Useful XNA Resources

Below are some useful resources to reference for developing projects in Microsoft XNA Game Studio, one of several platforms used by Student Game Developers to develop projects (by no means the only platform, however). I personally have used all of the resources listed below and have found them all to be helpful in some form or another.

Note that all resources listed (particularly the books) assume a functional understanding of programming concepts, particularly with regard to C#, but in my experience if you are comfortable with C++ and Java you should have no problem picking up C#.

Full list after the jump.


BOOKS

Microsoft XNA Unleashed by Chad Carter
Focuses on how to do lower-level tasks, such as shading, controller input, sprite and 3D model drawing, etc.

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide, 2nd Edition by Stephen Cawood and Pat McGee
Like XNA Unleashed, but also provides overview of mathstuffs pertinent in computer graphics concepts such as vectors, matrices, etc. and how to use them in the context of XNA

Professional XNA Programming: Building Games for Xbox 360 and Windows with XNA Game Studio 2.0 by Benjamin Nitschke
A higher-level overview of XNA, featuring tutorials that have the reader implementing complete games such as Pong, Breakout, and Rocket Commander.
(note: written for XNA Game Studio 2.0, and code samples are out-of-date)

INTERNETS

GameDev.net
A general-purpose game programming help website; doesn't necessarily focus on XNA, but lots of useful stuff all over the website and forum.

Ziggyware
Like GameDev.net, but more focused on XNA. Features XNA tutorials, help forum, and a 3D model database.

XNA Creators Club Online
Official website for XNA Game Studio; features games developed in XNA, programmer blogs, tutorials, and help forum.

Matthew Yu receives 2009 SGD Exemplary Contribution Award

Student Game Developers' member Matthew Yu was awarded with a Jefferson Cup for his work with Student Game Developers during the 2008-09 school year.  Matt put a great deal of his personal time into the success of many projects developed over the course of the year, including Recursion (developed in Fall 2008), RGB-DS (developed in Spring 2009), and Skies of Fury (also developed in Spring 2009).  Matt is currently enrolled in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at The University of Virginia. 

The Student Game Developers Exemplary Contribution Award, fondly dubbed by some members of SGD as the "I Am A Beast" Award, was created by the presiding SGD officers during the Spring 2009 semester to acknowledge the contributions a non-director member who went beyond the call of duty for his or her team and also demostrated exceptional motivation towards the success of multiple projects developed by SGD members and ergo the success of SGD as a whole.  The accolade is awarded on yearly and takes into account the contributions of the candidates to Student Game Developers over the course of the entire academic year.

Release: Shark Attack: World Tour

Took us long enough, but we finally got it up! Shark Attack: World Tour is now available for download / installation. Play through Miami and Venice!

Shark Attack requires the Microsoft .NET Framework to be installed to play.

Link to the game included after the break.

http://www.student.virginia.edu/gamedev/games/SharkAttackWorldTour.zip

Release: Robot Invasion Director's cut!

The director's cut of Robot Invasion has now been released! This release comes a ways ahead of schedule, but all of the requested changes were made and the game is now in a fun, accessible, and polished form. Link and description of changes after the jump.

The game can be found here. Here are the highlights of the changes that have been made:
*Resolution was changed to 640x640 to make the game accessible to people who don't have high-end PCs.
*The game limits where you can place towers. You can no longer place a tower on the path or on the menu frame. The build tower appears green when hovering over an acceptable location and red when hovering over an unacceptable one.
*A "score" feature was added as well as a high score table.
*You can now sell towers and individual powerups by right clicking on the tower or the boxes on the right side of the menu.
*The game caps out at 50 waves, at which point (if you make it that far) you enter a high score to the table. You can also enter a high score if you die before 50 waves.
A more complete list can be found in the readme file.

I hope you enjoy the game! I had a blast directing Robot Invasion, and I highly recommend pitching a project to anyone considering it in the future.

Release: Imperium

Next in line is The Imperium Project. Imperium is a 2D tactics style RPG directed by Dai Yang. The project was developed in Python over the course of the entire year.

The game is available here.

Release: RGB DS

RGB DS is now available for all to enjoy. Although it has been designed for the Nintendo DS, you can also play it on a PC with an emulator (which is provided).
Download link after the jump.

RGB DS was developed using PALib and C++ for the Nintendo DS. It's fairly simple to figure out, but hard to master - be sure to check out the readme if you need help setting up.
Download RGB DS here.

Release: Robot Thesis

The third out of six to be released, Robot Thesis is now available for download. This version is a slightly modified from the one presented at the expo. Like Robot Invasion, I'm also planning some sort of Director's Cut version with some more polish and content.

Link after the jump.

Robot Thesis was developed using Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 and is intended for use on Windows computers with the latest version of the Microsoft .NET Framework installed. This means that if you don't have the latest version of .NET installed on your computer, the game will not work.

Make sure you check out the readme, as it contains all the control information and other useful tidbits.

You can download it here.