Earlier this week, I spoke to Frank La Vigne, a Microsoft Technical Evangelist, for his YouTube
channel: Frank’s World TV.
See the entire video here:
FWTV: Indie Games, Windows 8 and Ninja Cats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRjrQPvVOpo
: Download Ninja Cat Runner for free from the Windows Store!
: Play the web version on your smartphone, tablet or desktop browser!
: Download Ninja Cat Runner for free from the Windows Phone Store!
Having published 2 XNA games on Xbox Live Indie Games, I have been interested in looking at new platforms for future game projects. When Windows 8 was announced, I was disappointed that Microsoft didn’t officially support XNA for Windows 8. I looked at the other options for Microsoft game development, and even wrote a blog post about it.
But recently, I learned about a game creation tool called Construct 2, which provides a UI for quick game design. The games can be exported to all major platforms, as an HTML5/web game, a PhoneGap package, even a Windows 8 game.
Construct 2, from Scirra
Last week, I had just attended a user group meeting for DCDNUG, hosted by G. Andrew Duthie, a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft. The topic was “Developing Games for the Windows Store with HTML5 and JavaScript” and was a great introduction to creating games for Microsoft’s new platform using familiar web technologies.
I downloaded Andrew’s Community Megaphone app for Windows 8 after the meeting, and learned about the interactive event, Game Development for Beginners, at Microsoft’s Reston VA office. This is one of many free Game Dev events from Microsoft listed in the app.
I recently took and passed the Microsoft exam MCSD 70-480 “Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3”.
However, this exam is relatively new as of early 2013, and the official book wasn’t out yet when I first published this blog post. It is now available for purchase, as of Spring 2013.
To prepare for the exam, you may refer to the following online resources:
