Diver is the physics driven Silverlight game I've been working on for the last few months.

The game is a work in progress but I decided to release a playable alpha version to get feedback and to show what's possible with the Silverlight framework.

You control Diver using only the mouse. The position of the mouse on the screen maps to Diver's posture.  Simple mouse gestures can be used to make Diver perform various actions.
The first three Dive's of the game are designed to teach the basics.

A word of warning, the game will probably seem pretty difficult at first but I think you will find the control mechanic very rewarding after some practice.

Have fun and let me know what you think.

Here is the link: http://www.farseergames.com/Diver/DiverPlay.aspx

 Note: A few people have recieved some exceptions on the last two levels. Please let me know if you have any similar issues. You can either post a comment here or use  the feedback button at the bottom of the game page. Thanks.

I should have the first alpha release of Diver out in the next couple days.  In the mean time, here is a new video and some new screen shots.  I've also updated the Diver landing page.

Ihar Kalasouski has just finished a complete port of Erin Catto's Box2D C++ phsyics engine to the .Net framework.  He is calling it Box2DX.

As a bit of a history lesson, the Farseer Physics Engine is based on Erin's 1st version of Box2D, Box2D Light.  Farseer is a pretty heavily modified version of the engine,but that is where its roots lie.

The new version of Box2D that Erin released many months ago is a complete re-write of the original Box2D Light engine.  It is full of useful features, has full docs, and is very nicely architected.

Box2DX, Ihar's c# port mentioned above, is a full 1-1 port of the NEW Box2D engine. Ihar has purposefully mapped all methods and functionality 1-1 into the c# version. This is nice because Box2D has some very nice documentation that now applies directly to Box2DX as well. Ihar has also taken the pains to add code comments to all his methods. (Unlike the developer of the Farseer engine...me!)

I did a compile test with Box2DX to see if it would compile against the Silverlight framework.  It did with only 1 exception. Box2DX uses the ICloneable interface in 1 place and that threw an exception. As far as I can tell, that interface isn't really necassary and removing the reference to it is all that was needed to make the engine compile. I'll see if Ihar is willing to remove it from his source so that no modifications are necassary for the Silverlight compile.

I haven't done anything with Box2DX other than compile it under Silverlight and run the included "HelloWorld" test.

Once I get the alpha version of my Silverlight game, Diver, out the digital door, I will probably take some time to do a few quick examples with Box2X in Silverlight and see how it works.

Links:

Box2D: http://www.box2d.org/

Box2DX: http://code.google.com/p/box2dx/

-Jeff Weber

DevX has recently announced a "Create a Game in Microsfoft Silverlight 2" competition. 

 Prizes are:

1st: Xbox 360
2nd: 80Gig Zune
3rd: Halo3 + Mass Effect

Deadline is May 5th.

While I will not have time to submit an entry myself (too busy working on Diver), I think this is great news.  Anything that adds awareness to Silverlight as a gaming platform is very welcome.  As a bonus, this contest appears to be sponsored by Microsoft. 

It'll be interesting so see what kind of turn-out this competition gets.

 -Jeff Weber

I'm getting close to releasing the first playable Diver alpha.  I decided it's time for a long overdue update on where things are and what to expect over the next few weeks.

What I've Been Doing

I've spent the last couple months (give or take a couple months) getting Diver ready for the alpha release.  Much of this time was spent building a Silverlight game engine that will be re-usable beyond Diver. (For future projects) This effort has pushed Diver back a bit but in the long run it'll be worth it.

I also had to wait for Silverlight 2 Beta 1 to come out as I did not want to do a release using the Silverlight 1.1 alpha. When Silverlight 2 Beta 1 did come out, I updated all the code I had to that point and continued working toward the Diver alpha release. This is where I'm at now, putting the final pieces of the alpha release together.

What To Expect in the Alpha and Future Releases

Below is a bullet list of Diver features across various release stages. All this is in flux and new ideas are always popping up but it should give a good idea of where I'm taking things. 

Diver Alpha Features

• Opening splash screen.
• Main Menu / Level Select Screen.
• 3 learning levels
• 3 to 4 game levels
• Rolling waves
• Splash particle effects for water entry. Varies by how Diver enters the water.
• Splash sound effects
• Quick level reset feature. Your dives will go astray often. At anytime, click near the center of the screen and you will teleport back to the starting platform.
• Teleport particle effects and sound for the level reset mentioned above.
• Scoring based on how well you enter the water. (Needs work but good enough for alpha)
• Level completion metrics
  • Must hit each diving board at least once
  • Must enter the water between the buoy markers.
  • Must get a dive-score > 7.0
• Score screen to display Dive statistics at the end of the Dive.
• Pause/Resume (mostly for taking screenshots)

Planned Diver Features (Very likely to be in the final version but not in alpha)

• Rag-doll effects when brutal collision with landscape occurs.
• Sound effects to go along with the brutal collisions. Bones snapping, grunts... etc...bummer dude.
• Ambient sound
• Remember what levels have been completed plus score-per-level for each user
• Lots of levels of varying difficulty

Possible Diver Features (Would like to get these in but no promises)

• Online level editor with ability to save and share levels over the web
• Record, Save, and Replay all online.
• Flocking birds and schooling fish that react to Diver's presence.
• Observer vehicle/contraption
• Scene enhancements (clouds, weather, artifacts, trees and other vegetation)
• Statistics tracking (total number of dives started, completed, etc...)

I'm sure there are things I'm missing...

When To Expect The Alpha

All that is left to do for the alpha is create some levels and fix up the website a bit.

Once I get a couple levels complete I'll release a teaser/preview video and shortly after that I will release the playable alpha.

I don't have a good feel yet for how long it'll take to make levels so I can't give a solid release date for the alpha.  My best guess is the end of April (2008 of course).

Stay tuned!