Customer Reviews

Building XNA 2.0 Games: A Practical Guide for Independent Game Development (Books for Professionals by Professionals)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is clearly a series of tutorials on how to build your own game similar to The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. (The author's award winning game.) I think the title is therefore a little misleading. This would be helped a bit if the publisher had included a browsable table of contents here or on their own website.

There's tons of useful information in the book, but it is not a general introduction to building XNA games. For example, there's nothing in this book on 3D programming. So if you're looking for a book that covers that sort of stuff, look elsewhere. If you're looking to learn how The Dishwasher was made, and how you can build your own similar game, this is exactly the book you want and I would recommend you buy it.

This book is simply spectacular. Not only was I hooked by the entertaining aspects of the book (kudos to the authors for that), but I was able to extract quite a few great ideas for my own games. I'm no beginner in the realm of XNA, so having a book that really focused on making a game (rather than introducing and teaching XNA like most other books) was really quite a welcome change to the market.

If you have some of the basics of XNA and C# down, I'd highly recommend this book if you are ready to really make a game. It has lots of real world advice and lots of great ideas. I know it's going to improve my future games.

I am really glad Silva wrote this, it help me fill a lot of gaps I had developing small games. It also taught me a lot on using the XBox 360 networking features, sending data across clients, create my own map and sprite editor. I would say this is one of the best books for my own personal self development that I have bought in the last 10 years.

Like others here, I noticed this book doesn't really cover a whole lot of XNA; there are much better books for that. If you want to get into serious Xbox programming you'll need a good sized book collection anyway though; just one book won't make you into a master.

What this book does do is walk you through a big, easy-to-understand tutorial so you can make your own 2D game for Xbox (like a platform game or fighting game). It uses plain and sometimes funny language that anyone can understand and it assumes you know nothing about XNA, C#, or Visual Studio (but a little bit about programming).

This book is also actually very good for learning generic programming principles such as how to create an animated character editor, map editor, AI system, and particle system.

I bought a used copy on Amazon for about two bucks and it was more than worth the price.

I'm finally taking the plunge and getting into xna game development, so I've bought a number of books to supplement a college course I am taking. I'm definitely glad to have this book.

This book is a bit odd in that it isn't a really a book for non-programmers or kids who are looking to write their first computer program, or figure out what a mouse is used for. It also isn't for industry veterans looking to pick up a few advanced tips. And lastly it isn't the kind of book that will serve as a reference on xna, that you'll be referring back to time and again. Instead, the authors take you through some projects, show you lots of code, and have some somewhat brief but nonetheless good descriptions on how things are working.

It's the kind of book that you'll read through once, and will help get you "just started" in your own xna projects. Considering the reasonable price I paid for this book, I am definitely glad that I got it.

As has been mentioned, this book is about creating a 2D platform game complete with map and character editor, particle system and shader effects.

If you have seen James' winning game, Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, and would like to learn how to build similar games with all the bells and whistles then this book is definitely for you.

The book takes you through the creation of the game and tools used to build the content, from start to completion; the end result is a fully functional game of a very high quality.

I can understand why a person would get mad if they didn't get pure XNA tutorial goodness, but this book is more of a realistic look into the lifestyle that independent developers live. We strive to get our work out their and even "finished" at times. Being an independent developer is very hard and can at times makes you question whether or not to even continue. James Silva did give up and attempt to get a real job when he won Dream Build Play. Whether we realize it or not, his victory as an independent developer is going to and has already started paving the way for the rest of us. This book is for people who want a look at the real life view of a game developers lifestyle, not a XNA pure tutorial book.

I am almost done with College with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Computer Engineering, and this is one of the better computer books i have read (reading right now, but should be done with it within about 4 days). The software engineering principals are terrible, BUT, they talk about how YES yes they are terrible, and it is ment to be a quick mock-up on how to create a decent game.

Pros:
-They actually make a good level and character editor, while going through scripting systems.
******No where do you find something that has scripting just right ******off the bat and makes it easy to understand.

-They dont promise the best, they tell the truth, and i like that.

-They show why its important to create tools to create a game, instead of hard coding all the levels in.

-There actual coding techniques are good and understandable, they dont weigh you down with how to do everything in XNA, they do expect you to know about programming (Though they have like a 50 page introduction to .NET and XNA.)

Cons:
-Maybe a 2nd game, one that they have not already made (this is a mock up of another game).


I have read about 20 books on programming video games. This is by far one of the best.

As a warning, there are a few code errors, just find the source on there website and you can figure it out < IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN >

5 stars. All the way!

The first two reviews are simply bogus. The people are doing it to de-grade this persons book because they have a personal vendetta against him

Disregard the reviews and Amazon should take them off.

This MAY be a good book, but certainly not for beginners. It doesn't guide the user step by step in creating/editing a project. When the author talks about adding code, he doesn't tell you exactly where to do so. Just too many details skipped for beginners (like myself). I wouldn't recommend this book if you're a beginner in XNA game programming.