I had started a few months ago messing around with getting Microsoft's Xna to render on a Windows Form. Once it was done I set out to build a 3D World Editor, but eventually stopped as I lacked the skills needed to do what I wanted. The editor was supposed to have a complete scripting environment, or at least allow writing objects in Microsoft's C#, and importing the .dll files into the editor. Unfortunately I did not know how to go about doing that, and stopped working on the project.

Well, now that I have the Mud Creator Tool Kit Beta released with the ability to create custom commands and load the assembly (Assemblies = .dll files )dynamically during runtime, pull the command files from the assembly and execute them, I went and ahead and revisited the World Editor.

The Mud Creator Tool Kit was different, as I had wrote a simple little command engine that basically got small pieces of pre-compiled code executed during runtime. I thought about doing that with the new World Editor, but thought that it was a waste of time. Most developers either code with a scripting language or code and compile the assembly files and referencing them with their engine. So that really wasn't something that I was looking for.

So I set out on a new idea. I'll just build my own scripting engine, and allow developers to write their scripts from within the World Editor, compile them and generate an assembly. Now the developer will not need to do any coding within Microsoft C#. The editor takes care of everything.

So with that, I am excited to say I am now developing the xWorld Game Engine, which will be a 3D Game Engine, with a complete 3D world editing software included. Players can create objects through xml script powered by C# within the editor, compile the scripts into a binary assembly for distribution, drag and drop the scripts into the 3D world to populate it in a similar fashion to the Unreal Engine, and much more!

Mud Creator will still be developed on, but it will share time with this project. Actually I'm surprised at how much faster xWorld is coming along over the Mud Creator. I spent 4 days working on it, and it's further along than the Mud Creator was after a month of development. Working on the Mud Creator Tool Kit has really paid off, as the experience gained there is really helping with the xWorld development.

So with that, check out a quick video I put together demonstrating the scripting engine in action! You can view it at the link below

http://airheadgaming.com/downloads/Video.avi

So until next time,

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

The Mud Creator Beta has an update on the way out that will include some various bug fixes, but also include a couple of new commands. While the Beta 1.0 included the 'Get' command, it was not really implemented. Now with the V1.1 Beta, the Get command picks up items from the room and adds them to the players inventory, and using the new 'Inventory' command, players can view their entire inventory.

There are still a few bugs that I am trying to work out with the 'Get' command and the Testing Console, since using the command picks up items in the currently loaded room, thus removing them from the room all together. When you exit the test session, you'll notice your room is lacking all the items, and you need to replace them using the editors again. I have spent the last few days trying to fix this issue, and have yet to find a solution. Once the solution is found, I plan on prepping the 1.1 for release.

One more thing I would like to add is, check the Product Wiki every now and then, as I am constantly refining and adding documentation for the Tool Kit. Over the next couple of weeks I will start writing documentation for the game engine as well (which is included with the Tool Kits Beta), and so those of you wanting to learn how to program a Mud using the game engine instead of the Tool Kit, you can do so.

Note that the game engine will not be released in a supported beta form for another couple months.

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

I have been told of a few bugs that are in the Beta 1 release. I wanted to go over them in this blog so that everyone would be aware of them.

1. Inventory objects are not displayed inside of your rooms.
2. objects are cannot be picked up.
3. Some objects will crash the design-time testing (Monsters have been confirmed)

These bugs are being worked on and a update will be released with the fixes. A new command will be introduced in the next update, the "inventory" command will display a list of contents in the users inventory.

Next is the current list of fixes and new additions to the next release of the tool kit.

1.  Added 'Inventory' command
2.  Fixed 'Look' command not printing all objects in the room to the console.
3. 'Look' command now prints the objects RoomDescription rather than the Description property if one exists.
4. 'Look' command now prints a default description if there is no RoomDescription.

Until the next blog post.

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

My machine that I have been working on the Mud Creator has been giving me a hard time over the last couple weeks. Frequent lock ups, updates not applying ect. and my network has been down for the last two weeks. So I was not able to work much on the engine and toolkit. I did manage to implement the ability to add custom command libraries to the projects so now developers can write custom commands for their projects and load them. This was something I was not planning on adding until Beta 2, but it actually turned out to be a pretty simple thing to add, so I went ahead and did it. It's looking like the Beta might get pushed back a couple weeks to do the issues I have been dealing with, but I am hoping to have it out in the first or second week of August. It's almost ready, just need to do some final tweaking and prep some documentation.

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

I spent the last couple nights getting it setup and uploaded to the site, I am still working on getting a link added to the main site, but for now you can access it at http://wiki.airheadgaming.com.

At the moment there is just a little info on the Mud Creator Engine and Tool Kit, but as time allows I will start adding some additional documentation to it. It has been made open to the public, so if you have some additional information you would like to add to it please feel free to do so, as long as it pertains to the product and is wrote in a professional manor.

I will post up a news release here over the next couple of days to make it all official with some documentation guidelines for everyone to follow

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

While I am still a few weeks away from getting a version released to the community, I wanted to go ahead and record a quick video demonstrating what the Mud Creator Tool Kit can do. The video is pretty hefty in size (175mb), but it shows off 9 minutes of Mud Creator video, demonstrating how a project is created, how objects are added to the project, how to create zones and rooms, link rooms together and test your project all within the same program!

Please watch the video and feel free to post comments on what you think!

The video can be watched by clicking HERE

I spent some time last night working on a schedule for the Mud Creator, and after finishing it I found that the the engine and tool kit is about 80% how I want it for the Beta 1 release, unfortunately the schedule takes me out to September before the Beta can reach 100%. I plan on working hard to get the major components finished over the next couple of weeks and I think I will just release the Beta 1 early, and as the beta completion percentage increases I will just release updates for it.

I have been saying "it will be out hopefully in June/July" for a few months now, and here we are in July with a date set for September, doesn't sound fair to me, so fear not! I will get an early version prepared for everyone and shoot for a July release, with the final Beta 1.0 (probably labeled 1.1 or 1.2) will be released in September.

I have the room designer, and object editors finished, but I need to work on linking objects together (such as a race must be linked to a class within the editing environment). I just re-added the design-time testing features (again) last night, as it was re-wrote from the ground up about a month ago and it works 100% better than the previous one I was using.

I also have a primitive set of commands added into the engine, and I am hoping to give users the chance to create their own by the time the September release is here. I'm crossing my fingers!

Till next post,

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

I have spent a lot of time debating if I want to go ahead and attempt to create a complete 3D action/adventure game on my own and have finally decided to stop debating and get on with it. The project is just starting the design phase, and has along way to go before anyone will be able to even see some screen shots of the game. I am using the opensource Project Manager OpenProj to create a schedule and start managing the project. I do have a very primitive schedule in place, and it is looking like a three year project, with development of the project ending sometime in March of 2011.

I am not sure what technology I will use for the game, as I own a license to the Torque Engine as stated in my previous post, but I also would like to experiment a little with creating my own engine, or possibly use Visual 3D to design the game. Either way, I do know that I want to have the game in a easily portable state for moving off the PC and onto the xBox 360 if I choose to. I really want to move it to the PS3 as well, but as of right now Sony does not offer any affordable way for indie developers to create games for their console.

For those of you waiting anxiously for the Mud Creator Tool Kit, it will still be developed on. I am not going to stop working on it, and I am still hoping on getting a Beta out soon. Now that I have a good understanding of using OpenProj for creating schedules and managing a project, I am going to create a schedule for the Mud Creator, so I will have some sort of a schedule to keep and follow, and I will have a better idea of release dates for the community when they start getting near.

It's been a little while since I have last posted and so I decided to get a quick update out to everyone.

The Mud Engine Tool Kit is still under development, it was delayed for a little while due to some research that was being performed but rest assured that the Tool Kit is almost ready for its first beta release soon!

Airhead Studios had acquired a license to use the Torque Game Engine about 6 months ago, and have since spent some time playing around with it and getting to know how it works. I know that I want to start developing a game using the Torque Engine, but I have yet to decided how I will tackle that monster. Open source the game? Singleplayer/Multiplayer? FPS or RTS? These are the things that I am playing around with in my mind at the moment. As this will be the first game created using this engine, I am planning on keeping things simple, and I am almost positive I will release the game for free. The only question is, provide the game source (not engine source) to the public, or keep it closed source. That is the question!

Until next blog,

Johnathon
Airhead Gaming

I took a little time today and updated the forums on the site. I removed a few sections that really didn't need to be part of the forums, and I also re-arranged the ordering of the categories, and added a new one for the Mud Creator. The forums main page now looks a little cleaner, and less cluttered. Over the next couple of weeks, the site will be getting a couple other tweaks here and there as I continue to work on it.

I also checked on some stats related to the website, and received a pleasant surprise. The AirheadGaming.com website has had 134,543 hits since I was created back in December. Not to bad considering I have not done any advertising yet.

Regards,
Johnathon
Airhead Gaming