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The XNA Offline and Online Highscores Component Version 2 (distributed leaderboards, sort-of)

May 30, 2010 - 12:20 — jwatte

XNA Game Studio makes it possible to write games for the Xbox without being a developer with good publisher contacts and lots of money to pay for marketing and Xbox development kits. This is great!

However, because the XNA Indie Games system is not fully controlled by Microsoft, certain features of Xbox Live! are not available, because they would be too easily abused. These features include online Leaderboards, and unlockable Achievements.

The XNA community has developed alternatives to those functions. Many XNA games contain "Awardments" that can be unlocked, and many more XNA games use the XNA Network Highscores component to implement distributed, peer-to-peer highscore sharing. The name for this is generally "Online Highscores" rather than "Leaderboards," because the latter name is reserved for use by Microsoft-certified titles that use the real Xbox Live! functionality.

This article introduces version 2 of the XNA Online highscores component, which is free for you to use in your own game under the terms of the MIT license.

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Android programming, layouts and activities

February 20, 2010 - 23:13 — jwatte

I've been doing some Android programming, trying to get a feel for what an Android app would look like when structured as a main screen, some set-up screens, and a main gameplay screen (which then wants to go back to the main screen). I've fought a bit with the built-in Android layout views. They seem to be missing some capabilities that would be really useful.

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How to structure a reusable game networking library

September 3, 2009 - 19:21 — jwatte

I recently have answered several questions about how to structure a networking library such that it can be easy to use for users of the library and/or when expanding the game you're writing. Here are some thoughts on that. (Code examples in C++)

Networking generally ends up needing to do three things:

1) Mirror state updates from one object to another.
2) Request remote services ("RPC").

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Animated illustration of how a networked game server works

August 28, 2009 - 15:04 — jwatte

Here's a general illustration of how a networked game server works. While the animation is somewhat fast, you can just fix your eyes on a particular spot and read the explanation text as it shows up.

Time Limiter turns off your computer at night!

August 15, 2009 - 18:01 — enchantedage

There are parental controls in Windows Vista that can prevent a restricted account from using a computer at times you specify. However, if you let your kids have admin accounts (because they keep needing to run programs that need admin for compatibility reasons, say), then this won't work.

Also, Windows XP does not have any feature to limit use to certain times of day.

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main.cpp

July 22, 2009 - 19:59 — jwatte 

#include "etwork/etwork.h"
#include "etwork/buffer.h"
#include "etwork/errors.h"
#include "etwork/notify.h"
#include "etwork/marshal.h"
 
#include <assert.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string>
#include <math.h>
 
#if defined( NDEBUG )
#pragma warning( disable: 4101 )  //  unreferenced local variable
#endif
 
 
void TestEtworkCreate()
{
  EtworkSettings es;

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tester

July 22, 2009 - 19:58 — jwatte

A simple command-line program that exercises parts of the Etwork API and asserts if something fails. Think of it as an API acceptance test.

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sockimpl.h

July 22, 2009 - 19:57 — jwatte 

#if !defined( etwork_sockimpl_h )
#define etwork_sockimpl_h
 
#include "etwork/etwork.h"
#include "etwork/locker.h"
#include "etwork/buffer.h"
#include "etwork/timer.h"
#include "etwork/errors.h"
#include "etwork/notify.h"
 
#if defined( WIN32 )
#include <windows.h>
#endif
 
#include <stdio.h>  //  for _snprintf
#include <math.h>
 
#include <string>
#include <map>

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socketbase.cpp

July 22, 2009 - 19:42 — jwatte 

#include "sockimpl.h"
 
using namespace etwork;
using namespace etwork::impl;
 
 
SocketManager::SocketManager()
{
  listening_ = INVALID_SOCKET;
  maxNumSocks_ = FD_SETSIZE;
  numSocks_ = 0;
  maxSock_ = 0;
  allSet_ = (fd_set *)::operator new( sizeof(fd_set) );
  FD_ZERO( allSet_ );
  readSet_ = (fd_set *)::operator new( sizeof(fd_set) );
  FD_ZERO( readSet_ );

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marshal.cpp

July 22, 2009 - 19:42 — jwatte 

#include <assert.h>
#include <string>
#include <math.h>
#include <map>
 
#include "etwork/marshal.h"
 
namespace marshaller {
 
inline std::string operator+( std::string const & left, int right ) {
  char buf[24];
  sprintf( buf, "%d", right );
  return left + std::string( buf );
}
 
inline std::string operator+( std::string const & left, size_t right ) {
  char buf[24];

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