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!

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!

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Are you annoyed of refreshing your game slots all the time when hosting a game in Warcraft 3? Then  you can use one of these awesome Auto Refresh tools who do the stuff for you! I know there are many tools like that out there in the Internet , but I had problems finding a good one, so I will upload it here.

Download Warcraft III Auto Refresh

Download Warcraft III Auto Refresh sourcecode for Visual Studio 2005

Download Warcraft III Auto Refresh sourcecode for Visual Studio 2008

How to use

Host a game in Battle.Net and start Autorefresh. Make sure you set it to the right port, usually 6112, but when you changed it ingame (like I did), you will also have to change it in the application. Inside the game, all slots will be filled by a player called “Autorefresh” every 15 seconds and thus refreshing the ports.

Thanks to Jason Ureta for creating this awesome application and even sharing the source code with us!

In the last tutorial, I explained how to find out your Warcraft 3 CD key. Now I show you how to change the CD key of an installed version of Warcraft 3.

PLEASE BACK UP YOUR WARCRAFT 3 REGISTRY BEFORE CONTINUING!!

You will need this Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne CD Key Changer package.

Extract the files from the archive and launch “cdkey.exe” for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and “FTkey.exe” for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. In the Window, click “Change CD Key” and enter your new CD key. If you don’t see this button, please scroll down…

What can I do when the “Change CD-Key” button doesn’t show up?

The Warcraft 3 CD key is not stored in the Windows Registry as many other games do, it’s encrypted and saved somewhere in your “war3.mpq” file. In order to change the key, the application needs to know where your installation of Warcraft 3 actually is. When the button isn’t there, you don’t have the right registry entries.
In order to create the registry entries, please download Lescos Warcraft Toolkit. Open “LWT.exe”, go to the “Registry” tab and browse for your “Warcraft III.exe” file. Then click “Make entries”.
Restart the CD key changer tools, the link should be there now.

Did you loose your Warcraft III CD key but have still got an installed copy on your hard disc? Then I  gonna show you how to aquire your Warcraft 3 CD Key within a few seconds. It’s really easy!

First of all, download the Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne CD Key Grabber package.

Extract the file wc3_tft_CDKeyGrabber11800.exe from the RAR archieve and launch it. You will see a black and white window for around 5 seconds, then it will change to a black window that looks like this:

Now launch Warcraft 3 (Frozen Throne) and click on Local Area Network, as the program suggests. Now you can minimize Warcraft 3 by pressing either the Windows Key or ALT + TAB or just exit it. The CD key grabber will show your Reign of Chaos (and Frozen Throne) key in the fields that were blank before.

That’s it basically.

For the ones who are interested in the science behind that tool:

For Warcraft 3 it’s not as easy as for other games where you can just read out the Windows Registry. Warcraft 3 saves its key in the war3.mpg file which is kinda harder to access. You won’t be able to get the key from the file itself because it is encrypted in there. But in order to play online or LAN, Warcraft 3 sends a request either to the Battle.Net servers or to active LAN servers. This request also contains the CD key in order to get authorization from the server. The CD key Grabber tool launches a TCP listener that waits for the request from Warcraft 3. When going to the Local Area Network lobby, Warcraft 3 scans your LAN environment, detects the “server” hosted by the CD key Grabber and sends a request (usually done to get the game name and map). Now the application is able to get the key from that request and will display it.

Finally, the mobile quad core technology starts to be affordable: Acer introduces a quad core gaming laptop Aspire 8930-7665 for just around 1300 € (1800 US$). There have been some other quad core experiments around before, like the Xtreme 917V by Xtreme Notebooks introduced in August 2007, but the price of around 3300 € will stop most people from buying it.

The Acer Aspire 8930-7665 utilizes the Intel® Core™2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 with four 2.53 GHz cores. This processor should finally bring extreme computing power to laptops so that high-end gaming is possible. The Q9000 processor also features 12MB of Level2 cache, 1066 MHz Front Side Bus and is thus equipped with the most modern technology.

Beside the processor, 4 GB of DDR3 RAM and a Geforce 9700M GT graphics card enable it to run almost all cutting-edge computer games.

In addition, a 18.4″ widescreen display with a Full-HD resolution of 1920×1080, Dolby audio and a Blu-Ray drive bring a really cinematic experience into this laptop.

“By incorporating the latest capabilities of Intel’s Coreâ„¢ 2 Quad mobile processors into the Aspire 8930G-7665, Acer is delivering a perfect combination of mobility, innovation and extreme gaming capabilities, Gamers and enthusiasts who enjoy HD multimedia entertainment will find the performance benefits of quad core mobile performance in the Aspire 8930G unrivalled to other multimedia notebooks on the market.”
Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing for Acer America

In my opinion, this laptop is awesome for the price, you can see lots of more expensive laptops out there that just have half of these system specifications. It is not really mobile any more, considering the size, but still perfect as Desktop Replacement. And this is a great step towards the laptop I wish, equipped with a quad core i7-processor and a DirectX 11 graphics card, although this may still take some time to be developed.

Aspire 8930-7665 Specifications and Pricing

• Intel® Coreâ„¢2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 (12MB L2 Cache | 2.53 GHz | 1066MHz FSB)
• 18.4″ WUXGA Acer CrystalBriteâ„¢ TFT LCD (1920 x 1080)
• 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz Dual Channel Memory
• NVIDIA® GeForce® 9700M GT with 512MB dedicated video memory
• 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
• Blu-ray Discâ„¢/DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive
• 6-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
• 802.11a/g/Draft-N Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
• Acer Crystal Eye Webcam
• Dolby Home Theater®
• Windows Vista® Premium 64-bit
• MSRP $1799.99

Here is how you can run StarCraft, the most sold real-time strategy game ever, on modern computers with Windows XP or Vista. Originally, the game is designed to run on Windows 95 or 98, but with a few tricks, it will also work on new machines!

In contrast to modern games, StarCraft uses the IPX protocol instead of the TCP/IP protocol. Luckily even Windows XP and Vista include this protocol, but they don’t have it installed usually.

First of all, go to your Control Panel -> Network and Internet connections -> Network Connections, right-click on your LAN connection and select properties.

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Hey, see what I digged out a few days ago! Once upon a time I created a quite funny Counter-Strike 1.6 map, I think it was 2004 (I was 13 years old then…). It is, as the name suggests, a middleage-themed map, just two small rooms and two corridors, but the size is what makes it so funny.

Download Counter-Strike map fy_middleage here (1.3Mb)!

Just extract the files from the archive and move them to your maps folder, probably C:\Program File\Counter Strike\cstrike\maps\. Then restart the game and launch the map!

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Today I’ll show you how to get the source code of any game that’s made using C#, the .NET Framework and Microsoft’s XNA Framework. Basically, this will also work for all .NET Applications, but for XNA Games it’s more difficult, so I will explain it for XNA here.
I hope you understand and like it, if there are any issues, please comment to help me improving this tutorial!

Warning: You may violate copyright laws in your country if you try to obtain property (in this case source code) that you don’t own! Check your legal situation before following this tutorial! I won’t be responsible for any criminal offence done with the information provided!

Step-by-step tutorial to disassemble the game

Things you need

• An XNA-based game
• .NET Reflector
• Visual Studio 2005/2008
• XNA Game Studio 1.0/2.0/3.0

Decompiling the binary file

First of all, you need a really great tool called .NET Reflector. You can download it from the official website or from my server. The .NET Reflector can look inside .NET binaries (.exe and .dll files) and disassemble the code to any of these programming languages: IL, C#, Visual Basic, Delphi, MC++ and Chrome.

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A Canadian gamer runs 36 World of Warcraft accounts at the same time. He wants to be able to invade Stormwind and Ironforge all by himself:

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