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humndislocation · 20th January 2007, 06:00 PM

I know there's not many people on UGS that are into game development, but there are a few. Has anyone tried XNA out yet? (or been tempted to take the plunge?)

For those that don't know, it lets you program games for your PC and XBox 360. You have to pay for membership to the XNA creators club if you want to run your games on your 360, but it's reasonably priced, and you can make PC games with it for free. As long as you're careful to only do PC specific stuff on your PC version of the game, and vice-versa, then t should be really easy to port your game between the two platforms.

I've just downloaded it today. So far it seems really cool, and that you could definitely make some really cool stuff with it, relatively quickly. I've got next to no experience with C#, but just sitting down with it for 5-10 minutes, I was able to get a little sprite moving around the screen, under the control of the gamepad. It's a hell of a lot easier to learn than any other homebrew console stuff I've tried.

The programming is based on C#, which is a lot easier to learn than C++. The language and libraries simplify a lot of the time consuming, and difficult crap that might put people off trying to learn how to program games. It's also good for people like me, that don't have a lot of spare time for game programming any more.

If you've ever been interested in picking up game programming, but have been scared off by the steep learning curve, then I'd definitely recommend this.

All you need is XNA game studio express, http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx, and C# express http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/

20th January 2007, 06:00 PM	#1 (permalink)
humndislocation Hardcore is serious guys Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Dundee Posts: 6,009 Band: Blasphemous Necrorapist	XNA - Make your own Xbox 360 games I know there's not many people on UGS that are into game development, but there are a few. Has anyone tried XNA out yet? (or been tempted to take the plunge?) For those that don't know, it lets you program games for your PC and XBox 360. You have to pay for membership to the XNA creators club if you want to run your games on your 360, but it's reasonably priced, and you can make PC games with it for free. As long as you're careful to only do PC specific stuff on your PC version of the game, and vice-versa, then t should be really easy to port your game between the two platforms. I've just downloaded it today. So far it seems really cool, and that you could definitely make some really cool stuff with it, relatively quickly. I've got next to no experience with C#, but just sitting down with it for 5-10 minutes, I was able to get a little sprite moving around the screen, under the control of the gamepad. It's a hell of a lot easier to learn than any other homebrew console stuff I've tried. The programming is based on C#, which is a lot easier to learn than C++. The language and libraries simplify a lot of the time consuming, and difficult crap that might put people off trying to learn how to program games. It's also good for people like me, that don't have a lot of spare time for game programming any more. If you've ever been interested in picking up game programming, but have been scared off by the steep learning curve, then I'd definitely recommend this. All you need is XNA game studio express, http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx, and C# express http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/ Last edited by humndislocation : 20th January 2007 at 06:06 PM.