Danzels Internets

IronXNA – Bordered SpriteFont

I’ve been messing with XNA lately, which has been quite awesome. One of the things that I felt was missing with the built in SpriteFont was the ability to render SpriteFonts with borders (or outlines, whatever you want to call them).

My Google-Fu turned up nothing, so I wrote my own implementation based on the Text Renderer I’d written for internal Ironshod usage.

I’ve released it on Github here for everyones enjoyment: https://github.com/danzel/IronXna

Beautiful Example:

When drawing text, both the inner and outer color can be changed.

It tries hard to draw text with the same spacing as SpriteFont, but it doesn’t always achieve it.

Ironshod releases Reverse Maze

Hi Everyone

I’ve been working hard the last 6-7 months doing the coding for Ironshods latest iPhone/iPod touch game: Reverse Maze

Reverse Maze is a maze puzzler where all controls are backwards. Your goal is to get from the starting point to the exit without touching any walls or objects.

Go get it on the App store now

Defense Station Portable v2 Released!

Yes it is finally here!

Head over to the Ironshod website for full details on Defense Station Portable v2

(Post your comments over there too so I don’t have to read 2 blog posts!)

Defense Station Touchable Released!!!

Today I am proud to announce that Defense Station Touchable has hit the iTunes store!

Defense Station Touchable is the iPhone/iPod version of Defense Station Portable (PSP Homebrew).

Now containing 5 maps, each with 50 waves of enemies for a super happy fun time!

Head over to the all new Ironshod Website for details! Or jump straight onto iTunes and buy it now!

The PSP version should be released in the next week or 2, so keep an eye out

If you are a level designer, then go to the Ironshod Website and get the PC version to start developing and testing your levels for the DSP release. Contact me with any questions you may have.

DSP (not) Release Announcement

As you’ve obviously seen, DSP isn’t out yet and it is past the 1st of May.
Well I admit, I sort of fibbed a bit when I said it was going to be out on the 1st. The 1st was actually the date that DST had to be finished.

DST is Defense Station Touchable, DSP for the iPhone!

Wooooooooo!

On the 1st of May DST was submitted to the App Store and is currently awaiting approval for release

The PSP version needs some more work before it can be released. The main menu needs updating and the Achievements system needs linking in.
I’m not sure how many of the Maps I’ll bring over to PSP, probably not the 5 that will be released with the iPhone version, but definitely more than the 1 of previous versions.
There will most likely be some memory issues to deal with, but I’ll find out when I have a look at how it runs.
I’ll be testing aga

More detail will come later this week as I work on getting the PSP version up to scratch.

PS: Sorry I didn’t post this earlier, I drafted it and forgot to publish >_<

DSP Update – March 24th

Seriously late update here….. Anyways >_>

The menu is now mostly implemented, it shows the level name and description as well as the level image.

I’ve fixed up all the issues I’ve encountered related to the new font being slightly wider, text wasn’t fitting on some buttons, tower upgrade menu was a total mess.

Pathfind now looks more natural: enemies will continue travelling in the same direction so long as it is the most efficient path.

Begin work on end game handling (What to do when you win/lose)

I also have a firm final date for the new release… So the next DSP will be out BEFORE 1st of May.

I’ll have some more awesome things to announce over the next while as I get nearer release

Next weeks todos:

Finish end game handling: high score entering and recording, show high scores on main menu.

DSP Update – March 9th

This week I finished off save support. As far as I have tested saving and loading everything (that matters) works! Finally!

I cleaned up the code in the new font system, then started on cleaning it up and moving freetype out, so I can build without freetype. The way it will work is there will be an external tool powered by freetype to generate the font files (image and settings). Then I won’t need to link against freetype, which is good as I don’t have it set up on my mac, and may not have it on other platforms I want to build DSP for.

I did a bit of work on the level select menu, as shown here:

The top right area isn’t implemented yet (nor are the scores). The top right area will show an image of the selected level and a brief description.

Next week will be: Finish menu, finish refactoring font system, end game handling, new level?….

DSP Update – March 2nd

During the week I pretty much finished off save/load. Currently pathfind enemies don’t load correctly, I still need to fix it. everything else loads perfectly!

During the weekend Surreal came over and we integrated most of the new menu:

This required updating the fonts, and as the existing font system was…. unweildy, surreal forced me to rewrite it to use freetype. So now plugging in new sexy fonts is easy as!!!

Surreal provided a new font, so I plugged it in. Then as the new font system takes coordinates to draw at differently, I had to update everywhere text was rendered… zzz….

Anyway, an example:

Next week will be finishing the menu, fixing save/load for pathfind enemies, code cleanup of the new font system, perhaps some minor improvements to the pathfind system, end game handling and more….

Edit: Crossing out items I’ve now done.

DSP Update – 23rd February

An update on time-ish for once!

This week I drafted a  main menu for the mouse UI, then Surreal created something that looks incredibly sexy based on my requirements. I haven’t integrated this yet, hopefully during the next week.

Instead, I implemented Save/Load. So when you have to quickly power off your PSP or quit your game, you can resume right where you left off!

This isn’t yet complete, currently Shots don’t save, but I’m part way through implementing it, so I should finish it tomorrow.

No screenshots this week, as Save/Load doesn’t make for an interesting screenshot…

DSP Update – 15th February

Got a bit more done on DSP this week, it finally cooled down enough that I could sit in front of my computer comfortably!

The PSP interface is now as functional as the mouse interface. It reuses all of the same interface components with some minor changes. Shown here is the tower upgrade menu. It looks relatively the same, but has the addition of the selector thing to the left to show you how to control it.

What is left on the todo list… hhhmmmm…..

• Level select menu.
• End game handling (What to do when you win or lose)
• Minor balancing of River TD.
• Create a path find level.

I’ve drawn some drafts for the menus, will go through them and create something this week hopefully

I’m still hopeful of a February release, but it looks like it will probably slip to early March.
When I get the engine complete I’ll release a test level for level developers to pull apart and get cracking on their own levels This should be a week or 2 before the release.