

Yeh, same here. I too buy pretty much all my games through Steam as well. It’s so handy.

What are you thinking about my thoughts here? Two indie oldtimers who have always sold mainly through their sites are now in Steam as well. Should we get worried?

Share your thoughts.

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Xbox LIVE Indie Games: New Control Your Game Release Feature

We're excited to announce a new feature on App Hub that we have added to the peer review system for Xbox LIVE Indie Games. Based on developer community feedback, we have enabled developers to control the release of their games that have passed peer review. This feature will help developers to better coordinate social networking, press, and other opportunities for the release of their titles on Xbox LIVE Indie Games.

 

How Does it Work?

By default, games will automatically be published when peer review is complete. This change adds a check box that developers can check if they want to control their games' release.

If the developer checks this box, the game will stay in a "ready to publish" state after passing peer review. The developer can then return to the game's page and click the "Publish Now" button, which sends the game to the Xbox LIVE Indie Games channel on Xbox LIVE Marketplace within 24 hours.

This system works in a similar way to the Windows Phone Marketplace, which allows developers control over their app releases.

We expect this new feature will better equip you, our Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers, to create buzz and excitement for your great games prior to their release. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this feature, please reply to our forum thread on App Hub.

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Casual Game Guides: Magic Farm: Ultimate Flower Walkthrough and Cheats

In preparation for the release of Magic Farm 2: Fairy Lands, I decided to replay Magic Farm: Ultimate Flower and write a step-by-step walkthrough, which up until now has not been anywhere else on the internet. The Magic Farm games are unique unto themselves. Iris has been called back home from Florist School to discover that her parents have gone missing. You must now enlist the help of a variety of characters by giving them money or an assortment of flowers to help them get to her parents. A total of five farms await your planting pleasure. The challenge is to choose the right type of plants to work with while keeping them alive and free from pests. This game can be as relaxing or intense as you choose to make it. There are two levels to choose from. Choose Hardcore and you will discover that it is aptly named. Choose Casual and you can play at a leisurely pace or choose to beat the game by finishing in record time. In all cases the game is incredibly entertaining for many hours of gaming fun. It is also a great game for replaying multiple times. I looked for some gameplay videos by the developer Robin Games to show you and I have got to say that I have not laughed so hard watching a game video as I did with these. They do not show gameplay but they are so entertaining that I had to share them with you. Even my son was cracking up watching the silly bugs in action. Be forewarned that these videos are done as entertainment and not an example of gameplay. So I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. All in all I gave Magic Farm: Ultimate Flower my highest score. This is one of my favorite games ever and it was great fun to replay it in preparation for Magic Farm 2. Read the Sneak Peek for Magic Farm 2

» Magic Farm: Ultimate Flower Walkthrough & Forum

» Magic Farm: Ultimate Flower Free Trial & Related Games

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Marketing survey reveals cooperative Epic Mickey 2 ? rumor

Disney may be working on a surprise project: a sequel to last year’s Epic Mickey. According to a Dtoid tipster, the company’s gauging interest for the title via a marketing survey, complete with …

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Eucalyptus 3: Your own private Amazon cloud

Eucalytpus announced Version 3 of its open source IaaS (infrastructure as a service) software, which equips organizations with a way to build their own elastic, highly available AWS (Amazon Web Services)-compliant clouds.

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Layton and the Last Specter hits US October 17

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Microsoft buries two surprises in Windows 8 hype

Last week I wrote about Microsoft's new Building Windows 8 blog.

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Steamworks for CS:GO 360? Valve hopes so

Valve’s Steamworks, a service that integrates Steam account info with other systems, has already been proven to work on consoles with the release of Portal 2 on PS3 earlier this year. Now the …

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Jay Is Games: Lost Souls: Enchanted Paintings

Platform: Download (Mac, Windows) — A friendly reminder from your internet pals: if a mysterious painting of a spooky old castle appears on your doorstep late one night, do not let your child hang it in his or her room. Mischievous things are bound to happen, and not the sort of madcap adventures one would find in an episode of Scooby Doo. Lost Souls: Enchanted Paintings tells the story of a missing boy who suffers the unfortunate fate of getting sucked into a painting. His mother, Bella, will do anything to get him back, including enlisting the help of some otherwordly friends. Tagged as: adventure, collectorsedition, demo, download, fenomengames, game, hiddenobject, macwin, rating-y

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10 tips for VMworld 2011 newbies

For many virtualization users, VMworld has become a sort of pilgrimage -- a must-attend event for a lot of admins who are trying to find their virtual path. These individuals will do whatever it takes to make it to the event so that they can find out what's new, what's next, and what's hot and currently available to them, thus making them a virtualization rock star at work.

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Tech jobs vaporized as patent war goes nuclear

Think what Google could do with $6 billion. Think of the research that would spawn new products, advance innovation, and create who knows how many thousands of good jobs up and down the technology food chain. Instead, that money is going to buy patents.

Worse, not only will those jobs not be created, existing jobs will be lost as the patent arms race goes nuclear and more and more companies are acquired for their patent portfolios and then discarded -- along with their employees.

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Jay Is Games: Mega Mall Story

Platform: Mobile (iOS) — In Kairosoft's latest game in the "story" series, you've got fifteen years to turn your struggling little strip mall into a sprawling megaplex worth five stars, and while you may not have much to begin with, with a little bit of planning and a little bit of funding to improve and grease the wheels of the local community, you'll be rolling in dough in no time. Selling out was never so addictive! Tagged as: demo, game, ios, iphone, kairosoft, mobile, rating-g, simulation, storyseries

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iPods in one hand, vinyl records in the other, Digital Generation includes some old souls

Sarah McCarthy has a peculiar passion for a 16-year-old: She's a vinyl junkie.

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New "Spring Cleaning" Opportunity in WP7 Marketplace: For Games, Too!

If you're looking for opportunities to better merchandise and sell your XNA game in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, check out the "Spring Cleaning" opportunity just unveiled by the Windows Phone Marketplace team.

http://create.msdn.com/news/Spring_Cleaning_Opportunities

The team is offering a number of merchandising slots, with an opportunity to dramatically increase an app's sales. The best news for XNA game developers? Games are eligible for consideration. If you have an XNA game out in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, be sure to read about the promotion and consider whether your game has what it takes to be featured in the Marketplace!

"When an app is featured in any of these slots, developers see dramatic increases in their apps’ daily downloads."

Don't miss out! Read up on the Spring Cleaning Opportunity and submit your game!

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RIM's latest lame attempt to make the BlackBerry hip

I really don't understand what the folks at Research in Motion are thinking. This week, RIM announced the BBM Music service that lets you choose 50 songs to stream to your BlackBerry for on-demand listening. The $5-per-month service works with RIM's popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), its BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry IM service; you must go through BBM to use BBM Music.

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