Thoughts on the WP7 Advertising SDK

June 12th, 2012 | Posted by Darwish in Programming - (0 Comments)

As small-time Windows Phone developers looking to monetize our apps, the free-with-ads model is very attractive. So this week, I buckled down and took a shot at integrating the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone into one of our existing games, Follow the Curve.

The SDK itself is quite simple to use. Microsoft provides an extremely detailed tutorial on getting started, as well as a code sample to inspire you. Piece of cake, right? Well, almost. Right off the bat, I had a problem: the sample would run, but no ads would appear.… Continue reading

,

2D Metaballs in XNA

June 5th, 2012 | Posted by Hoffman in Programming - (10 Comments)

Download the full source.

Metaballs are organic-looking balls that deform as they merge or split, as shown in the picture below.  It’s a neat little effect, often used to render liquids or gels.  This is a tutorial on how to produce 2D metaballs in XNA.  As a bonus, the code requires no custom shaders, and therefore works equally well on Windows Phone, Xbox, and PC.

To produce metaballs, you create a function, f(x, y), that becomes smaller as you get further from the metaball. … Continue reading

, ,