XNA Game Studio 4.0 Programming: Developing for Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360 (Developer’s Library)
Get Started Fast with XNA Game Studio 4.0–and Build Great Games for Both Windows® Phone 7 and Xbox 360® This is the industry’s best reference and tutorial for all aspects of XNA Game Studio 4.0 programming on all supported platforms, from Xbox 360 to Windows Phone 7 and Windows PCs. The only game development book authored by Microsoft XNA development team members, it offers deep insider insights you won’t get anywhere else–including thorough coverage of new Windows Phone APIs for
List Price: $ 39.99
Price:
Find More Game Programming Products
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent intro to graphics programming, and a concise XNA primer,
This isn’t just an XNA manual with half-baked examples that cover the API: this is an aircraft carrier linear catapult to get you off the ground and making games.
I’ve been doing graphics programming since the DOS era, and have seen a lot of bad tutorials, and a lot of over-eager underachievers who write a “game programming” book to satisfy their need to accomplish something on a platform.
This is not one of those books: this is an accessible, clear, and purpose-driven course in games programming. It assumes only that you have a basic understanding of C#, and have at least seen a Dictionary<string,whatever> declaration before, but doesn’t assume that you’re a veteran D3D coder.
The coding examples are clear, thoroughly-explained, and ramp up quickly. Lots of best practices and gentle introduction of xna/winpho concepts, like game Components. The elements that are repeated are repeated in order to train you into them, and not just to pad out the book. This book doesn’t fall into the Petzold trap of making an example for every member of every Enum, just to have one. There are a few typos here and there, but you’ll catch them when you compile.
TL/DR; This book is worth purchasing for the skeletal animation code alone.
Was this review helpful to you?
|The first truly good book on XNA for experienced developers,
It is unfortunate that the rating for this book has been lowered for not being a “beginner” text. This book is clearly not intended for the beginner audience, and there is a plethora of other texts (just about every other book written on XNA, in fact) that are geared towards the beginner. What makes XNA Game Studio 4.0 Programming great and sets it apart is that it is ~not~ geared towards beginners. While it does not expect any prior game development experience, XNA Game Studio 4.0 Programming assumes that the reader of this book is a fully competent C# developer and doesn’t waste any time explaining the basics that all decent C# developers should be acquainted with. If you are the kind of developer who enjoys reading ‘deeper’ books like CLR Via C#, Advanced .Net Debugging, etc, AND you are interested in developing XNA apps, then this book is definitely for you. That’s not to say this book is a deep dive on the kind of level that Clr Via C# is, but it could fit the bill of being the unofficial “XNA Handbook” and excels where every other XNA book I have ever tried to read has failed. Instead of providing cookie cutter examples of how the authors built some cool app, XNA Game Studio 4.0 Programming describes the API in great detail and requires the reader to inject their own imagination and inginuity to realize what may be possible. For example, after reading the first chapter, I spent a few hours and was able to build a sample XNA app that could animate a 2D game entity across the screen based on player input.
If you want to cut throught the mumbo jumbo and read a book that explains the API and best practices, and don’t want to feel like you are being talked down to or having some important detail skipped, then I can’t recommend XNA Game Studio 4.0 Programming enough.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Great for what it does, but is not a beginner book,
This books is a lot of theory, and not much practical use. It helps you get into the head of the XNA architects, and understand the APIs, but it doesn’t make the case why you should care. Don’t get me wrong–you will need to know what’s in this book if you want to be a successful XNA developer, but if this is the first book you read on XNA, it’s going to seem like high school math. I made the mistake of reading this book first for XNA, and I wasted my time. My time wasn’t wasted because the book was bad, but because this book was going into detail about its rendering system, while I was trying to figure out how to make a sprite jump when I pressed the “A” button. I’m not rating this book down, because nowhere does this book advertise itself as a tool for learning the system. I’m making sure people who want to program for Microsoft devices start in the right place to get the most use of their time and money.
The ideal audience for this book is someone who has some experience in making games with XNA, but wants to get more use out of the architecture. If you’re starting out, I recommend the O’Reilly book. If you want to go further from there, maybe this would be the second or even third book you read.
Was this review helpful to you?
|