Mads, over at Laumania.net has a blog post about his new Code Plex project dedicated to Farseer Physics Samples

 Check it out.

Here is the blog post

Here is the CodePlex project:

Thanks, Mads!

As someone developing Silverlight games, I'm very intereseted in Silveright gaining an install base.

Until now, it's been pretty difficult to get a good feel for just how large (or small) this Silverlight install-base is.

Recently, I came accross the following site: RIAStats.com

This site allows website owners to install a small chunk of java script that will record what RIA Plug-in visting users have installed.  The site then gathers this data and presents it in two very easy to understand formats. 

As I write this, RIAStats.com is tracking about 25000+ websites and is showing Silverlight 2.0 to be around 15%.  Not bad considering it's still in beta.

Have a look!

http://www.riastats.com/

It probably seems like progress has stopped on the development of my game Diver.  It hasn't.  I've just been spending all my spare moments trying to get the game finished rather than writing blog posts.

I'm still working on Diver everyday.  I still only get 1.5 to 2 hrs. per day to work on it so progress is still slow but steady. 

So, where are things ?

• I've got about 24 levels complete. They just need some final touches. (I decided there will be 30 total for this first release so I have 6 more to create)
• Sound effects are done.
• Ragdoll effects are complete. They add a LOT to the game. It's almost more fun to fail a dive and crash on the rocks than to make a good dive.  The Ragdoll effect kicks in if/when you break your neck so what ever you do protect the neck.
• Re-worked the scoring display and next/previous level buttons
• Tutorial levels are about 60% complete.  This is one of the things I'm really trying to get right.  The controls for Diver scare many people away... or send them away in frustration.  I'm pretty confident if I can get the tutorials right I'll retain a much larger percentage of players.

So, when will it be done?  No exact dates to announce, but I'm shooting for the end of this month.

Here are a couple screenies from the new tutorials

Here are a couple  from new levels.

Nice to see that the team that created one of the most popular web games, Line Rider, has decided to use Silverlight for the web version of there next release.

This is great because it is another step toward Silverlight being taken serious for game development.  My  hope is that some of the large portal sites like Kongregate, Addicting Games, and New Grounds will begin to take notice and allow us Silverlight developers to upload our games.

-Jeff Weber

A team of developers from Cornell gave me a heads up about a game they created using the Farseer Physics Engine. The game is called "Forgotten Sky". It's a retro platformer in the vein of Bionic Commando.    More info and a download link can be found here: http://www.dynamitebananas.com/fs/index.html

A screenie: