A Brief Interlude on the Road to Madness

The journey to madness started by an inability to understand the workings of the XNA Content Pipeline and more specifically how the heck to get XML working in that context.

Despite trying several web pages containing explanations and code, nothing would work and the road was becoming more like a motorway.

Until discovering a Project Reference in one of the examples.  Which finally made everything click into place.  And a week or so of demotivation has been replaced with a new optimism that it will work after all.

It may only be displaying a level name, but every time the XML data is changed the new level name is displayed.

Small victories – now let’s hope we can get back on track with the rest of it.

Sum of Parts

The game’s assets are building up now and the more you add the more like a ‘proper’ game it seems to be.  What was initially a one screen prototype has evolved to something with a menu screen and ‘win’ screen, and with each addition it feels more like a game.

Last night the sound effects were added into the main game screen, and what a difference.  It makes you think that those developers who spend hours and hours getting sounds just right aren’t wasting time after all.  It’s the age-old thing that you often don’t seem to notice something until it’s no longer there.

So, with the editor in a useable state – and soon to be pumping out the XML our game needs – and the sonix and graphix coming along, we are making progress.