Creating a game in Silverlight

Lately, I've been learning about Silverlight. It seems like a good fit with my skill set, I'm already familar with Visual Studio, C# , and .NET. So I thought I'd try to convert my shmup from Gamemaker to Silverlight. Stay tuned for all the gory details.

Destructoid article

Just read a great article on Destructoid about why 8bit games?here

Visual Studio STL problems

I found an interesting read about Visual Studio STL problems, here . It looks like Electronic Arts also had a problem with STL, here .

Updated Game

Still working on my first game, added sounds and another level. Check it out here .

First Prototype

I finally finished my first prototype with GameMaker! I made an Old Skool Shump. It was a lot of fun. Check it out here.

I have been reading a lot of blogs recently about Game design, my favorite so far is this one: How Much Work Does It Take To Become A Great Game Developer? I figure at the rate I'm going only 8 more years to become a competent game developer.

Game Maker Impressions

I have been evaluating Game Maker for the past week or so. My impressions so far are favorable, Game Maker seems like an affordable, easy to use game platform. I have been following Derek Yu’s tutorial Game Maker For Beginners: Part I which is a pretty good introduction. I wholeheartedly recommend http://www.tigsource.com/ as a great site for aspiring game developers.

During my explorations I came across Jonathan Biddle’s Explodemon prototype created using Game Maker. See it here for an example of what can be done with Game Maker. Jonathan Biddle’s work is awesome, I highly recommend checking out his site: http://www.onebitbeyond.com/

Welcome

This is where I'll be talking about the path I'm taking as I learn to make games. I am a professional software programmer but I have never programmed graphics before. I suck as an artist so I want to stick to characters that are easy to draw. I am not musically inclined so I'll be sticking to simple sounds and effects. I want to explore what tools are out there to help create games. I also want to learn more about the business side of game making so I'll be talking about that too.