For the last few weeks I've been thinking a lot about AstroMiner. I really want to get back into it but a few things hindered me.
1) AstroMiner was written using XNA. XNA is no longer being supported by Microsoft so any continued development seems like a waste. It was neat at first in that I could play it on my Xbox and my PC but there are other libraries that could help support that.
2) Multiplayer support. My biggest regret with AstroMiner is not building in multiplayer support from the beginning. Adding it in was a massive rewrite and was a huge, huge hassle.
3) Time. I started my Masters program and just didn't have time to develop for fun anymore.
Time is something I'm always going to have issues with. My masters program finishes this summer and I should have a lot more free time once that's done. As for multiplayer and XNA, there's only 1 other option for that: a rewrite. So I've decided to do just that. I'm going to leave C#/XNA and instead switch to C++/SDL. I might give Unity a shot just to see how far it's come but I think I'm going to end up with the same conclusion.
So nothing to report today.. just set up my environment. I've going to be using CodeBlocks as an IDE since it's free. I debated Visual Studio Express but I think it'd be interesting to try a new IDE. I've also got some great ideas on how to re-architecture so I can be a lot more flexible in the future. C++/SDL should also give me some nice speed increases.
Hopefully I'll have a better update in the next week. Fortunately for once I have plenty of art and sound before I start the project.
Until next time..
1) AstroMiner was written using XNA. XNA is no longer being supported by Microsoft so any continued development seems like a waste. It was neat at first in that I could play it on my Xbox and my PC but there are other libraries that could help support that.
2) Multiplayer support. My biggest regret with AstroMiner is not building in multiplayer support from the beginning. Adding it in was a massive rewrite and was a huge, huge hassle.
3) Time. I started my Masters program and just didn't have time to develop for fun anymore.
Time is something I'm always going to have issues with. My masters program finishes this summer and I should have a lot more free time once that's done. As for multiplayer and XNA, there's only 1 other option for that: a rewrite. So I've decided to do just that. I'm going to leave C#/XNA and instead switch to C++/SDL. I might give Unity a shot just to see how far it's come but I think I'm going to end up with the same conclusion.
So nothing to report today.. just set up my environment. I've going to be using CodeBlocks as an IDE since it's free. I debated Visual Studio Express but I think it'd be interesting to try a new IDE. I've also got some great ideas on how to re-architecture so I can be a lot more flexible in the future. C++/SDL should also give me some nice speed increases.
Hopefully I'll have a better update in the next week. Fortunately for once I have plenty of art and sound before I start the project.
Until next time..
