Meir is an official Dream Build Play project

When I started this project, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a float, int, or double. I didn’t know how to program, and had no clue where to even begin on a project as complex as this… but here I am.

Typical combat screen in Meir

Obviously its not a complete game, nor is it as polished as it could be.. but its good enough to prove a point to myself. Good enough for me to say “I set a goal for myself and reached my deadline with a specific quality in mind, and I hit it.” Next step for me is going to be putting together a story, finishing everything I couldn’t get done for the demo, and working towards the Community Games. Until then, enjoy the promotional video we had to put together for the Dream Build Play competition.

For some reason, the video is currently not showing. Direct link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8n0fBt2t_8

I would like to give a few thanks.. because there were some people along the way that really pushed my goals forward. Most notably from the shack news community (http://www.shacknews.com/) People such as MitchWalker, RomSteady, and Mittense, DHAvatar, and everyone else on that crazy site.

I would also like to point out that the music for the demo was crafted by Delaric, and it is fine music indeed. Several people have contacted me wishing to help on a possible final version of the game and if you’re interested, all you have to do is shoot me an email. I would like to point out, however, that the final version of the game is a LONG… LONG way off. This i would consider, a very basic demo.. and the final version will be a full fledged RPG. You do the math :) But for now.. one milestone is down.. and thank you EVERYONE who helped along the way.

360′s content pipeline gives me a headach!

Oh man, I’ve spent the last week learning the ins and the outs of the Content Pipeline, trying to write readers / importers / writers / data types etc, to the content pipeline… and it was all going well, until i hit F5 :( Damn thing wouldn’t build!

Creators Club msgboard and a few friends who know their way in and out of the 360 helped out a TON with my persuit of knowledge. I don’t know all, or even half, of what goes into the content pipeline programming.. but at least i know “WHY” its doing what it does.

So I’m back on track now, we’ll see if this set me back enough to where I’ll miss the dream build play deadline, but I hope not. And for all of you folks who are looking into the content pipeline for the 360, remember these fun facts that will save you a TON of headach if you don’t already know how to write your own custom readers / writers;

1) The ContentReaders should be placed in the same project as your class you’re reading, preferibly at the bottom of your class.cs file.

2) Content writers need to be in a ContentProcessor project file, and they will be created at build time (not run time) so make sure that any classes you’re referencing, either make a copy and put them into that project (IE: Player.cs from your main game, make a copy, and put it into your Content Extention project file with the name PlayerContent.cs so you don’t confuse the two) or do what I did and have a shared project “Data” stash.

3) HOWEVER, if you DO do what i did, remember that the 360 and windows needs their OWN VERSION since they’re different assemblies. This gave me the most headach :( So my solution now needs 4 projects; 360 game project, 360 data project, windows data project, content pipeline extention project.. Oi, pass the advil!

Thanks go out to Stephen and the whole crew that helped me through, and a BIG thanks to RomSteady and Mittense at shacknews.com … couldn’t do it without you guys :)

Next up, working on releasing a demo!