Welcome to this website! This started out as a temporary location for my tutorials and projects, which has become quite popular, and as a result, fairly permanent. As long as Wikidot keeps cooperating with me, I'm planning on staying here.
This site is designed as a place to help you get going with game development (or just software development in general) and provides you with tons of free amazing tutorials, software, and resources for you to use.
Take a look at my XNA Tutorials and this Network Clipboard application. Or see what other people are saying in the Forum.
Recent Updates
5 January 2012
I've now also made a pass through the Getting Started and 2D Tutorials to clean up spelling and grammar issues. Once again, if you don't see me post any progress with this little project within a couple of weeks, send me an email to remind me. I've found, in the past, that that's the best way to keep me moving forward. If I know you're going to bug me about it, I get it taken care of!
30 December 2011
To answer the #1 question I keep getting, yes, I'm still updating this site!
I've been working on a couple of other things, related to this site, that you probably are blissfully unaware of, as of right now, but be assured, I haven't deserted this site.
When I can finally clear off some of the things I've been working on, I'm planning on returning to this site and adding in a whole set of tutorials on making a complete game from scratch. Right now I'm leaning towards a Galaga/Galaxian clone, though I'm open to suggestions.
Also, after some prodding from the nicest Grammar Nazi I've ever met, I took some time today to go through the C# tutorials and correct a bunch of grammar and spelling mistakes. Considering everything, I think they were already pretty good in that aspect, but now they're even better. I have not yet had the time to do so for any of the XNA tutorials, and I'd appreciate some additional prodding from any other Grammar Nazis out there if you haven't seen an update on my progress on that within a few weeks.
31 October 2011
I've been out of town for a while (doing this), and work has been busy, so my updates have been a bit rarer. Having said that, though, things are still coming along nicely, behind the scenes.
I just published my newest software, still in beta form, called Realm Factory. It is a simple level editor that works for a wide variety of 2D grid-based games (that is a surprisingly high number of games, by the way). Of course, there are plans to develop it further, beyond just basic bug fixes, but a part of that depends on how many people are actually using it.
While I ultimately intend on selling the program (for relatively cheap), anyone who downloads and participates in the Beta will get a free copy of version 1.0. And anyone who has a copy of the 1.0 version will probably be given free upgrades to the 1.2 and 1.4 versions that are planned.
At any rate, go over to my other site, starboundsoftware.com to get your free copy of the beta!
12 October 2011
I'm in the beginning stages of putting a form of breadcrumb navigation into these tutorials to prevent people from getting lost. The beginning of the C# tutorials has this now, and if you've got a sec, I wouldn't mind it if you'd jump over there and take a look (it's at the top—the Roadmap, Previous, and Next) and then give me your honest opinion about what you think about it.
Also, I can't believe I forgot about it before, but I've added in a tutorial on switch statements to the C# tutorials.
3 October 2011
I've made several small changes to many of the tutorials, especially the C# tutorials. Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback to make these tutorials better!
23 September 2011
OK, it took a few days longer than I had wanted, but I've got lots of updates today. The entire C# Crash Course is complete! Well… sort of. It's all there, but I'd imagine that there could be problems with it, like broken links, or parts that are just plain confusing. Not to mention that there may have been important stuff that I skipped. If you see any problems with it, please let me know so I can get it fixed.
This, by the way, is a huge step! I've been working on this set of tutorials since the summer of 2010, and thinking about it for about two years before that. (Though, admittedly, I didn't have much of it there until the last month or two.)
Now I've got more time to work on some other things, including a reboot of the Evolution project that I put on this site forever ago, but has been broken since about day 20. (I honestly don't know what went wrong with it--it just doesn't work for anyone, including me. I suppose it was some sort of problem with Windows Vista and Windows 7 being different from XP?) Anyways, that program wasn't very well designed (it had been a very long time since I had done anything with WinForms, and I just did whatever it took to make things work, which resulted in a terrible UI) but the program did fill a gap that was missing--animation of 3D models. I know a lot of people have asked about it, so one of the things I'm going to do is… uh… take it in a little bit of a different direction, and get something going for your guys.
I also intend on adding in more tutorials in the near future. In particular, I've gotten a lot of requests for a set of tutorials that make a "complete" game, and I think that is a great idea.
I'll see what I can do….
20 September 2011
Well today is update day! But unfortunately, there's no updates today. I've got about six new tutorials in the C# crash course almost done, but I think I'm going to have to rewrite the tutorial on generics, and split it in half. It's huge. I've also added in a few more tutorials to my plans. Basically, I've got pieces everywhere, and I need to finish things up, but I'm almost there. I think by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll have all of the C# crash course complete, but until I put everything together, I can't be sure.
So expect a significant update tomorrow evening some time.
11 September 2011
Well, I've added nine new tutorials to the C# Crash Course. I knew I'd get one done, and I predicted I'd get more done, but even I am surprised by how much I completed. I think I'm looking at only five more tutorials before that set is complete, which would give me time to go back to some of the other things that I've been working on behind the scenes.
I know I keep alluding to the fact that there's a lot going on that isn't visible, and I promise you you'll be able to see some of the results of all of that soon.
In the mean time, there's enough of the C# Crash Course in place that I'd love to hear what people think from everyone—people who are brand new to programming, people who have done programming before, but not C#, people who have done C#, but it's been a while, and also people who are very familiar with C#, and can perhaps provide some technical feedback on what the tutorials contain, or suggestions for what you think isn't actually needed, or things I've skipped that ought to be included. Don't hesitate to let me know!
6 September 2011
It's my normal update day, but in case you didn't see all of the other posts over the last week, all of the tutorials have been converted to XNA 4.0! That's a really big accomplishment, because as far as I know, there's nothing else like it anywhere on the Internet. There's no set of XNA 4.0 tutorials this big out there—anywhere.
Also new this week, three new additions to the C# Crash Course. One was added last Thursday or something, the other two are brand new today.
I'm still committed to at least one new tutorial in that series per week, on Tuesdays. So the 13th one will be there by next Tuesday for sure. But I've been on a roll lately, and I'll honestly be surprised if I don't have about five more by then. I expect there to be about 25 tutorials in that set total. Then I'll be ready to move on to the next big thing….
5 September 2011
After a late night, and a busy day working on these tutorials, they're all converted to XNA 4.0!
It's been a long time coming, but it's finally done. Now I can concentrate on the C# Crash Course, completely. But of course, I'm already looking ahead at what's next.
One of the big things that I've gotten a lot of requests for is a tutorial set that goes through the process of making a game from scratch, rather than just the pieces.
I also want to revamp the content pipeline tutorials (which now has a couple of other options that may make making a content pipeline extension easier) as well as the 3D tutorials, which now have many more options with the BasicEffect class and other (new) related classes.
Another thing that I'd love to do is to fill in the physics and math tutorials better.
All of this aside, there's a lot more in the works for this site, besides just the tutorials. Now's not the time to bring up everything else (I don't know what parts are going to be completed, and what parts aren't) but I'll let you know when some of those things get closer.
Of course, if you've got opinions about what you'd like me to work on next (after the C# Crash Course) I'd love to hear about it!
4 September 2011
I've spent much of the weekend updating tutorials to XNA 4.0. As of right now, all HLSL tutorials, all 3D tutorials, and all Utility tutorials are now compatible with XNA 4.0!
This has been a TON of work. There are so many changes with XNA 4.0. But I think it is important to do. There doesn't appear to be a whole lot else out there on the Internet that is up-to-date with XNA 4.0, and it needs to be there.
I think my next two priorities are Input tutorials (some of which are already done, and the rest of which probably have only a few changes needed) and the Audio tutorials.
1 September 2011 (Update #2)
Well, the HLSL tutorials have so far required very few changes. I've converted the first four tutorials to XNA 4.0, getting me 1/3 of the way done with that set. Also, just looking ahead, I think most of them are going to be fairly easy to convert, which is a huge sigh of relief for me. This is a set I've been worried about updating, because I thought it would take a lot of time to update them.
While I'm not going to set any official goals, it isn't unrealistic to think that the entire set might be updated by the end of the day on Tuesday.
Oh, and I also was able to update the Game Math tutorials (all two of them!) to be compatible with XNA 4.0. I don't think they were out of date, but apparently, Wikidot made some changes to the way math formulas were displayed without telling me (another one of those reasons why I get a little tired of Wikidot, not that they should have personally called me to tell me they broke my site—I realize they're just doing their jobs) and my equations on that page looked horrible. I don't know how long it's been that way for, but it looked ugly! It's much better now.
So, lots and lots of progress today!
