Slides form Matteo Nicolotti talk @Codemotion roma 2014

1. ROME 11-12 April 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
To realize such a complex game as D&D with only two full time people we had to make use of all the
tools we could afford:
GAME DESIGN,
MAPPING, SCRIPTING
FORMAT CONVERSION
TO XML
CONVERSION TO
COMPACT BINARIES
XBOX
PC-WIN
W8,WP
IOS
ANDROID
RPG-Maker
.Net
Ruby
What’s behind D&D?

2. Developing a game in C#
●
Strongly Typed language
●
Power and ease of use of VS .Net and c#
●
DirectX + Garbage Collection = FUN
●
Natively on XBox,Windows e Windows Phone
●
Many free tutorials,samples and books.
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

3. C#
.Net
XNA
XBOX 360
PC
WIN
WIN
PHONE
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

4. C#
.Net
XNA
XBOX 360
PC
WIN
WIN
PHONE
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

5. Multiplatforming an XNA game
C#
.Net
XNA
C#
Mono
MonoGame
XBOX 360
PC
WIN
iOS,
MacOS
PSM
Linux
ANDROID
WIN 8
WIN
PHONE
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

6. So what is Monogame?
Monogame is an Open Source Library of XNA compatible functions.
One source code for all the platforms !
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

7. MonoGames you might know
Monogame is currently used in many well known games:
Infinite Flight
Skulls of The Shogun
Bastion
Fez
Draw a Stickman : Epic
Armed
Have all been developed using Xna and Monogame.
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

8. Using Open Source is cool!
Advantages of using Open Source tools to develop a video-game:
● Optimize, specialize and add features without workarounds (i.e. adding
support to a specific file format)
● constant updating, optimization and debugging of libraries
● Volounteers add constantly new platforms (recent news is that PS4 and XB1
will be supported by the end of 2014)
● less hassles = more game programming
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

9. IDE compatibili
Visual C# Express 2010
Windows Phone SDK
Visual Studio Pro 2010-12-13
VS Express and VS Pro 2012-13
Xamarin Studio*
Monodevelop
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

10. Where to start?
● Official site is monogame.net
– Installer for Visual Studio
– Forums
– Documentation
● Repository is at github.com/mono/MonoGame
– Clone or download zipped source
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

11. ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

12. The XNA Loop
XNA Game's loop consists of an Update and Draw methods, depending on our choice
they can be called exactly once each frame (with a variable Time-Step duration) or
the game class might be given a fixed Time-Step to respect.
To expand our game we have two options:
1 We can create a new class (for example a SceneManager or a Scene itself) that
inherits the XNA DrawableGameComponent class and add it to our game's
GameComponents collection.
2 We can implement our logic directly in our game's Update and Draw method.
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

13. ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
goo.gl/zvNqhP

14. Content Loading in XNA-MG
Content Management is an issue in Multiplatform games as different platforms have
different optimization for file formats (ie. Android => ogg, Apple => m4
a
)
For mobile games with a large amount of content like Doom & Destiny, pre-built binary
content will easily skyrocket package size over 200 MB.
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
CLASS WINDOWS LINUX MACOS IOS ANDROID WINDOWS
PHONE
Texture2D .xnb .png .jpg
.tiff
.xnb .png .jpg
.tiff
.xnb .png .jpg
.tiff
.xnb .png .jpg
.tiff
.xnb .png .jpg
.tiff
.xnb .png .jpg
SoundEffect .xnb .wav .xnb .wav .xnb .wav .xnb .wav
.m4a
.wav .mp3
.ogg
.xnb
Song .xnb .wav .xnb .wav
.mp3
.xnb .mp3 .xnb .m4a .mp3 .ogg .xnb
Model .xnb .xnb .xnb .xnb .xnb .xnb
Effect .xnb** .xnb** .xnb** .xnb** .xnb** .xnb**
SpriteFont .xnb .xnb .xnb .xnb .xnb .xnb

15. What about the physics?
Farseer Physics Engine is a collision
detection system with realistic physics
responses.
Inspired by Box2D, compatible with XNA
and MonoGame.
Implementation can be as simple as
instancing a new physic “World”, adding
bodies to it and calling its update method.
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
goo.gl/E3HYOs

16. Why should i learn XNA/MG?
Actually XNA is no longer supported by Microsoft so there is no reason to keep it as a main engine,
unless you seriously rock with it, like we do :)
On the contrary Monogame is still a vibrant community and with its open source mind can be the
primary learning tool for all the young guns out there. The MG core connects directly to the native
methods of each platforms using only OpenTK bindings to invoke the OpenGl and OpenAl
methods.
Aside that, the powerful Visual Studio IDE and Debugging environment allows quick debugging of
complex code, logging and fast device deployment.
If licensing prices are a problem, XNA and Monogame are completely free on all platforms but on
Ios and Android, where an Indie license costs about 300$ per platform for Xamarin Studio IDE or
1000$ per platform to get Visual Studio Professional and TFS support.
ROME 11-12 april 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti

17. ROME 11-12 April 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
Platforms: Xbox 360, Windows, Linux, Mac, Windows Store, WP, IOS, Android
Total Development Time: 2 years
People Involved: 1 programmer 1 game designer
Doom & Destiny
goo.gl/0i5N1x

18. ROME 11-12 April 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
Platforms: Xbox 360, Windows
Total Development Time: 4 weeks
People Involved: 1 programmer 1 game designer
Miner Warfare

19. ROME 11-12 April 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
Platforms: Xbox 360, Windows
Total Development Time: 4 months
People Involved: 1 programmer 2 game designer 1 artist
Spyleaks

20. ROME 11-12 April 2014 – Matteo Nicolotti
Platforms: Windows Phone, Android
Development Time: 1 week
People Involved: 1 programmer 1 game designer 2 artists 1 music artist
DKLB
goo.gl/OYCh5h

21. Domande?