Game Developer - January 2011

XNA GAME STuDIO

//// Microsoft l http://create.msdn.com

I started out helping develop PC games such as Postal 2, but my dream had always been to create games for home consoles. A few years later I was able to help develop Resistance: Fall oF Man for the Play Station 3. I had achieved my goal of console development, but I was still left wanting more. I wanted to put my own crazy game ideas on a home console, but knew the technical and logistical hurdles would be nearly insurmountable.

That’s where XNA Game Studio came in. It gives us well-designed ways to render 3D models and 2D sprites, play sounds, use pixel and vertex shaders, poll controllers and the touch screen, save and load to memory storage, build off a solid game class, utilize networking for gameplay, integrate social connections—the list goes on!

All of those intense game engine issues are already taken care of, leaving you to get down and dirty programming your cool game for the Xbox 360 or even Windows Phone 7. For my game shoot 1UP, I thought it would be interesting if there were a boss enemy who was a floating, robotic, womanly torso with bullet spewing bosoms. She and everything else in shoot 1UP were perfectly facilitated by XNA Game Studio all the way from my brain to the Xbox 360 marketplace with nary an "evil publisher" restriction or serious technical hurdle.

Speaking of shoot 1UP, the game was only meant to be an experiment, but XNA Game Studio made it so easy to go from prototype to playable gameplay, I couldn’t help myself from turning it into a full game. XNA Game Studio’s web site has oodles of useable code to be downloaded, ranging from tutorials on collision detection and shader programming, all the way up to complete 3D and 2D game starter kits. I took a 2D Once I had a playable demo, the enormous help from XNA forums was equally important as the powerful code libraries. The feedback in the forums from playtesting the early versions of shoot 1UP was invaluable in giving me a wide spectrum of gamer skill perspectives. Even Microsoft employees sometimes show up to offer help on the more difficult programming issues developers encounter.

If XNA Game Studio merely gave you the ability to sell games on the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7, it would be great. But in addition, it’s a powerful and robust development suite that allows your team to create ambitious, full games or simply realize new gameplay prototypes in zero time. And with the heart and devotion the XNA team has shown, I can’t wait to see how amazing the next version will be. Congratulations XNA Team and all XNA developers for working together to make an awesome package!

Shoot 1UP

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Nathan Fouts is the president of Mommy’s Best Games (www.

MommysBestGames.com).

game developer | January 2011 20

FACEBOOK SDK

//// Facebook l http://developers.facebook.com

It’s hard to describe the enormous impact that the Facebook platform has had, both on our business and how we socialize with our friends, but I’ll attempt to summarize it here. With the release of its platform SDK, Facebook allowed developers to leverage social data in their applications and easily share content with the user’s network of friends. The idea was that everything is better with your friends, so why not give folks the ability to add their friends to their own apps?

At Zynga, we believe that games should be played with your friends, so we used the Facebook SDK to create games like FaRMVille and MaFia WaRs that were meant to provide players with a fun, social way to connect. We are probably one of the heaviest users of the SDK, utilizing numerous features to make our games more social and engaging for players. We primarily use the Facebook SDK to retrieve information about the player and their friends, and then let the player share game actions or ask their friends to help them out. Both information retrieval and the sharing of content are facilitated easily and quickly using the Facebook SDK. By leveraging the features provided by the Facebook SDK, we’ve created new types of gameplay and social interactions between people. For example, there are several accounts of families connecting with each other by playing FaRMVille or friends keeping in touch through a game of Zynga PokeR. By allowing us to make games truly social and enabling play with your real life friends, the Facebook platform has been incredibly powerful for us.

It bears mentioning that this wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment Facebook has made to improving their product. The Facebook SDK, unlike traditional tools used by game developers, is a living and constantly evolving service. Facebook realized this early on and has strived to provide updated documentation and tight communication channels with developers. Throughout our relationship the company, Facebook has constantly improved the quality of its platform for both the users of the site, and also the developers. This dedication to quality and to the developer experience has allowed us to move quickly, adapt to the ever-changing application ecosystem, and avoid service downtime.

Without a doubt, we are only scratching the surface of how the Facebook platform will change the Internet. With tighter integration into products, more opportunities and ways to connect with friends, and an ever growing set of integrated websites and users, the Facebook platform is definitely a one-of-a-kind product that is shaping the future of the web and how we connect with one another.