{"id":22,"date":"2009-10-25T19:04:34","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T04:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legendofeuterra.com\/devblog\/?p=22"},"modified":"2026-06-05T22:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:41:19","slug":"first-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/?p=22","title":{"rendered":"First Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"It
It all begins somewhere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, now that I’ve actually had a couple days to sit down uninterrupted on the programming of the game, I have a few thoughts.\u00a0 XNA 3.1 is incredibly easy to use; in fact, I’d say it’s almost too<\/em> easy.\u00a0 I realize that without a publisher to help promote or even sell the game, I don’t have a lot of room to talk, but the abstraction layer that prohibits would-be game designers is all but gone.\u00a0 Note I did not say that this is a good or bad thing, but I do acknowledge that there are some pitfalls to this approach as well as amazing benefits.\u00a0 I for one am glad I don’t have to spend as much time re-researching things I’ve done a hundred times before – all of it is in one easy to use system that handles literally everything with an ease of use that puts DirectX to shame.\u00a0 I almost feel like I’m back on the Commodore 64 programming BASIC again, with the handy VIC-II chip to do all the graphics for me.<\/p>\n

As you can see from the screenshot, I am not really focusing on art assets just yet.\u00a0 For now the priority was developing a map reader and file format so I can edit the various levels without having to hardcode the data like I’ve done in several projects in the past.\u00a0 To put it simply, it means I can make maps with a simple number sequence now, with each number telling the engine to display a 64×64 map graphic (in this case, my default Grass texture).\u00a0 I should also note that unlike in my past programs, I am thinking ahead and have each tile set contained in one file specifically crafted to the map, so I don’t have 500 grass graphic files floating around.\u00a0 The black squares on the screenshot are the 64×64 pixel space immediately to the right of the grass tile; all I have to do is draw whatever I want in that square because the program is already drawing it as is (the current graphic is an empty black).<\/p>\n

Something you can’t tell from this screenshot, I also have keyboard and Xbox 360 controller input handlers, so Arashi can move around that map (and the camera moves with her, drawing the map to all 4 edges before stopping further movement).\u00a0 And one more thing, I have some post processing going on, in a full screen image you could see a little sunlight “bloom” on the grass.\u00a0 The number one thing I’ve always wanted in a 2d RPG engine was lighting effects, and I finally got them.\u00a0 They are very easy to use!<\/p>\n

I still have a floating point to integer correction problem; for some reason when I move down or up every once in awhile the map will jump back a row before correcting itself.\u00a0 I’ve had this problem before in OpenGL but I don’t see why it’s happening now.\u00a0 I hope to have that solved shortly after I submit this blog.<\/p>\n

That’s all for now, ’til my next update!\u00a0 Please don’t be afraid to comment,\u00a0I am more than happy to talk!<\/p>\n

<\/g:plusone><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, now that I’ve actually had a couple days to sit down uninterrupted on the programming of the game, I have a few thoughts.\u00a0 XNA […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,25,7,6,18,26,17,309,4,15],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","tag-2d-tiles","tag-arashi","tag-development","tag-game","tag-independent","tag-map","tag-pc","tag-rpg","tag-shadowdawn","tag-xbox-360"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shadowdawngenesis.com\/devblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}