Particle effects

I've been playing around with the Mercury Particle Engine on/off for about a month and I'm using it to add particle effects to our current project "Space Swine". Here's a few screenshots showing off the enemy explosions and boss explosion. Click on the images for a larger version.

 

The new joystiq.com

Last night the gaming website http://www.joystiq.com/ went live after a major redesign and I think the new site looks pretty spiffy and up-to-date compared to other gaming sites like http://ign.com. The site was redesigned for ease of use navigating to just what you want to find, and I think it works pretty well. There's links referring to each console (similar to IGN) and overall I just like the color/design of the site.

The A-Team = Awesome!

So I saw the movie The A-Team last night... and it was epic. I don't have any previous knowledge of it (either from the graphic novels or the TV series) but it had an awesome cast and a lot of action. Liam Neeson (Clash of the Titans, Taken), Bradley Cooper (The Hangover), Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson (UFC), and Sharlto Copley (District 9) all make for an awesome cast and there was never a dull moment. If you decide to see any movie that's out in theaters, The A-Team would be my first suggestion!

E3 2010: Xbox 360 E3 Preview - Xbox360 Feature at IGN

E3 2010: Xbox 360 E3 Preview - Xbox360 Feature at IGN

For those of you that don't know, E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo) is one of the biggest gaming expos of the year and it's where MAJOR announcements are made regarding the console/PC world. I'm looking forward to what Microsoft's Project Natal (their 3D camera) is capable of. Supposedly it's rumored to get renamed to Wave instead of Natal, but we'll find that out on Sunday June 13th for Microsoft's Natal event. Being a core gamer myself I'm not so interested in its appeal to the casual gamer. Being able to navigate the menus with a swipe of your hand is cool and all, but hopefully they'll be some awesome features that tie into core games as well.

About me

I'm currently a programmer for Robot Foot Games, just making XNA games for the Xbox 360 with some friends. We release our first game "Nomis: Legacy Islands" on May 8th and we're currently working on a new game called Space Swine. It's a twin-stick shooter, sort of like geometry wars, and it has some fun elements to it to hopefully make it a fun experience all around. We've been working on it for about 1 month and a half at this point and hopefully we'll be ready to release in a few weeks.

We have a website that we use to blog about the progress on our games at http://robotfootgames.com.

I'll be using this blog to talk about anything that I come across that I find interesting (related to gaming) and to give a heads up about any cool looking XNA games I play before they come out!