I got a few emails about TD updates so I thought I’d just stop and take a screenshot of what I was working on while coding.

What you see here may not seem like much, but essentially what I’m working on is a backend framework for Xbox/Windows games called ShnazzXNA. The idea is to allow me to rapidly develop games under the same set of code used for current and future projects. As it stands I have roughly 70% of the functionality in this framework that I used out of Torque so I’m doing well.

 The last leg before I can start migrating the gameplay code into C#/XNA from the Torque version is GUI code. XNA comes with no pre-made way of building interfaces so I’ll have to code one. Once I’m comfortable with the framework I plan on releasing it for public usage.

Excellent news, XNA 3.0 is being released end of this month (http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/archive/2008/10/14/creators-club-communiqu-04.aspx). The Xbox Live update is coming out Nov 19th.

Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll make these dates to launch ShnazzTD with this but the XNA 3.0 update will be great for development.  Especially considering I haven’t gone far enough into development to have much to worry about in upgrading ShnazzTD.

In other news, development for Xbox/Windows is going good, but I’m interested in paying for some real graphics for the game. If you are an interested designer, I’m looking to give ShnazzTD a new or better look and feel. Right now it really is something I threw together in paint with lots of clipart! Please send contact information and portfolio links via the forum shnazz.com/forums/index.php private message to Arkantis.

My apologies for the lack of updates. After getting seriously fed-up with Torque and its’ horrible localization support, I gave up on this TD for a month or two. Since then I’ve been re-evaluating the platform I wish to develop games on. I’ve finally settled on XNA for Shnazz TD and potentially PHP/Javascript for some other games I’ve been brewing in my head depending on certain factors of the XNA framework I have yet to figure out.

What this means is that Shnazz TD is going to be rebuilt from the ground up using XNA Games for Windows and developed with FULL Xbox 360 support. With the scheduled end of the year Xbox update, Microsoft said they will give developers a place to put their games on Xbox Live with a profit sharing program. I will be taking full advantage of this program! However, I love playing games on PC myself hence it will still be downloadable.

Check out this forum post: translation help. I finally got the English localization file ready. Please send me updated text or post it on the forum with what language you are translating to. I’m open to adding support for any languages so any help is appreciated. If you do help out send me your name and info so I can add you to the credits!

ShnazzTD Version 1.2 is coming along. Graphics changes, sound and music additions are complete. Right now another mode of gameplay is being developed which will hold up the release a little while longer, but rest assured it will be worth the wait.

I’m very interested in localizing the game in as many languages as possible. If interested in helping send me a private message on the forum. For starters French, German, Spanish, Mandarin (Simplified) and Japanese are languages I’m interested in localizing to. There isn’t much to change so it wouldn’t be much work at all.

Today goes live a lot of changes to the online score tracking system. There have been a few mistakes I’ve corrected and a few things I didn’t think of before. This is just the start, in the future as more scores start to come in I’ll have a lot more breakdown of ranks. Because scores on hard difficulty shouldn’t be compared to scores on easy difficulty.

So what was really changed? For starters an individual score page is now shown, so tracking scores is a tad more personal. This page is what you see first when you submit a score from the game. Some loopholes were fixed, such as having duplicate nicknames in the databases. More wording was added to the score information instead of seeing numbers (see difficulty and game mode). I’ve also modified the look and feel slightly.

Now when you submit a score you will be brought to your own personal score page. The last score you submitted will always be highlighted green wherever you see it. Once you see your own scores you can go back to see everyone’s scores then also click on a nickname to see their score page.

ShnazzTD was updated to version 1.1 today which fixes a lot of bugs users reported. Go to the downloads page to see what was changed.

Shnazz Tower Defense 1.0 has been released! Go to the downloads page and get yourself a copy.

I hope you all enjoy, please feel free to leave any suggestions on the forum maybe we’ll see them in the next version! Also please help spread the word by digging this page! Stumble This Page!

Update –

The downloads links have been fixed! Sorry!

ShnazzTD Closed Beta has been cancelled as a result of in-house testing performed in conjuction with Blueprint Games and other affiliates.

Instead of holding a beta, which got little response, ShnazzTD version 1.0 will be released early next week. I’m aiming for a late Monday release thanks to Presidents day, but it may not be out until as late as Wednesday or Thursday.

Stay tuned for more.

And for the final part of this website launch the forums are now activated and online. Go ahead and sign up! In the future your account will also track against your ShnazzTD scores and achievements.

With this launch ShnazzTD now needs your help, not only on getting the forum going but to help beta test ShnazzTD. Please go ahead and drop your name and games played on the Beta forum.

Added the first few Hi-Res screenshots to the media page, go check them out:

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