Titan Attacks by Puppy Games is C#?

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

It is now 8)

Because I’ve just spent the best part of the past month converting all of Caspian’s libraries to C# - these are the desktop versions (I did some Android work earlier on in the year so I could build on the knowledge gained there).

Some Java classes and bits of LWJGL made the jump too.

I’ve blogged a bit about the process here if anyone is interested…
http://pumpkin-games.net/wp/?p=110

…and here…
http://pumpkin-games.net/wp/?p=139

It’s currently in testing. I’m aiming for something like the initial title screen late Sunday (although the pre-widescreen version has been converted and is playable). Game saves, ‘Steam’ stuff and sound still to finish.

So, if you like Puppy Games and have an Xbox, PS Vita or an iOS device keep an eye out for some news probably early next year.

Paul.

#2

I dont like C#, but I do like other platforms I cannot target with Libgdx

so tell me, how do you write a C# game and port it to Xbox or PS Vita ? I would think that their stuff(SDKs) is all C++

#3

Xbox -> XNA.
Vita -> Playstation Mobile (previously known as Playstation Suite)

#4

What is it about C# that you don’t like? It’s pretty much Java by another name really.

I’m going to use MonoGame to target the other platforms. It’s a cross platform conversion of the XNA framework (obviously using Mono).

#5

Well I dont like microsoft standards in general :<
(and yeah, a stolen java with another name by microsoft - its all wrong D:)

I assume one has to know a great deal to port a opengl to XNA/direct X
but if its done, and reliably so in MonoGame…

curious that when I asked at the libgdx forums if they were ever going to port to XNA it was a sound no

#6

Just for once would people try to actually educate themselves before starting this idiotic “C# is a Java ripoff” meme again? Anders Hejlsberg has a history in creating programming languages that’s probably longer than James Gosling’s, nor did Sun invent the concept of bytecode. Microsoft is a big company that does a lot of different things, and this constant knee-jerk railing and ranting against everything they’ve ever touched is infantile, irratating, and just so much noise.

#7

C# is a microsoft language intended to write programs which only run on microsoft system.
third party developers have made it possible by then use it in ways it wasn’t intended, like Mono, which is great for us.
Nevertheless the fact that microsoft has to develop their own standards all the time is quite annoying to me, they will copy whatever they see, and I will not support even one thing. (Everything the made is a blatant copy of already existing stuff, only with the microsoft seal of quality, which is faster release for more money, regardless of stability or completion, see, among others, VISTA, BSODs, RROD etc)
Even though they do not get real “support” by me using C#, but its idealism. I will try to use options other than microsoft whenever I can, and I will certainly try to avoid giving them money.

I simply stated “I dont like C#”, thats it. I knew it wouldn’t end there, because people on the internet have a tendency to question your reasoning and then arguing it.

#8

Wanna be friends? I easily connect deeply with people who say they knew all along, after it happened.

#9

Ah man, I was hoping this wouldn’t descend into a silly argument about which language was better. They both have their good and bad points.

Puppy games are fun and I want to see them on more platforms. I want to play Titan Attacks in my living room on a huge TV on my Xbox or on my phone when I’m on the train to work - now I can ;D

#10

Yeah it’s like a religious debate… never ends well.

My point is: lets not fight about that kinda stuff here.

Porting a game to another platform with C# is “the greater good” and its certainly easier than with C++
So im all for it

#11

So you must use Linux? No wait that’s direct ripoff of Unix. Mac then? No they first copy everyone else then sue people who copy them. I guess you must use a home grown OS, else that would make you a hypocrite. The world has always worked by people seeing something and saying I can make that better. So whining about who stole what from whom is totally counter productive and wasteful. That’s why billions of dollars are wasted in patent and copyright cases instead of people just trying to do some work.

#12

It’s all a bit fiddly but Paul’s been making great progress converting our framework into C#. Crappy performance problems on the 360 are a bit of a hindrance (hopeless VM - they really missed a trick there).

Plan is to get our games on 360 and Playstation, but Titan Attacks is already being ported into Monkey by another friend of ours to get it on to iOS.

Still utterly shameful that we even have to do any of this but there we have the final results of 10 years of mismanagement of the Java client.

Cas :slight_smile:

#13

Good job on Revenge of Titans and the conversion to C#, and good luck.
I don’t care about which programming language is/should be better, but i prefer Eclipse over Visual C#.

Shame on everyone else against my opinion, because if i said so, it’s right.

#14

I’m actually curious, even though we had Visual Studio vs Eclipse threads before.
I dont think I know many people who are experienced in both Eclipse ans Visual Studio.
But many Eclipse lovers haaate Visual Studio but I mett more and more people who absolutely love VS.
I never used it long enough to make suffidient judgement - all I saw was: It’s giant like 8GB and compiling takes looong (but I was writing C++, so native compiling)

#15

Well i never got really deep into Visual C#, but the lack of auto-indenting and other little things made me cry. Especially on the C# classes, i was like “LET ME USE SOMETHING ELSE PLEEEEEASEEEEE”
It’s a matter of taste, actually; Some people hate Eclipse for being slow and bloated.

And the last line of my previous post was obviously a joke :expressionless:

#16

VS has a nice debugger. As an editor, it’s badly stripped. And don’t get me started on build configurations.

#17

It’s really hard to compare Eclipse and VS, primarily because the experience using them is vastly different depending on what language you’re using. ‘Eclipse’ usually just means Eclipse for java dev, which is pretty damn slick. Eclipse for C++ is a whole other beast.

Similarly for VS. The VS C++ debugger is great, but the VS C++ code editor is abysmal. It’s clunky to navigate, it’s code completion and syntax highlighting is often flat out wrong, and it has an annoying tenancy to lock up the whole app when it scans the code. Everyone ends up resorting to something like Visual Assist to make it usable. VS C# on the other hand is a completely different beast - the editor is much more functional, but the debugger is IMHO worse (and worse than Eclipse’s Java debugger).

Of course like most MS tools it also really depends on what the rest of your environment looks like. VS is great if you’re living and breathing the MS stack all day, but will kick and fight if you ever try and use it in a different way or with different tools. Eclipse, Netbeans, etc. are much more comfortable in letting you integrate different tools and plugins. So even comparing the two versions with relevant languages, your experience varies hugely depending on what other stuff you’re doing.

TL;DR version: saying “Eclipse sucks, VS is much better” (or the reverse) is a nearly worthless statement unless you also qualify what languages, toolset, environment, source control, app and functionality you’re developing with/in.

#18

Alright, but now I have a really serious question for you.

When you create a new game - will it be Java or will it be directly done in the other languages to get your broader platform support without having to do porting work first? Seems to me that continuing to use Java for PC stuff at this point in time will just be extra maintenance that is not necessary :confused:

#19

It will be Java, because that’s what I’m good at and it gives me all 3 platforms that make me enough money to live on (Win, Mac, Lin). I’m totally disinterested in console development because of the daft hoops you need to jump through not to mention the incredible expense. And designing a game that works on touch platforms that is also going to work on the desktop is just laughable.

Cas :slight_smile:

#20

I think one way to approach mobile for someone like PuppyGames would be to create companion apps/games for your desktop games. I’m not sure how exactly that would fit into your current line-up, but i’ve seen a few big fish doing that recently. If your games had some kind of persistent state to them, say inventory, an avatar, etc., a companion app could offer you managment facilities for that. Alternatively, if your main game has some kind of in-app currency, you could have a small mini-game mobile app that allows you to earn a bit of that on the go. When you return to your game on the desktop, your freshly earned currency is ready to be spent (or you do it in the mobile app :D).