Written in C# for the use of XNA, DraXNA is a simple game utilizing the keyboard (arrows, space, left alt, and left control) and 2D sprites. C# and XNA were selected for the ease of use. XNA is a very simple wrapper for some DirectX functions, making DraXNA a game which can be ported over to XBox or Windows mobile devices. There is background music and sound effects for a variety of events within the game. Playing the dragon, you fly around, collecting mana spheres. Mana is the energy by which you fuel your fire, heal yourself or teleport away from the robots trying to kill you.
The levels are generated simply by increasing the number of robots and decreasing the number of mana spheres. Eventually, there is only one mana sphere and 20 robots on the screen, making it nearly impossible to progress without foresight and patience.
Developing a method by which the robots follow the dragon without overlap had to be developed, otherwise a single shot from the dragon could take out all of the robots and thus take the player to the next level. This involved researching flocking rules. The robots were coded with two simple instructions, move to the dragon, keep at least 50 pixels away from the other bats, usually towards the direction up and to the left. This is not a true flocking behavior, but merely an oversimplified version.
Currently, DraXNA is being modified for use on the XBox 360 and should be available from the indie store soon.