Welcome!
Hello and welcome!
This blog will be used to inform visitors of the Northern Illinois University’s Game Developer’s Association and their progress towards creating small marketable video games for the Xbox-360 video game console. We use Microsoft’s XNA library to help code out games, as well as utilize their service to host and sell our games.
We have had several meetings last semester, and with the current semester halfway over, we have decided to keep the public informed of our progress. Every other week we hold our meetings Wednesday evening. To keep yourself updated, join our facebook group here. This will enable you to receive messages from our president, Andy Saia.
At our last meeting, we had discussed quite a bit about indie games that are currently out there, both to inspire us and spark ideas for our current project. Some of the things covered were as follows:
- Andy’s project called “Zombie Shooter” (not an official name), which is a basic rail-shooter, like the old arcade games such as “House of the Dead”, and “Area 51″
- “Circles”, which is a near finished experiment by Andy. It uses either the webcam or a mouse for input, as the user tries to capture circles that fly by the figure in the center of the screen. Once they are captured, they have to receive interaction either by waving the mouse or an object across it, depending on the input being used. Ignore them too long and they escape. There are other circles that fly through and can destroy captured circles, to give a little difficulty. This project is still being improved.
- Polytron’s game Fez: Second Trailer. This is an interesting game. Simple yet intricate. What starts off as a simple platformer quickly tests the player’s perception skills as it rotates the playing field, as well as some deceptive illusions. Watch the video to see what I mean, you won’t be disappointed.
- Knytt Stories. What can I say about this game that it’s utter simplicity makes it great. From the easy to learn controls, to it’s laid-back style of exploration, to it’s avoidance of violence, the game is stunning. Did I mention it’s free? because it is. And it even comes with its own built in level editor for users to create their own adventures. I’ve played this great game and I’m impressed.
- Unity 3D is a free game engine like XNA, except it is compatible for a different range of machines, such as the Nintendo Wii and the Apple iPhone. Worth a look for budding young developers.
- Toblo is an interesting mix of Capture the Flag gameplay and real-life physics. Destroy the world to reach the enemy’s “flag” and return it to your own base. No real weapons can be found, just blocks and other physics-affected objects.
Next meeting should be in another week or so, but I’ll be posting older news for archival purposes in the next couple of days. Stay tuned for projects other members have started as well.
Thanks for reading,
Dan Parker
