Category Archives: The Outer Rim

The Outer Rim – Coming Soon!

The Outer Rim will be published in the XBLIG site next week. Very excited as we’ve all been working really hard over the past year or so to make sure you all get an enjoyable and fun game!

Big thanks to Jitter Physics for an excellent physics library. http://jitter-physics.com/wordpress/

Sentinel Menus Almost Done

Sentinel Mission Select screen

Sentinel Mission Select screen

 I’m at the point where I’m working away trying to turn the various bits into a coherent whole, level design, weapon upgrades, etc. Too much too soon and the fun is removed. Too little too late and the game just becomes really hard or boring.

Adding Physics to Sentinel using Jitter

This post will hopefully be one of many.

First things first. Go download Jitter (I’m using 0.1.7). The official web site is here http://jitter-physics.com/

Jitter is a little short on documentation but has an excellent set of demostration scenes. It is worthwhile having a look and a quick play.

The tutorial PDF (included in the package) sums up the basics.

  1. Create a Collision system (I use the CollisionSystemSAP).
  2. Create a physics World and pass the collision system.
  3. Create a shape
  4. Create a RigidBody – using the Shape just created
  5. Add the body to the world
  6. Every update loop ask the physics engine to step forward a small amount of time.

That’s pretty painless and pretty easy to get going. The Jitter libraries are very well designed, the code is well encapsulated and loosely bound.

I’m still playing with the physical properties and other parameters to get a world that “plays right”. Not too hard, not too easy but essentially realistic enough that the gamer can become immersed in shooting the baddies and protecting the oil refinary!

 

Sentinel game development – terrain and shadows

The terrain is based on Riemer’s excellent “multitextured terrain” tutorial. This is strongly recommended for any developer looking at clever multitexture techniques. http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/Series4/Multitexturing.php

The code is a little old, it predates the XNA 4.0 framework so some bits need tweaks to enable it to compile.

Simple control added with the ability to control the pitch and yaw of the guns.