Learning Xna 4.0: Game Development for the Pc, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7

by Aaron Reed

Want to develop games for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7? This hands-on book will get you started with Microsoft's XNA 4.0 development framework right away -- even if you have no experience developing games. Although XNA includes several key concepts that can be difficult for beginning web developers to grasp, "Learning XNA 4.0" shortens the learning curve by walking you through the framework in a clear and understandable step-by-step format.

Each chapter offers a self-contained lesson with illustrations and annotated examples, along with exercises and review questions to help you test your understanding and practice new skills as you go. Once you've finished this book, you'll know how to develop your own sophisticated games from start to finish. Learn game development from 2D animation to 3D cameras and effects Delve into high-level shader language (HLSL) and introductory artificial intelligence concepts Build three complete, exciting games using 2D, 3D, and multiplayer techniques Develop for and deploy your games to the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7

Genres: Programming, Reference, Technology, Computer Science

540 pages, ebook

First published December 9, 2010

Reviews

[inner_loops · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid introduction to XNA. My only real gripe is that it skips on the math and not enough emphasis is placed on the fact that 3D games are ALL math; there's no way around this. Several times the author mentions something along the lines of "it's not critical if you don't understand how this math works" which I don't entirely agree with. It's okay if you don't understand absolutely everything while you're getting your feet wet, but when it's time to set out and write your own code, suddenly you're going to need to know how all this math comes in to play and it *is* critical that you understand it. A primer on vector and matrix math would have been a good idea for this reason, but so be it. It's called learning XNA 4.0 for a reason.

Regardless, it's a good introduction and I like how there's review questions at the end of each chapter. I wish more programming books would do that.

[Michael Hagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book eases you through several tutorial projects using XNA and the C# language. I believe XNA is being phased out in favor of DirectX on the Microsoft platforms, but you can still make games for the PC and I've heard of a tool that converts XNA code to javascript to be run in the browser(http://jsil.org/, if you're interested).

Having never done game programming before reading this book, it is a very good introduction to the subject. The games you make are simple, but I think it is best to start simple. On the other hand, the tutorial format makes it unwieldy as a reference book, so you may eventually want another book for that purpose. You should have a basic understanding of programming before reading this book.

[Josi · Rating 4 out of 5]

great intro to xna