Start developing games

[DBDev]

Hi!

Where can i learn to develop games for Windows Phone? A free ebook or a tutorial on the web would be great. videos is also possible but i would rather read something.

I am a beginner but i can some C# but i have never made a game.

 

[ThiasJ]

Hey,

I think this is a good starting point:
Xbox LIVE Indie Games - game development

Thy also have a step by step 2D Game Guide:
Xbox LIVE Indie Games - welcome: 2d game development tutorial

I think this is good to learn the basics!

 

[sinime]

I'll have to check out those links later. I'm currently working on an app, in spare time, but plan to look into coding a game afterwards.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[DBDev]

ok, thanks, i will check that out!

 

[Falk#WP]

Here is also a quite nice tutorial, learn XNA by making a RPG game:
XNA GPA - XNA 4.0 RPG Tutorials

 

[Panathas]

Thy also have a step by step 2D Game Guide:
Xbox LIVE Indie Games - welcome: 2d game development tutorial

I wanted to try this tutorial but everytime I click on the Shooter.sln file it terminates the import with the exception that the file ShooterContent.contentproj file can not be opened because the project type (.contentproj) is not supported by this version. WTF? I use Visual Studio Express 2010, that should be correct or not?
Is it a Windows 8 problem (I am using Win8)?

Edit:
Re-installed the tools and works now :/ Don't know why, but ...

 

[mckhendry]

Chris Williams and George Clingerman are XNA MVPs and co-authored a book: Professional Windows Phone 7 Game Development. This book does have "Professional" in the title, but it simple enough for entry-level developers to get started with (caveat, you will build 4 games in the course of the book).

This book was written for WP7, not WP7.5. However, if you're looking at just breaking into game development for WP then this is the place I recommend everyone should start. Because the book is older you should be able to get it on the cheap (e.g. $.97 used on Amazon).

I did teach the Windows Phone Unleashed - Games events in Portland, Seattle, and Boise this summer. I still have the content from those events if you want it (slides, demos, hands-on-labs, videos). You'll want to watch the videos, there's three one-hour presentations. In the course of this you'll learn all about XNA and how to build a simple game. I would teach this as a full day event. Hopefully you find it useful.

-kw

 

[DBDev]

Hi again!

I have now read that XNA is doomed to dye in wp8. Is it really any idea of learning it anymore or is it just waste of time?

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

 

[Panathas]

XNA games will work on WP8 devices, so, it is no waste of time. There are also frameworks, that translate XNA code into Metro-Sytele code (for W8). Just search in the WPcentral main page, 1-2 weeks ago they had an article about that.

 

[DBDev]

Ok, thanks!

 

[AdamDawes]

You can use MonoGame (Write Once, Play Everywhere - Home) to get XNA games working in Windows RT and as native Windows Phone 8 apps. I've used it to port some of my WP7 XNA projects and it's great -- no compatibility problems and very easy to use.

As for learning resources, I'm obviously slightly biassed, but I'd recommend my book, Windows Phone 7 Game Development (details in my signature). It covers a large array of topics for XNA and Silverlight development on WP7. All the XNA stuff that it contains can also be reused for WP8 and WinRT by using MonoGame. I'll happily answer any questions if you'd like to know more. If you're in the USA, you can pick up a copy from Amazon.com for just $8.84 at the moment.

 

[DropPass]

I am glad someone asked this question as I am interested in this too. My ultimate goal is to develop some useful apps and possibly a simple 2D game or two for the WP8 platform and potentially the W8 platform in the future.

I currently "develop" add on functionality for Autodesk products for the company I work for. I say develop in quotes as I have little formal training. I took a semester of VB6 many years ago and I attend the occasional programming workshop/webcast, etc... I try to read a ton, but there is just sooo much info out there, it sometimes gets confusing as to where to start. I have been muddling through .NET for just over 2 years now. Prior to that I did about 4 years of VBA development in various products. My education is in drafting and design (about 20 years).

So, with that bit of information I have a few questions for you developer pros:

How difficult is it for someone to jump into WP development? Even to develop elementary level apps?

What are the "preferred" tools to develop for WP8? I have heard that Silverlight will no longer be developed, but will still be supported for many years. Does that mean there is a new alternative out for use in WP8 development? How about XNA? There are rumors of that going away too.

I really would like to learn the latest set of tools rather than spending my time learning tools that will no longer be valid in the future. Unless the general consensus is that it's important to learn those tools regardless of expiration.


Thanks in advance for any input! (And the book link Adam!) :happy:

 

[AdamDawes]

How difficult is it for someone to jump into WP development? Even to develop elementary level apps?

If you already have programming knowledge, you should find it very easy to get started. You'll be using Visual Studio 2010 (for WP7.x) or Visual Studio 2012 (for WP7 and WP8) and for apps you'll create a project using XAML.

XAML is the design language used by Silverlight and WPF. Although Silverlight is clearly on the way out, XAML itself is still going strong for WP and also Windows 8 Store apps, so I think it's something well worth learning. There are plenty of primers and tutorials on the net which will explain how it works and how to get started (and I have a chapter in my book that covers the basics too) but essentially it's an XML-based description of a user interface. It reminds me of HTML in some ways, but it's much more powerful in terms of its native functionality.

Behind the XAML you can write all the logic for your app in C# or VB. If you've done any kind of WinForms development, you'll feel pretty much at home. If not, the IDE is fantastic and you should pick it up fairly quickly.

Even if you don't use XAML long term, C# is one of the most popular languages in use at present, and anything you learn there is likely to be useful for years to come. (I hope!)

What are the "preferred" tools to develop for WP8? I have heard that Silverlight will no longer be developed, but will still be supported for many years. Does that mean there is a new alternative out for use in WP8 development? How about XNA? There are rumors of that going away too.

The options for WP8 at present are XAML (as detailed above) or DirectX/C++. XNA does appear to have been lost. Which is a *real* shame in my opinion. As far as native platform support goes, the only gaming API now requires C++ programming, which takes it out of the reach of many hobbyist programmers. (Personally I spent many years programming DirectX and C++, but since moving to C# I have no desire whatsoever to go back!) You can still use XNA for WP7 games, which will work fine on WP8 devices, but if you want to take advantage of new WP8 platform features, that's no longer an option.

There are however other gaming frameworks available that can be used in C#. One such framework is the open-source and freely usable MonoGame. This provides an API that is virtually 100%-compatible with XNA, but works on Windows 8 and is coming soon to Windows Phone 8 too. This is fantastic both for upgrading existing XNA games, and for writing new XNA games too. I upgraded one of my WP7 XNA games to run on Windows 8 using MonoGame, and the basic upgrade took around 15 minutes (though it needed a lot more tweaking and polishing to run in the Win8 environment after that). I'd definitely recommend taking a look at that for game development.

Then there are other game engines incoming at some stage for both Win8 and WP8, including Unity and Ogre, but when these will be available, how good/well supported they will be, and whether they will be accessible from C#/VB, I don't yet know.

Hopefully that'll be enough to get you started anyway, feel free to post more questions if you have them.