It was a bit of a shock when I then found out that it appears you can only make games using Visual C# (maybe you need plugins or something to use other languages, I don’t know) but I don’t really mind – I just ploughed on and figured I’ll learn C# as I go. Which turned out to be a good plan.

Because the tutorials on the XNA website are so slow it’s unreal. I don’t mean in terms of buffering, I mean they assume you’re completely incapable of navigating your own screen. They have to recap in painful detail exactly where a menu is (despite having a goddamned video. I have eyes, thank you very much. And they work too, funnily enough.) and all of the important parts of the last video. You know, that video that I just finished watching.

It’s fair enough aiming the tutorials at people with no C# experience, or even no programming experience. But we’re not retarded. Honestly. Plus, it’s all in American. They really kill our language. For example, what is #? It’s a hash, or a sharp symbol. Not a pound. That looks like £.

Anyway, that’ll do for an XNA-directed rant for the moment. In other news, I still have the same job as yesterday and the day before. This is promising, no? Today, I was updating the content of one website. And then tidying it all up with phpMyAdmin because the backend is useless and has no edit page. A minor annoyance, but it’s more than counterbalanced by the fact that Macs are pwettiful.

My job means that I’m not really getting all that much done: No Xbox 360, limited coding, no Mech, Stats or Pure Maths and no social contact. Fortunately, night was created for a reason: for people with jobs to not sleep because they’re doing things they would otherwise have done during the day.

Not to mention the fact that I’m enjoying both the work and the atmosphere. There’s a lot of banter that goes on, plus random pictures sent around on iChat (for example: this was pretty funny, if inappropriate) and I’m finding new places to eat in Huddersfield every day. We went to a noodle bar for lunch today.

None of us ate noodles. Anyways, back to the frustrating tutorials.

~ Godders.

However, once things are downloaded (Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition has a whopping seven-and-a-half hours to go at the current rate) I can start coding again. This is something I’ve been looking forward to for ages, i.e. since I stopped having a Windows-based PC connected to the internet.

Now, this summer for me presents a real opportunity to develop my programming skills. I’m working full-time in web development which will provide a fantastic platform to become proficient at XHTML, CSS and PHP with the opportunity to throw some Javascript in there too. But that’s not the only thing.

Microsoft have got an initiative called Dreamspark. Essentially, it’s a way for students at high school, college and university to get their hands on free copies of their proprietary software. We’re talking everything from Visual Studio (2005 and 2008 editions) to their Robotics software, Server software and one particularly interesting piece of kit: XNA Game Studio 3.0

This allows people to develop games for Windows Live. That includes Xbox Live, by the way. It provides full support for achievements, Xbox 360 game controllers and all sorts of funky multiplayer stuff. Admittedly, the free subscription that you get from Dreamspark doesn’t allow you to publish the games you make, but as a learning experience I think it’s fantastic.

It’s also possible to make these games in any language that supports the .NET framework which means I can develop my skills not only in the language that I am fluent in (VB.NET) but also in the one that i’m not so confident with (C++).

I’ve got a real buzz though, am really looking forward not only to working but also to actually being able to code again within a good environment.

~ Godders