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Anatomy of a Silverlight Game: Avoid Common Mistakes When Building Online Games

Last week I created a document that incorporates my experiences developing the Shock Silverlight online game so far.

The document discusses the basics of online games in Silverlight and has a lot of practical examples (code) and a working project that you can use to build your own game.

Don't make the mistakes I did! Happy coding!

 

Open Document: Anatomy of a Silverlight Game.docx

Download Source Code Project

Play Sample Game

 

Here are the abstract and contents of the doc: 

Abstract:

Typical online games have a start screen, levels, storyline, transitions, high scores, chat, and other features that can take significant amount of time to develop.

There are challenges when building online games, such as full screen support and scaling; speed optimization; animations; real-time calculations.

Learn how to develop compelling Silverlight games faster, by using a base framework for the common game elements outlined above.

 

Contents:

 

About the Author

About this Document

Goal

Scope

Target Audience

Getting Started

1. Introduction: Why Care About the “Details”?

2. Components of an Online Game

3. Screen Layout

Visual Layers that Make Up Your Game

Game Interface Layer

In-game Controls Layer

Sounds Layer

Start Screen Layer

Main Screen Popup Controls Layer

4. Silverlight Game Internals

The Game Loop

Some Classes That You’ll Likely Use in Every Game

The Game Class

Defaults Class

Globals Class

Enumeration Classes

Sounds Class

Other Classes

Keyboard and Mouse

Full Screen Support

Returning from Full Screen to Embedded Mode

Aspect Ratio

More Info

Transitions

Sound and Music

5. Networking

Score

Chat and Multiplayer

Network Speed Optimizations

6. Host Integration

7. Cheat Protection

8. Tips and Tricks

9. Summary

 

Happy Reading!

Anatomy of a Silverlight Game.docx

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    PingBack from http://www.clickandsolve.com/?p=3731

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2009
    In this issue: Ken Cox, Shawn Oster, Andy Beaulieu, Dean Chalk, Matthias Shapiro, Nikola, Arturo Toledo

  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2009
    This is awasome reading! Keep up the good work, I really enjoyed reading this document. You are on my RSS feed list new :D

  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2009
    Avoid common mistakes when building silverlight online games

  • Anonymous
    February 21, 2009
    There is a fantastic tutorial out Anatomy of a Silverlight Game: Avoid Common Mistakes When Building

  • Anonymous
    February 21, 2009
    Nikola Mihaylov, a Software Design Engineer in Test at Microsoft working on the WPF/Silverlight tools

  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2009
    There is a fantastic tutorial out Anatomy of a Silverlight Game: Avoid Common Mistakes When Building

  • Anonymous
    February 26, 2009
    You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2009
    Just realized I had office 2002 on my computer. Any chance on getting a pdf of this? Looking forward to reading what you've done :)

  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2009
    Hi Joey, please follow this link and select "Download": http://cid-509715ba163e1427.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Anatomy%20of%20a%20Silverlight%20Game.pdf Sorry for the late response, I just realized the notifications on my blog were no longer sent to my email.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2009
    How do i read a docx file? Can you have an option of a pdf, html or old doc file?

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2009
    Sorry, just read the comment above with the pdf link.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2009
    np, hope you'll like it! I'm making a new game and will be publishing some new stuff soon (about making stories in the game and sequencing) - just as blog posts at first. It is very interesting!

  • Anonymous
    August 28, 2009
    Hello I just wanted to let you know about MIRIA Input Gateway that enables Silverlight games to be controlled by games controllers such as Wii Remote. http://miria.codeplex.com Best Regards, Gene.

  • Anonymous
    August 28, 2009
    Thanks Gene! Could you tell me more about (in e-mail?) I'd like to blog about it, but I have few questions - thanks!