Chris Bowen's Blog : XBox

Learning XNA: A Guide for .NET Rocks Show 501 on XNA Game Development

cbowen — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:29:24 GMT

If you’re a listener of .NET Rocks! (“The Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers”), you may have heard Show #501 on XNA that Michael Cummings and I recorded last week.

You can download the show here (59 minutes – MP3/WMA/AAC).

We mentioned a lot of things on the show, so here are core resources to help you create that game you’ve always wanted to try making.

So, What’s XNA?

XNA is the name for resources, software, and frameworks for creating games for the PC, Zune, and Xbox 360.

The XNA Framework makes game creation easier by abstracting gaming concepts to help you be more productive. What’s great is that you can put your existing .NET skills to work since the XNA Framework is based on the .NET Framework.

While games are of course about fun, developers may find making a little money can be fun, too. If you think your game has what it takes, look into Xbox LIVE Indie Games (now one year old), which can place approved XNA games on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for purchase.

Getting Started with XNA

First, head to the XNA Creators Club, which is a central place for working with XNA:

Downloads
Learning & Help
Resources
Community

XNA Game Studio is what you’ll use to create your masterpiece. Head to the Download page and get XNA Game Studio 3.1 (for free). It’s based on Visual Studio, so you’ll also need either the free Visual C# 2008 Express Edition, or Visual Studio 2008 installed.

Creating games for the PC and Zune is free, but if you’re interested in creating games on the Xbox 360, then you’ll need a Premium Creators Club membership. Read the Creators Club tour for more.

XNA Screencast

I recorded a screencast on getting started with XNA that features a bit of background, then dives into a demo of creating a (very) basic 2D game:

XNA Game Development Screencast

Learning XNA

If you’re new to game development, I recommend you try your hand at 2D game creation to learn the basics, then expand from there. There’s plenty to help you get started.

Tutorials

The Getting Started page features two tutorials to get you going:

2D Tutorial (start here or with a Starter Kit below)
3D Tutorial

These feature code, assets, documentation, and step-by-step videos to walk you through.

Starter Kits

One of the best ways to learn XNA is to look at how existing games work.

Take the time to download a couple of XNA Starter Kits, full games to help you learn. Play right away, then explore the code and assets – it’s all included and ready for you to modify to help you learn XNA.

Games include a 2D RPG, 3D racing game, a puzzle, and others.

Education Catalog

There’s a ton of help available on the Creators Club site, and it’s collected together in the Education Catalog. Content is organized by dev area and type:

Physics, 2D, 3D, AI, Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Storage, and more
Samples, Tutorials, Articles, Utilities, etc.

Boston Area Game Community

If you’re in New England, here are some ways to connect with the area game development community:

Boston XNA Developers Group – Run by Michael Cummings, offers a monthly look at different game development topics. No experience necessary to join.
Cape Cod XNA Group – For those of you near the Cape, this group is run by Tom Kennedy, also offering a chance to learn XNA.
Boston Post Mortem – Meeting monthly in Waltham, MA, this is for professional game developers to meet, share, and network. It is also the Boston chapter of the IGDA.

Thanks!

Thanks to Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell for their incredible work on the .NET Rocks! series, passing an amazing milestone of 500 shows!

And I hope you enjoyed listening to the show as much as we enjoyed being guests!

If you have any questions, just let me know.

-Chris

Kodu (Game Programming Environment) Now Available

cbowen — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:11:18 GMT

On an earlier Roadshow (winter 2008), I gave a preview of a great environment from Microsoft Research for making game programming friendly and accessible to a wider audience, and especially children. At the time it was called “Boku”, but was since renamed “Kodu”.

As of yesterday, Kodu is now available on XBOX Live Marketplace as a free trial or purchase for 400 points (about $5) and lets you create games using only the XBOX controller (though the chatpad is useful, too.)

I’ll be downloading it soon and showing our daughters. I just might even let them have a turn!

-Chris

P.S. Other useful links:

Kodu Blog

http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/kodu

Kodu Research Home Page

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/

IGN Coverage (with videos from CES and elsewhere)

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/100/1000340p1.html

Northeast XNA Game Developer Featured on CNN

cbowen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:18:10 GMT

[Thanks to Lindsay for the heads-up!]

Currently featured as the lead Tech story is an article featuring the Northeast's own James Silva and the story of his creation of a game called "Dishwasher: Dead Samurai" using XNA (coming later this year to Xbox Live Arcade.)

Way to go, James!

Hailing from Utica, NY, James has received some recognition before this. His game tied for first place in last year's "Dream. Build. Play." competition and he demoed it on stage at 2007's GameFest in Seattle.

If you're interested the larger story, James has an article, "How I Became A Game Designer" (and part two) over on bit-tech.

Now, let's see if we can get him to visit the Boston XNA Developers Group in the coming months. It's only a few hours east on route 90, James. :)

-Chris

Huge XNA News at GDC '08

cbowen — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:05:17 GMT

The XNA team made two very big announcements at the Game Developers' Conference.

Cutting right to the chase, the biggest news is that the wait will be over for community XNA games on Xbox LIVE! Coming this holiday season, people will be able to share, peer review, and play user-created games!

From the announcement on the XNA Team Blog:

The Xbox LIVE community games brings to life the community-driven gaming vision we have talked about in the past. This offering gives the opportunity to share, peer review, download and play games created by the community, for the community. Starting with the beta launch of the service later this Spring, XNA Creators Club subscribers will be able to submit their own game creations for self-publishing through to Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Read the post for the full details, and here for more, but another important note is that yes, this will lead to the ability to make money by writing XNA games for XBOX Live (details still to come)!

The second announcement is of one of the first new features coming with Game Studio v3.0 - the ability to create games for the Zune!

[...] This will let you write one game and deploy it to all three platforms that XNA Game Studio 3.0 will support: the Xbox 360, Windows, and now the Zune. [...] That means that XNA Game Studio 3.0 integration includes discoverability/access to the user's music - allowing the user to customize background soundtracks or create real-time visualizations at their discretion.

In addition, the XNA Community Games Platform team has announced the ability to have multiple Zunes wirelessly engage in an ad-hoc gaming experience (think of the possibilities!)

Boston XNA Developers Group

Now, what better place to discuss these announcements than at the new Boston XNA Developers Group? The first meeting is on Wednesday of next week, February 27th at 6:00 in the Waltham Microsoft office. No game development experience required.

Details are on the Boston XNA Developers Group site.

See you there!

-Chris

XBox 360 News

cbowen — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:39:51 GMT

Plenty of news has been coming out recently about the XBox 360. Here's a brief summary:

The XBox 360 Elite has been officially announced:

"Xbox 360 Elite is the newest addition to the Xbox family that includes a huge 120GB hard drive (the largest available for any gaming console), a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) cable, and a premium black finish. The Xbox 360 Elite also includes a black wireless controller and black Xbox Live® headset."

Halo 3 News:

The Halo 3 Beta period has been announced as May 16th - June 6th.
A few weeks old, but Halo 3 packaging was unveiled as well - Standard, Limited, and Legendary. Paul Thurrott has some good pictures.

Major Nelson (IRL Larry Hryb) posted word of:

The next dashboard update (with Windows Live chat integration) and...
A QWERTY keyboard input device coming this summer. The best part is that it will plug directly into the bottom of existing XBox 360 controllers.
[Full details of both]

Personally, I'm counting down to my coming birthday when I hope (nudge, nudge) that somebody drops a copy of Guitar Hero II into my greedy mitts...

-Chris

Chris Bowen's Blog : XBox

Learning XNA: A Guide for .NET Rocks Show 501 on XNA Game Development

So, What’s XNA?

Getting Started with XNA

XNA Screencast

Learning XNA

Tutorials

Starter Kits

Education Catalog

Links

Other Topics

Kodu Game Lab

Microsoft Gamefest

Boston Area Game Community

Thanks!

Kodu (Game Programming Environment) Now Available

Northeast XNA Game Developer Featured on CNN

Huge XNA News at GDC '08

XBox 360 News