Yes, it is true, I’m finally ready to release the first technical preview of the Tales Framework.
Summary
The Tales Framework is an extension library for XNA Game Studio 3.0 that adds hierarchical controls, input handling and easier network session handling to XNA.
The build of the framework is for Windows only. If you would like an Xbox 360 version or have any questions, please contact me at josephmolnar (at) hotmail.com.
Links
Link to version 0.56.26.0 of the framework, help file and the sample source code:
Previous blog posts that explain the features and limitations of Tales Framework version 0.56:
Sample Details
The sample is my 'real-world' test case for the framework. The sample isn’t quite what I would call production quality code yet, but it is fairly solid. As I work towards the final release of the framework I’ll be updating the sample code.
The sample is not a full working game. It is a working example of creating a menuing system and creating, find and joining a network game. In particular the sample has:
- Full working menus for creating a new multi-player match
- Full working menus for finding a multi-player match
- Full working lobby
- An example pause menu
- A game screen (no actual game and networking isn’t 100% correct yet)
While the sample demonstrates the framework well, here are some of the more interesting places to look:
- The pause menu shows binding a menu so input is only processed for the player that paused the menu.
- Hitting the Start button or Enter key on the main menu demonstrates that moving a parent control moves all children controls within in.
- The networking menus use the GameSessionHelper; you can hit the back button at any time.
Note: For the networking menus to work you must have a Games for Windows Live profile (local or network). If you don’t, when the sample starts hit the Home key and follow the instructions. This will initiate the installation of Games for Windows Live and the creation of a profile.
