As someone who’s been writing software for about a dozen years now, I’m a little embarrassed to post this as an achievement but I said I would so here it is. This is pretty much the straight results from the tutorial except I’ve added some basic scoring (and fonts) as well as sound.

I’ve included the source for those who want to take a look. It’s probably sloppy as I made no attempt to go behind and clean up prototype code. Hopefully it will be helpful to someone.

Breaking Out (Binaries)
Breaking Out (Source)

My next game clone is a game I never played called Minefield. This one is from scratch and is much more complex. I’ve got sprite animation working well in that one and soon I should have simple collision wired up. Then it’s just a matter of adding content, scoring and sound.

Look for that soon.

EDIT: So I re-uploaded the binaries archive with a new version that includes a proper installer and will install any prerequisites for you if you don’t have them already. Sorry for the noobness. :)

We a lot really. Much more than this stale aging blog has let on, that is for sure. I’ll start from my last blog post and work my way forward.

First off, Scott Wolf and I have started a fun new tri-weekly (MWF) gaming web comic. This is something we had been toying with for over some 18 months now but really didn’t get serious about until late last fall. This is the single biggest reason that this blog has gone stale. The comic is doing well and we’ve hit or exceeded all of our goals to date. Today marks the end of our eighth week running without missing a single comic.

You can find the comic at Canny Valley Comics.

I’m working on a post-mortem post for Diabolical Plots to discuss what we did right and wrong so look for that in the near future along with some making-of articles for those of you who like to be bored to tears.

This week has brought on some changes as well. for one, I gave up raiding in World of Warcraft which is kind of a big deal. The decision was surprisingly easy considering the length of time I’ve been raiding and the recent success my guild has had. In the end though, I realized that raiding was consistently tying up one to two nights a week. And the comic was eating up pretty much everything else leaving no time for other games or pursuits.

Those other pursuits include getting back to my more traditional art. Working on the comic is fun and the work flow is very fulfilling but I miss working on more complex pieces so I’m glad to have that time back. I’m also getting back to my game development stuff. I started a Brick Breaker clone this week using some great tutorials from XNAGPA. If you are looking into XNA game development there is really no better place to start. I should complete the Brick Breaker clone tonight and then get started on a Mine Field clone without a tutorial.

That’s all for now but I promise to keep this site better updated. More frequent, shorter (probably art) posts is the order of the day!

Despite my recent focus on my visual art, I consider myself a writer as much as I do an artist. I submitted to the WotF contest every quarter for about two years, receiving several honorable mentions. I received some of the most valuable and encouraging feedback from Kathy and I breaks my heart to hear this news.

K. D. was first and foremost a brilliant writer and she leaves behind several books and dozens of short stories and novella to remember her by. The contest that so many of us associate directly with K. D. will never be the same. I hope, for the sake of her memory, that the contest continues to flourish in the coming years.

If you want to honor Kathy, submit a story.

In any case. I think I’m close with this one. I’ll call it a near miss.

As I mentioned, I recorded this painting so see the Youtube video below for a quick (12x) example of my work flow for this piece.

I like the 3 hours study length. I just wish I could get a more refined image out of the effort. I’ll keep working.

I’m in the mood to complete projects right now… It’s kinda scary.

Here is the final image.