Yay!

Pong is done (and only in a couple of hours)! Next project: Tetris-clone!

It's actually a relief to have finished a project, even one as small as this. Gives me the confidence to tackle something larger.

First steps

I've gotten tired of falling over because I've tried to run before I can crawl. All my high-falutin' ideas have been put on the backburner while I return to the basics. And you can't get more basic than Pong.

So far, after around an hour's work in Visual C# and Paint, I've got a ball bouncing around a playing field, with a bat the player can control and a bat the computer controls.

XNA Tutorials

Stumbled across a terrific series of tutorials on XNA, written by Riemer Grootjans (author of XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes, a book that's on my to-get list). Thoroughly recommend this series to anyone looking to get a handle on XNA, C# and HLSL.

Idea #9: the Hunt for the Bismarck

One of my favourite sea stories has always been the May 1941 hunt for the German battleship Bismarck. I saw the trailer for the new Silent Hunter V: Battle of the Atlantic, and that got me thinking about a strategy game where you could take on the role of the Royal Navy hunting for the Bismarck, or the Kriegsmarine attempting to evade the British and engage in commerce raiding.

Morality in video games

Gamespot has a very good article on morality in video games -- worth a read!

Idea #8: Political strategy game

Largely inspired by the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and by what Republic: The Revolution should have been, this game would see you in control of a political party in a fictional Eastern European country, with the objective of rising to power via a variety of methods (popular support, military force, etc.).

All gamedev currently on hold...

... due to premature birth of our son. :-)

Work on a shoot-'em-up in the style of 1942 will resume at the earliest opportunity.