This document provides an introduction to game development using Visual Studio and XNA. It discusses what constitutes a game, the basic structure of games, and why APIs are needed to make games. It then introduces XNA as a framework that allows creating games for Windows and Xbox 360 using the same code. It outlines how to get started with a new XNA project in Visual Studio and describes some basic XNA concepts like loading content, updating game logic, drawing graphics, and handling input. It concludes with instructions for a simple game called Dodger that demonstrates these concepts.

1. Game Development Using Visual Studio and XNA

2. Arvind Raja Yadav Microsoft Student Partner Lead Programmer – Neptune, a Half Life 2 Modification Programmer – Dystopia, a Half Life 2 Modification available on Steam I also make a lot of small games in various languages for fun

3. What is a game?

4. World of Goo = Game MS Word = Software How do we know the difference?

5. Here’s what games have that software doesn’t : Conditions for victory/failure; Testing various qualities of the player ; Withholding content from the player; Thinking for themselves ; Partially under the player’s control ; Changing objectives and/or methods; They are more fun!

6. The basic structure of a game Initialize content While (exit condition is false) { Get user input Run input related logic Run input independent logic Draw graphics and play sounds } Shut down

7. Windows doesn’t allow direct access to it’s display and sound drivers. APIs make coding games much easier APIs also mean that we need not worry about compatibility issues Why do we need an API to make games ?

8. I’m not going to teach you how to make Halo in 3 days. DISCLAIMER It took me and my team about 2 weeks to make this level work.

9. Introducing XNA allows you to make games for both Windows and Xbox 360 platforms using the same code and assets.

10. Getting started with XNA Open Visual C# 2008 Express Edition Select “File”, then “New Project” You should see a dialog like the one here Select “Windows Game (3.1)” and enter a name of your choice

11. The skeleton code

12. } Constructor; Initialize; LoadContent; UnloadContent; Update; Draw Getting content from the disk into the main memory + graphics memory Removing content from the memory Game logic and drawing } } Contents of the game class

13. Display text on the screen

14. Display an image on the screen

15. Getting input from the keyboard

16. Changing window size (resolution); Full screen/windowed mode ; Changing window properties

17. Print a message when the image moves off-screen Exercise : Make an image move using the arrow keys

18. Using the mouse

19. XNA Time Management

20. Our first game : Dodger

21. Congratulations! If everything went well, you just made a game by yourself !