Dragon's Claw Tutorial Two Is Live

 I have just published tutorial two in the Dragon's Claw tutorial series. This tutorial covers creating and displaying tutorials. You can find the tutorial on the Web Game Programming Tutorials page of the site. You can also read it using this direct link.

Dragon's Claw Tutorial Two Status

I spent the better part of the day working on the second Dragon's Claw tutorial. The initial plan was Shadow Monsters but I'm not sure what topic I want to cover next. While taking some time to think about it I decided to move onto Dragon's Claw. In this tutorial I do a lot of the work of empires. There are other features I plan to implement in the future.

While I'm talking about series there is something I have been planning for a while. That is migrating Eyes of the Dragon to MonoGame. It has a lot in common with Shadow Monsters because Shadow Monsters got a lot of its code from Eyes of the Dragon.

Dragon's Claw Tutorial One Live

 I have publishes the first tutorial in the Dragon's Claw tutorial series, which is a text based web game. This tutorial creates the project and goes over creating a new character. You can find the tutorial on the Web Game Programming Tutorials page of the site or at this direct link.

This is what the create character page looks like.

Once the character is created this is what the game screen looks like. You click ^ to collapse panels and V to expand panels. In future tutorials I will be adding the panels.

Dragon's Claw Tutorial One Status

I made a lot of progress on the first tutorial in the Dragon's Claw series today. The tutorial covers creating the project, setting up Less, creating some of the database tables, creating the layout for the game, creating some models, views and a controller, and some jQuery work. There was also some database layer work. 

I'm going to explain a little how the game works. When you first start the game you choose your sector. Your sector has a ruler and a race. The ruler has a class. The race and class have different strengths and weaknesses that affect the game in different ways. Once you have a sector the goal is to expand your empire through exploration or conquest before the end of the era. An era is between 8 and 12 weeks. The game is turn based where a turn occurs every hour. Each turn you gain resources and cool downs are reduced. Your sector can be part of an empire. You cannot do harmful actions on other empire members or allied empires. Each turn you generate terabytes of data. These terabytes are invested into different branches of technology. These branches affect the game in different ways.

The game takes place on a single page. The page is made up of panels with a title bar. The panels are collapsed initially. In the title bar are buttons that expand and collapse the panel. When a panel is expanded an AJAX call is made to the server. The returned data is displayed in the panel.

In addition to military conquest there is also espionage, raiding and psychic energy or psionic abilities. With espionage you gather intel, and run other operations You can raid other players for resources. With psionic abilities you can harm opponents or aid your allies.

Shadow Monsters Tutorial Nineteen Is Live

 I have just pushed tutorial nineteen in the Shadow Monsters tutorial series live. This tutorial continues on with handling different resolutions. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGame Tutorials page of the web site or you can use this direct link.

I'm also happy to announce that I have created a Git repository for the Shadow Monsters project that also contains all of the tutorials. You can find the repository here https://github.com/Synammon/Shadow-Monsters.

Dragon's Claw Tutorial Series

 I will starting work on a new tutorial series, Dragon's Claw. Dragon's Claw is a text based, turn based strategic RPG. It is in a sci-fi setting but it could easily be converted to a fantasy setting. It is entirely web based. I used the MVC pattern when developing it. Once you get to the game portion it is a single page application. All communication with the server is done using AJAX. Things that I used include jQuery, LESS and Font Awesome. Font Awesome is completely optional but jQuery is required so if you don't know it you will need to brush up on it. You can get away with using plain CSS instead of LESS. You would just need to use hard coded values instead of variables. I didn't use any functions so that shouldn't be an issue.

I will likely be alternating tutorials between Shadow Monsters and Dragon's Claw for a while. First I plan on finishing handling multiple resolutions in the game. After that I will probably publish my first Dragon's Claw tutorial as I want to work on that too.

Tutorial Eighteen Is Live

 I have just posted tutorial 18 in the Shadow Monsters series. It starts on how to support multiple resolutions in the game. You can find it and all of my tutorials on the MonoGame Tutorials page of the blog or you can use this direct link.

GUI Buttons

 I've been searching for some GUI elements for the Shadow Monsters tutorial series. In particular I need buttons for moving a selection left or right. I went to my go to site, Open Game Art. I will be going with some graphics that were created by looneybits. They have a pack of graphic user interface of buttons that are pretty sharp. The link to the library is https://opengameart.org/content/gui-buttons-vol1. Here is a preview of the buttons.

Tile Set

 I will be linking it in my next tutorial but I found a tile set that I like for the tutorial series. It is by Fuwaneko Games and can be found here. It has more elements than the tile set that I'm currently using. I've linked the image below as well.

I am working on the next tutorial. It will be about handling different resolutions.

Tutorial Seventeen Is Live

 I have published the seventeenth tutorial in the Shadow Monsters tutorial series. This tutorial introduces the concept of a world instead of map. It updates both the game and the editor. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGame Tutorials page of the blog or you can use this direct link.

Tutorial Sixteen Is Live

I have just posted the 16th tutorial in the Shadow Monsters tutorial series. This tutorial continues on with the editor. It covers creating portals, painting collisions and adding shadow monsters to the map. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGame Tutorial page or you can use this direct link.

Tutorial Fifteen Is Live

 I have just uploaded tutorial fifteen in the Shadow Monsters series. This tutorial continues on with the game editor. It covers adding in characters and merchants to a map. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGame Tutorials page of the site. You can also find the tutorial using this direct link.

Tutorial Fourteen Is Live

 I have just finished uploading tutorial fourteen in the Shadow Monsters tutorial series to my web site. This tutorial continues on with the editor making changes to painting and saving and loading maps. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGames Tutorial page or you can use this direct link.

Tutorial Thirteen Is Live

 I have just uploaded tutorial thirteen in the Shadow Monsters tutorial series to the blog. This tutorial starts creating the game editor. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGame Tutorials page of the web site or you can use this direct link.

Tutorial Twelve Is Live

 I have just finished uploading tutorial twelve in the Shadow Monsters series. You can find the tutorial on the MonoGame tutorial page of the blog or at this link.
This tutorial covers loading in a saved game.

Tutorial Eleven Is Live

Sorry it has been so long, I've been having problems since I've been home from the hospital. I worked on tutorial 11 in the Shadow Monsters series as I could. I've finished it and posted it on the MonoGames Tutorials page of the web site.