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XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example: Beginners Guide Paperback – September 24, 2010

by Kurt Jaegers (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 40 ratings
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The best way to start creating your own games is simply to dive in and give it a go with this Beginner's Guide to XNA. Full of examples, tips, and tricks for a solid grounding. Overview Dive headfirst into game creation with XNA Four different styles of games comprising a puzzler, a space shooter, a multi-axis shoot 'em up, and a jump-and-run platformer Games that gradually increase in complexity to cover a wide variety of game development techniques Focuses entirely on developing games with the free version of XNA Packed with many suggestions for expanding your finished game that will make you think critically, technically, and creatively Fresh writing filled with many fun examples that introduce you to game programming concepts and implementation with XNA 4.0 A practical beginner's guide with a fast-paced but friendly and engaging approach towards game development What you will learn from this book Install the Microsoft XNA Framework and its required tools Build XNA Game projects and associated XNA Content projects Create a puzzle-style game exploring the concepts of game states, recursion, and 2D animation Add sound effects to your game with a "fire-and-forget" sound effects manager Create a particle system to generate random explosions Implement sound effects, collisions, and particle-based explosions by building a space shooter inside a chaotic asteroid field. Implement the A* path-finding algorithm to allow enemies to track down the player Generate tile-based maps and path-finding enemy tanks amidst a storm of bullets in a multi-axis shooter Combine XNA and Windows Forms to create a map editor for a multi-layered tile map engine Run, jump, and squash enemies in a side-scrolling platform using the maps from your editor Modify your creations for the Xbox 360 platform and deploy your games to the console Approach This book is a step-by-step tutorial that includes complete source code for all of the games covered
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    428 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Packt Publishing
  4. Publication date
    September 24, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    8.5 x 0.97 x 11 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1849690669
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1849690669
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kurt Jaegers

Kurt Jaegers is a database administrator by day, and a long-time hobbyist game developer, having built games for everything from the Commodore 64 to the Xbox 360. He is the owner of xnaresources.com, one of the earliest XNA-focused tutorial websites.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Packt Publishing (September 24, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 428 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1849690669
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1849690669
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.7 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.97 x 11 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 40 ratings

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
40 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Retired Gamer
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2011
Verified Purchase
I have purchased over a dozen books on C# and XNA Game Studio. This is the best one yet.

It is very good because:

The author explains the concept, shows you the code, and explains what is happening in the code
(enough detail but not too much detail)

The sample games present some very helpful concepts. I would say that it goes beyond
a beginner course.

For example, the 'Robot Rampage' game clarified the following:
enemy AI to pursue the player; bypassing obstacles on the play field
using a play area larger then the screen; by using a camera class
creating a random play environment for each new game
creating explosions of different sizes
utilizing 'Manager' classes to control the objects

In summary, this book was very helpful.
13 people found this helpful
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Zvjezdan
4.0 out of 5 stars I like it but not good for tetris
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2012
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If you want to make tetris, this book will give you some info for it. If you want a tutorial on how to familiarize yourself on XNA game development I say get this book. In this book you can make Asteroids, Tank Attack, and a 2d scroller like mario but in Indiana Jones format. This book is good for teaching you how to make your own images and it teaches you how to use keyboard movement. this book is good for beginners like myself, just saying.
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K. Matton
5.0 out of 5 stars Overall a good read.
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2013
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This author, Kurt Jaegers, is very good about getting you into the code and actually writing functioning games immediately. I can't tell you how many books I've bought where I had to skip several chapters of basics such as flow control, assigning variables, and what not. This book has none of that.

Unfortunately, I find that it barely skims the surface of XNA (methods, functions, common practices). This makes the projects more like copy & paste than a series of solutions designed to produce the results required by your needs. The book is clearly titled, "XNA... by Example", so I can't really fault Kurt Jaegers for skipping an in depth discussion of XNA.

I would absolutey recommend this book to everyone who is interested in game development; I would also recommend getting a book that is oriented toward XNA itself to which this book will suppliment.
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Steve
5.0 out of 5 stars Best XNA book out there
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2011
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I've pretty much read most of the XNA books available. A lot of them will explain how XNA works, but fail to take the reader through the completion of a significant game. I feel that hand holding a person through the creation of complete, sufficient, healthy games is more important in the long run than explaining exactly what each overloaded SpriteBatch.Draw() method does (that's what MSDN is for). Sure, you need to explain to the reader how sprites are drawn to the screen, but you don't need to go crazy with the specifics. This book explains enough to the reader so they have a understanding of what's going on, without bogging them down with too much information.

XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example wastes no time in diving into code, creating what is exceedingly a simple game, but builds a strong foundation for the other games which will be built. The reader will learn by doing, progressively increasing their knowledge of XNA and learning how to develop a game. There are times when the author will gloss over specific details, details that I feel should have been explained a bit more, but any successful programmer will investigate topics of interest on their own anyways.

The book doesn't assume any previous C# knowledge, or programming knowledge if I'm not mistaken. I'm going to raise a huge flag and say you should be a competent programmer before diving into this book. Don't get this book if you've never written any type of program on your own, and I'm not talking about just a "Hello World" program either. I promise that you really won't understand what's going on and once you leave sample land, you'll be completely lost. Understand that game programming is an extremely elitest form of software development, even with XNA. So with that said, this book is aimed at complete beginners to XNA and game programming, but not programming in general. You may do alright if you don't know C# yet, but do know Java (preferably) or even C++.

Also note, this book doesn't explain anything specific to Windows Phone 7 game programming. If Windows Phone 7 game programming is your ultimate goal, you can still use this book to learn XNA, and then move onto the many tutorials and guides available on the new App Hub website.
28 people found this helpful
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Finger563
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2012
Verified Purchase
This book is a great introduction to XNA and introduces you to good ways to organize your game code. A couple of my favorite features were its chapter on making a level editor for a tile-mapped game and the A* pathfinding explanation/example. This is definitely a must-have for anyone who wants to learn XNA. It focuses on 2D games (which is fine by me :)). I do wish it delved a little more into topics like multiplayer, networking, and HLSL, but I understand they are a little to advanced for this type of book. It isn't terribly long but it is also packed with content so you won't feel like you wasted your money. All in all, if you want to learn XNA (hardly any experience with C# required) and want to focus (or start with) 2D games, this is the book you need!
One person found this helpful
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togegawa
4.0 out of 5 stars good code but doesn explain things well.
Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
good for getting you into game development. They should have explained everything that they have you type though.
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Hapi
3.0 out of 5 stars Not for beginners with C#
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2012
This book is NOT for beginners at all.

It just gives you the code for each class and tells you exactly what to type, then it quickly explain what the code you just typed is for. The problem is that you never think by yourself, you don't do anything alone, you just copy every code that the book gives you and try to understand it.

I'm a beginner with C# and XNA and it's really complicated to understand everything.
Don't buy this book unless you have good understanding of C#.
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Melibojangles
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for self taught hobbyist game developers
Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2011
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If you have been teaching yourself C#/XNA and are familiar with the concepts needed to create games but are struggling with how to put all those pieces together, this book is for you. For me, this book is just one a-ha moment after another. The code is clean and well documented and focuses on functionality rather than theory. This book is exactly what I needed to move to the next level, and expect to see my game on the Xbox Indie Marketplace soon.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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cokoyan
4.0 out of 5 stars Un bon point de départ
Reviewed in France on June 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
Assez complet. Si vous cherchez un livre pour débuter en XNA (et par extension Monogame), c'est un bon début.
Le titre va directement à l'essentiel par l'exemple de plusieurs petits projets.

Attention toutefois, il ne conviendra pas à ceux qui recherche des exemples plus avancés.
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N. R. Ianni
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2011
Verified Purchase
Basically, if you want to make 2D videogames and don't know how or aren't too good at it, get this book NOW!

A LITTLE ABOUT ME:
I had been playing with XNA since the 3.0/3.1 version but never really achieved anything.
Read a lot of recommended books about the framework but none of them helped me with the process of making a game as all of them would teach me the basics of OOP and not the basics about game development.

I was about to give up when I came across with this book, now I'm making my own games and having fun witth them :)

This book is, from my POV, the best place to start with 2D game designing, and even if you don't know that well OOP or the .Net framework it's still gonna be helpful as it starts slowly and quickly builds up.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
The book is divided into 9 chapters, the first one explains what XNA is and how it works and explains how to make a really simple game.
After that, it shows how to make 4 different games, each one within 2 chapters: The first chapters usually builds a simple game and the second chapter upgrades it by putting more complex stuff into it (like path finding algorythms, sound effects, visual effects, etc).

The good thing about the games it teaches you is that they basically cover every type of game except for sports and rpg, on chapter 2 & 3 you'll make a board game with animations, on ch.4 & 5 a space shooter with enemies moving over waypoints, on ch.6 & 7 a TDS game with random generated maps, powerups, a world larger than the screen (using a camera) and path finding algorythms, and on ch.8 & 9 a sidescroller platformer game ala MarioBros. It also explains how to make a MapEditor by using winforms + xna (really useful thing for your games).
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Takeshi
5.0 out of 5 stars Für Anfänger genau richtig
Reviewed in Germany on December 23, 2010
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Der Autor führt durch die Entstehung von 4 kompletten 2D Spielen (Puzzle, space shooter, Tank Battle und ein Jump n Run). Diese sind im Gegensatz zu anderen Büchern vollständig und spielbar (Download über die Buch Verlagsseite) und machen sogar Spass! Sie sind gut animiert, haben ordentliche Grafik und einen kompletten lifecycle, also als Minimum Startschirm, Spiel und Game Over. Da habe ich gleich Lust, die Spiele nachzuprogrammieren. In anderen Büchern gibt es meist keine kompletten Spiele, dort werden nur einzelne Teile eines Spiels betrachtet. Hier kann ich jedoch auch gleich die ganze Spielestruktur kennenlernen, was mir vorher immer Probleme bereitete. Weil: ein Raumschiff rumfliegen lassen und Dinge abschiessen ist keine Kunst, aber das ganze einzubetten in eine ordentliche Struktur mit score, leveln und übergängen zwischen verschiedenen Spielstadien schon.

Für mich ist Spieleprogrammierung eher ein Hobby, deshalb fällt mir der Einstieg mit XNA leichter, als gleich in c++ zu programmieren. Ich habe Vorkenntnisse in Java, deshalb ist der Umstieg zu c# nicht so schwer. Grundkenntnisse in Objektorientierten Sprachen finde ich hier auf jeden Fall von Vorteil. Letztendlich reicht zu wissen, was Klassen und Objekte sind etc.

Das Buch benutzt eine einfache Sprache und der Code ist auch nicht allzu schwer. Mathematisch muss man nicht gross in die Trickkiste greifen. Ich fand den Code manchmal etwas simpel, aber er erfüllt seinen Zweck und kann später immer noch "getuned" werden ;) Es gibt halt sehr viele if-else Sachen, anstelle von Composition oder Einsatz verschiedener Klassen. Das macht aber auch den Einstieg leichter.
Seitens XNA werden alle relevanten Themen für 2D Spiele vorgestellt. Für mich ist ok, dass kein 3D vorkommt. Dafür habe ich wenigstens komplette 2D Spiele, für die ich auch selbst Content entwerfen kann usw. Zudem werden auch Sachen wie Pathfinding und Partikel angeschnitten, so dass man ein gutes Rundum Paket bekommt, mit dem man kleine Spiele programmieren kann, die nicht mal unbedingt billig sein müssen.

Für mich auf jeden Fall ein sehr gutes Anfänger Buch! Für Fortgeschrittene aber bestimmt nichts neues.
Danach kann man dann zu einem fortgeschrittenen XNA Buch greifen (z.B. XNA unleashed). Vielleicht gibt es ja sogar eine Fortsetzung von diesem Autor??
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Gondulzak
4.0 out of 5 stars XNA 4.0 Game development by example : Beginner's Guide
Reviewed in France on July 19, 2013
Verified Purchase
Les différents chapitres sont très bien expliqués. A la fin, le lecteur peut envisager la création de son propre jeu de plateforme. Un minimum de connaissances du C# est cependant requis.
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Cole Stephenson
5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what it says on the tin! Or cover?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 11, 2013
Verified Purchase
This is an excellent beginner's guide to XNA 4.0!

I bought this book as being a typical student I had been missing some classes which we were working on Game Design using XNA. This book contains for examples of games using different techniques and styles, with a full walk-through for each one.

Step by step coding instructions showed what everything meant, where to put it and what it did directly - how it affected the game. I particularly liked the style of writing with this, and even for the price I think it's well worth it.
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