I really liked this book.  About half of the book will be valuable to a complete beginner.  The second half delves into 3D and starts you down the path of shader development, terrain generation and a third person shooter.  I found the third person shooter part to be a relief since most books deal in [...]

Continue reading about Review Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming From Novice to Professional by Alexandre Lobao, Bruno Evangelista and Jose Antonio Leal de Farias

Allan Chaney on January 7th, 2009

I read some of the reviews of this book atAmazon and I was pretty disappointed by the immaturity of reviewers.  But I guess that’s the way it is when anyone can post whatever they want.  There was one review in particular that made the assertion that Mr. Silva was capitalizing on his winning of the Microsoft [...]

Continue reading about Review Building XNA 2.0 Games by James Silva and John Sedlak

Allan Chaney on January 5th, 2009

This was the very first XNA book I bought and I’m glad it was my first.  Based upon the 5-6 XNA books I’ve purchased and read, this book is the most beginner oriented.  Rob Miles does a nice job of trying to hand hold you through basic Object Oriented concepts yet also rapidly getting you [...]

Continue reading about Review Learn Programming Now! XNA Game Studio 2.0 by Rob Miles

Allan Chaney on January 5th, 2009

One of the problems I had early on and still do in many cases is understanding the big picture when it comes to C# development with XNA.  There is just so much abstract stuff going on, it’s hard to visualize what you are doing and where you need to go.  Books don’t make this any [...]

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Allan Chaney on January 5th, 2009

I won’t go into detail about getting your computer and software setup to program using XNA unless someone asks in the comments because there are tons of books and websites that detail exactly what you need to do.  The primary and only source for this information is Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Website.  This is your first step.  [...]

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Allan Chaney on January 4th, 2009

Don’t believe the hype!  XNA does not make game programming easy.  If you think XNA is a magic bullet to game development, you will be sorely disappointed and quickly frustrated and you will never make a game.   You should pursue this endeavor with your eyes wide open and realize that learning the XNA framework, C# and [...]

Continue reading about Don’t believe the hype and remember the end goal