EDIT: New version 1.1 available!

Airship Assault is the first game that uses my MultiInput library in order to support many players playing the same game on one computer with multiple mice connected to the computer.

Airship Assault is a Moorhuhn-like (in English “Crazy Chicken”) shoot ‘em up multiplayer game for up to 6 players. But there is one special feature that makes this game different from all the others out there in the world: All players can play at the same time using only one single computer! Airship Assault can handle up to 6 mice connected using USB or PS2 to the computer and distinguish between the players.

Each crosshair in the game is controlled by one player. The goal is to shoot all incoming airships before they can leave the screen again. If a an airship manages to cross the screen, the players will lose one of their initially 20 lifes. After 20 seconds all players will level up; higher levels will cause more airships to spawn and they will fly faster.

One magazine can hold 10 shots, after a player fired them all he will have to reload by clicking the right mouse button. Killing an airship will give around 25 points depending on the speed of the airship, reloading will cost 100 points.

When all lifes are lost, the game is over. A new screen will show up showing statistics for every single player: Kills, Points and Accuracy.

Download Airship Assault here!

Screenshots

If you have any comments, bugs to report or features to request, feel free to comment either here or on the official Airship Assault website!

Google is currently working at a newer version of Google Chrome. Chrome 2.0 is still in the pre-beta phase, but you can already download and try it.

There are some major changes that make it worth to be used instead of the old version:

• Form autocomplete
• Full page zoom (press CTRL and scroll the mouse wheel)
• Autoscrolling by middleclicking the mouse
• Use different profiles (e.g. one for work and for for home with different bookmarks, …)
• Use Greasemonkey scripts (by adding “-enable-user-scripts” to the launch parameters)
• WebKit and JavaScript V8 engine updated

How to get the latest version:

• Download and install the old version of Google Chrome (if you don’t have it already)
• Download and run the Google Chrome Channel Changer
• Select “Dev” mode
  
• In Chrome, open the “About Google Chrome” dialog and click “Update Now”
• Restart Google Chrome

Now you have the latest version of Google Chrome installed! Have fun!

I created a C# class that allows you to use more than one mouse in your XNA game. Of course this is also working with normal Windows applications, but I specially prepared it to work with XNA. This gives you new possibilities for multiplayer games on a single computer! Currently, it’s only working for mice, but I will add keyboard support soon.

Download MultiInput.dll Version 0.1

I also created a game demonstrating how to use this class and what multiple mice can be used for. I think there are many games that could make use of more than one mouse to enable a cool multiplayer mode. Currently the game is in Alpha stage and doesn’t have many features. It supports up to 6 players (if that many mice are plugged in) who have to stop zeppelins from reaching the other side of the screen by shooting them down. Although there isn’t much to do except shooting the zeppelins, it’s quite funny already.

UPDATE: NEW VERSION AVAILABLE: Download Airship Assault here!

Download MultiInput Sample Game Alpha Version 0.1

Download and install the necessary XNA Framework 3.0 here

Each crosshair can be controlled by one mouse/player. The number in brackets on the bottom is the amout of shots you’ve left in your magazine. Leftclick to shoot, rightclick to reload. When a zeppelin reaches the other side, you will lose a life.

I tested the game only with USB mice, they’re working fine, but it should also work with PS2 mice. If you encounter any errors, please tell me!

Continue reading…

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium. This can be very useful to store important files somewhere where you can access them whenever you want (just login into GMail and download). Since Google offers as much as 7GB (and the storage volume is increasing every day), it should be enough to save your presentation or holiday pictures.

Warning: This shell extension works fine with Windows XP but  can cause some problems when running Windows Vista or Windows 7. Please contact the creator at bjarke@viksoe.dk if you experience any problems!

Download GMail Drive Shell Extension (this server)

Download GMail Drive Shell Extension (mirror)

GMail Drive stores the files you upload as mails, containing the path, filename and other information such as file size in the subject, and the data itself as an attachment. For each new file, you will have a mail in your inbox, spamming it quite a lot if you upload many files. Thus you should create a filter similar to the one I created:

This will order and archive all the files from GMail Drive.