Article: Node-Based Scripting
by Blecki
Node-based scripting is not a traditional scripting language. And it's not a new idea, though it seems like people have forgotten about it. New systems appear - see Unreal Engine's Kismet - which people think are amazing new technologies. They aren't new; just amazing. I first encountered this scripting system in the quake engine. It was very crude, and limited, but it had all the basic properties of the system I am about to describe.
A brief note : Throughout this article, I use my own engine, Jemgine, and it's level editor for my examples. Jemgine is available at http://jemgine.codeplex.com You'll need to have XNA Gamestudio 3.1 installed to compile it, and to run the editor.
The target user of a node-based scripting system isn't the programmer, it's the level designer. The level designer might not know how to program. They might be constantly bothering a programmer to write scripts for them. Node-based scripting is an attempt to give the non-programmer level designer tools they understand and can use to create interesting behavior in a level without involving the programmer, and without having to learn a complex scripting language.
Submissions Closed
Yeah, as pointed out in the comments, the deadline was sooner than I actually said in my last email.
The submission for the 'Absolutely Fine' XNA Tutorial Contest is now closed.
We'll soon be starting formatting the rest of the articles, posting them, and then posting a master list of all entries. After that, judging and voting will begin.
Meanwhile, enjoy our news feed 
1 Day remaining
Quick reminder for our 'Absolutely Fine' XNA Tutorial Contest: The deadline is about 1 day away, so if you want to enter the contest, send us your entry!
At the moment, we have 4 published entries, and another around 14 entries that we're preparing for publishing.
Good luck!
XPF: A Layout Framework for XNA
Right after Mr. Styrchak shared his work on a Sinner clone now comes the word that the brave people at Red Badger just released a first build of BronzeglowXPF – I even named it XPF at first, too
Article: Programming your first XNA 4.0 game for PC, Xbox 360 & Windows Phone 7: Pong
by Thomas "Mister Helmut" Altenburger
I’d like to introduce the XNA framework to you with this very simple and straightforward tutorial. We will see what XNA is and how its basic features works to continue with the programming of your first game, a simple Pong clone for Windows. At last, we’ll try to convert it to the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7. This tutorial assumes that the readers have a basic C#/.Net understanding. I hope that it will help you to understand the basics of the framework and that it will motivate you to go further in. The article should be suitable to complete beginners in game programming.
About this tutorial: I wrote this tutorial back in the days of XNA 2.0 beta and used it as an introductory course I taught to master degree students. Since then, it evolved to support XNA 4.0 beta with added Window Phone 7 development.
English not being my native language, please forgive and/or report any English oddities.
This tutorial targets XNA 4.0 beta. It will be updated when the final version will be released. It uses some new features of XNA 4.0 so it will not run out-of-the-box on previous XNA version (mainly due to the usage of Viewport.Bounds and changed SpriteBatch.Draw arguments order).
Nick Gravelyn’s Alien Aggressors Tutorial
Nick Gravelyn (no introduction needed) has been kind enough to send us his Alien Aggressors tutorial (for XNA Game Studio 2.0) and allow us to share it with the world.
You can get the tutorial here: AlienAggressors.pdf
And you might also need the AlienAggressorsContent.zip pack of content to be used with the tutorial.
P.S. This article first appeared on Ziggyware (now defunct) a while ago.
Bob Taco Ind back to WP7 loving
After having a rough day in his relationship with Windows Phone 7, Bob Taco Ind (Michael B. McLaughlin) is back in business, with two short tutorials related to programming for the upcoming device. First, he shows you how to pin your game to the start screen, followed by one option of properly exiting a Silverlight-based game on WP7.
Post Scriptum thoughts for my colleague Cpt. Boki after realizing I'm kinda stalking Michael's blog... Where did the MVP Watch thingy go?
Contest deadline approaching!
Hi all,
Just a reminder that the deadline for our 'Absolutely Fine' XNA Tutorial Contest is closing in, and you have about 1 week to send your entries into the contest.
If you forgot the details of the contest, feel free to refresh your memory.
We're currently hard at work to get the rest of the entries online for your reading pleasure.
Good luck!
News from nuclex.org
Here's a couple of news from nuclex.org.
A new tutorial for Synapse Gaming's SunBurn engine demonstrating how SunBurn (and XNA) can be used in a dependency injection environment, a programming technique in which components are wired up to each automatically based on predefined bindings. Read more.
Cygon explains why he has chosen to reimplement XNA's GameComponent/DrawableGameComponent classes himself and how he's improved his design to cover environments where the game renders into a scene graph instead of directly using the graphics device. Read more.
Cygon is talking about a redesign of the event-based input handling system used by the GUI in his Nuclex Framework. Read more.
Enjoy!
XNA-UK User Group Prize Giveway!
Actually, it's about a Super Duper Prize Giveway at the September 1st meeting of the user group. Also accompanied by presentations about XNA, WP7, shaders and a Xap-a-thon. If you're interested and want more details, jump on their site and read all the details.