Ahoy!

Our September 2011 Meetup is scheduled for September 19th from 6PM to 8PM @ TechColumbus. Please see details below & kindly RSVP.

Topic:
Tale of Two Awesome Games!

Our next meetup should be fantastic .. we have two very passionate XNA/Silverlight developers come talk about developing their respective XNA games for the Windows Phone platform. These two games are quite popular & have real-world complexity in development & eventual certification for Marketplace publication. We shall hear first-hand from the developers on what their experience has been like!

Topic 1:
Lessons Learned while writing “Koi Pond” Game!

Abstract:
What could be so hard about creating a “Koi Pond” game for the Windows Phone?  Doug Mair will give an overview of what it took to build the WP7 “Koi Pond” from Corpria.  The game/application was ultimately built in XNA for Windows Phone; but a Silverlight version was also attempted.  For a simple game, it uses quite a lot of the Windows Phone features, including Multi-Touch, Sound, Accelerometer, Vibration, Microsoft Ad SDK, Pre-Emptive Analytics and Obfuscation. Other challenges encountered while developing the game were —  Finding Art, Finding Sounds, Making waves, Making fish swim, XNA Menus, Metro UI Standards, Alpha Blending & Using DrawUserPrimitives (for 3D effects). Want to learn more? Come on out & we shall walk through the steps above for a thorough run-down of what it took to write “Koi Pond“.

Speaker Bio:
Doug Mair (@doug_mair/Email: doug.mair@corpria.com) has been developing software on Microsoft stack in the Columbus Ohio area for over 25 years. Applications built range from custom Rules Engines and Graphical Kiosk Systems to Assembly Line Integration and Website development.

Recently Doug has focused his “after work” application development on the Windows Phone platform & loves developing apps that challenge his mind. He learnt Silverlight and XNA in order to develop these apps; Silverlight has been a blast to learn and use, while on the other hand, XNA is super powerful, but not so friendly.

Topic 2:
An XNA Adopter’s Experience

Abstract:
Many who enjoy video games often wonder how it will be to build their own video game.  This talk will take the group through one enthusiast’s experience in making the transition from game consumer to game developer. We shall do a complete walk-through of what it took to develop & publish the “Piggie Chase” XNA game for Windows Phone.

Speaker Bio:
Matt Middendorf (@MiddenMob/Email: Matthew.Middendorf@us.sogeti.com) is a Senior Consultant with Sogeti USA specializing in .NET, ASP.NET, XNA, and Silverlight application architecture on SharePoint, Windows Phone and other platforms.

Both the “Koi Pond” & “Piggie Chase” games are in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Go check them out!!

Please RSVP on our Meetup site @ http://meetup.com/cowpug. Hope to see you all there!