# Monday, February 23, 2009

Three Little Pigs – Silverlight E-Book

Keeping with the MIX09 contests theme, I have submitted an entry for Adam Kinney’s Tell a Fairy tale in Silverlight or WPF and win a FREE PASS TO MIX.

The interactive Silverlight e-book version of the Three Little Pigs is available from my site on http://www.garchibald.com/ebooks/The-Three-Little-Pigs/

The e-book make use of:

  • Page flip animations to navigate the pages.
  • Text to speech to read the story.
  • JavaScript to ensure that pages can be bookmarked.

If the user does not have Silverlight installed a HTML description is rendered and a brief demonstration video is available to show the user what is available.

# Saturday, January 24, 2009

Mix09 10k Contest Entry – Spin And Win – Information And Help

Spin And Win Thumbmail10K Logo

Introduction

Welcome to Spin & Win a Microsoft Silverlight Game created for the MIX09 10k Challenge.

Spin & Win is a multimedia slot machine game that starts with an initial credit balance of 500. The game keeps a record of your current balance so you can start it again and continue from where you left off.

Just select the amount you want to bet and press the SPIN button to begin, Good Luck!

Game Description

Loading

Initially as the game loads, it will display a loading text with a percentage complete. Once the game is loaded the loading text will disappear and the game will start.

Spin & Win Screenshot

Once the game has been started by clicking on SPIN you can use the Enter key, or change your bet & spin again.

Example Current Status

There are 3 horizontal lines can be played with the default being line 1 only. You can change either the number of lines to place a bet on or the credits per line by clicking on the buttons at the bottom of the game. The selected amount is indicated by a lighter grey button.

Example Number Of Lines Example Number Of Lines

If a play line is not selected it will be greyed out to indicate that it will not be included in a win.

Example of online slot lines 1 selected Example of all slot lines in the game selected

Example: Line 1 Selected, All Lines Selected

If you want to "cash-in" your virtual credits you can click on the PAYOUT button. This will reset the credits total to zero and ask you if you wish to play again.

Example Number Of Lines

Win

In the example below 3 lines have been selected to play, with 10 credits per line.

Example Payout

On the top line there 3 apples. The total win amount is 3 Apples (10 Credits) x 10 Credits Per Line = 100 Credits.

Other Controls

The information icon in the bottom left will open this page.

Information Icon

The volume on/off will toggle the audio sound for the reel spin, winning fanfare and payout.

Toggle Volumne On/Off

The social bookmark icons under the logo allow you to easily share and link to the game using Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter and Email. NOTE: All the trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Toggle Volumne On/Off

Multimedia Attributions

The skin for the game uses the following media items:

Info Icon

By Mazenl77 - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

1603 PNG

Samples used from Freesound

January 19, 2009

By dobroide - Creative Commons License

slot.machine.arcade.mp3

Social Bookmark Icons

By mao - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Speaker Icon

By Mazenl77 - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

256x256px PNG

# Friday, January 23, 2009

My Mix09 10k Contest Entry Is Live – Spin And Win

Inspired by Mix09 being held in Las Vegas the logical choice of entry was a slot machine game. So my Silverlight entry Spin & Win was created.

Spin And Win Screenshot

You can play the game online at the Mix09 Site and information about the game is linked within the game and is also available from my Mix09 10k Information/Help page.

Keeping the entry inside the 10k limit was a definite challenge. Overall it was a great process, diving deeper into creating a Silverlight game encompassing a whole range of factors to create the final product:

  • Animation of controls to create visual effects.
  • Coding optimisation techniques to minimise the size of the code.
  • Dynamically loading controls and components.
  • External links from the application e.g. Social bookmarks and Information/Help on the game.
  • Graphic design of the game.
  • Interaction with external services.
  • State management giving the ability to save and load the state of the game.

Visit the  Mix site now and add a vote and I look forward to your comments.