Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Game Programming) [Paperback]

Alexandre Lobão (Author), Nilson Bruno Evangelista (Author), P. A. M. Farias (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590599241 | ISBN-13: 978-1590599242 | Publication Date: April 29, 2008 | Edition: 1

XNA programming is an increasingly popular way of creating games for the Microsoft Xbox 360 home entertainment system (they also run on Microsoft Windows PCs). The free development tools distributed by Microsoft make it a platform that appeals to both the professional developer looking to create a commercial product and the home enthusiast wanting to put together games in their spare time.

This book targets the large hobbyist market and provides readers with a fast-paced introduction to XNA and the C# language that is used with it. It demonstrates how key concepts can be applied in order to create smooth, professional looking, results in a range of gaming genres. The aim is to give readers a firm foundation from which they can build to more advanced ideas.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Some. Both the authors and Fabio Claudio Ferrachiati have good contacts in the XNA community that can be tapped for ideas and web mind-share.

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590599241
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599242
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,154,809 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little too to the point., July 20, 2008

By 

Geoffrey Cleaver "Geoffio" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Game Programming) (Paperback)

This book doesn't beat around the bush, which can be a good thing for an already experienced developer. However if you aren't experienced it could easily leave you lost. If you are a "novice" like the book claims to cater too you'll probably never get to them without further reading from other materials.

The QC for this book was very poorly done. There are tons of errors in the spelling and in the code. They completely forgot to explain certain things and then expect you to have figured them out on your own later.

The book covers a decent amount of useful information, but it seems like they just pushed it out a bit too soon. If they had gone through the tutorials and tried them out and made sure all the steps were covered, it would have been a lot nicer to learn with. Instead the tutorials left me lost most of the time. I spent hours trying to figure out what steps they forgot to include.

I think this book could be quite a useful tool if you are already well versed in the .net C# environment. However I would recommend a different approach if you have little C# experience.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great learning value!, July 3, 2008

By 

Charles Gatian "Chaz" (Toledo, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Game Programming) (Paperback)

You should understand C# code before diving into this book. I tried online tutorials and nothing comes close to just reading and using this book! Although there were a few places where I had to use an online resource to figure out exactly what the author was talking about, it still supasses any other online XNA intro.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best XNA book, code examples contain errors, where is the Quality Control?, September 7, 2008

By 

Milford Hughes "XNA Noob" (Riverview, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Game Programming) (Paperback)

I found this book on the web and still decided to buy it. The book is the easiest time I think I have ever had learning XNA, however, like all programming books it seems that only experienced coders who correct errors as they read are the ones in charge of editing and quality control.

For example, on page 46 it tells you to include a line of code that doesn't seem to make sense (private SpriteBatch spriteBatch = null;) in the Game1 code. This of course is redundant and cause the game not to compile. And.... naturally, the downloaded source code runs fine. Why? Because this line of code is not in the project. I imagine the XNA guru they had reviewing this book (how come they don't hand the book to a total newbie and say 'here, follow this book exactly and tell us when the code examples dont work') fixed the errors he seen on the fly without thinking ..oh, a total newbie won't know this is an obvious mistake..

But I can honestly say I have NEVER read a 'teach yourself' programming book with flawless code examples. And of course the downloaded source always works and you just have to compare your file with thier file and see what is different. The only positive note I can say about the poor state of quality control with newbie programming books in general is that in a way it teaches you to troubleshoot code. But, for someone who is completely new and doesn't pick up on these things it is very frustrating. I'm lucky now in that I have learned enough that I can fix these errors, but a few years ago I would have just tossed this book out of frustration when I do exactly as instructed and it still doesnt work.

To the people who write these books I have a suggestion....

If the person in charge of quality control has ever written a single line of code they are not qualified to review a book targeting newbies. Give the book to your spouse, neighbor, 12 year old, etc. who will quickly hand it back to you 5 times every chapter and say 'hey, I did what it said and got a bunch of errors', or 'hey, it assumes here on page whatever I know where to type this'.

Now, all that being said, this is a darn good book. The authors make XNA and XBOX programming about as simple as possible... the examples are explained very well and easy to follow. If you have gone through another C# teach yourself newbie book you should minimal trouble getting a game up and running in just an hour or so!