I downloaded and started trying to learn XNA about 2 weeks ago now. I’ve been as patient as possible, and spent a long time trying to find easy to understand resources, such as tutorials, that actually work.

But no matter how hard I try I cannot get a basic game up and running, the tutorials on this site are out of date and all the others I have found from other sites, will not work in their entirety, other than small, basic articles about drawing or moving a sprite etc.

At the moment I’m trying to find somewhere that explains how to make and use a game state manager, the one from this site, although it works, I don’t understand and, in the end, I’m not learning anything.

So what I’m asking for is a good set of tutorials that both work with 2.0 and are understandable. Failing that, can someone give me some pointers on the game states please?

Thanks.

"understandable" is subjective. I had no trouble understanding the GameStateManagement sample, for instance. How much of a background in C# do you have? If the answer is "Not much" or something along those lines, you'd be better off spending some time learning more about the language than specific XNA GS tutorials.

When you say things like "I cannot get a basic game up and running" and "other than small, basic articles about drawing or moving a sprite etc." I have to wonder what you consider a basic game. Articles on drawing and moving sprites will give you a basic game. That's all games like Tetris use, for example.

You have tried thinking of a game you want to create and finding resources to help you create it, rather than just looking for any tutorial you can find? If you work that way, you'd probably be able to find something useful.

Have you checked out Ziggy's site? There's a ton of stuff there and most is for 2.0.

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Jim Perry
Here's what I'm up to.

For a totall beginner I would recommend Rob Miles book... http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft%C2%AE-XNA-Game-Studio-2-0/dp/0735625220 its VERY basic but I can't see how anyone couldn't write some simple games after following it through.

 

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The ZBuffer - News and information for XNA and Managed DirectX

George has quite a few getting started tutorials over on XNADevelopment.com that I'd recommend checking out. I'd also recommend the help files that install with XNA for the getting started section. Here's a link to the online version: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb203893.aspx.

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Nick Gravelyn -- Microsoft XNA MVP
XNA Wiki | Zune Games

As for tutorials, I've got a series at:

http://matt.insidegamer.org/XNATutorials.aspx

Other than that I would suggest you go to Ziggyware, which is an excellent source for almost everything the XNA community brings out.  Also, look at the help documentation built into Visual Studio when XNA is installed, thats how lots of people start.

It's hard to suggest because everyone has their different ways of learning.  Games are just a compilation of components such as drawing, moving sprites, sprite management, model management.  Once you've done stuff like management of sprites and models you can write your own game state management classes.  I would suggest going over and over some more basic drawing code and such than trying to push out a game right away.  I built a demo a few months ago where I had no idea what I wrote but it made some nice images to show friends.  Now, I don't even like talking about it as much as the demos where I know what I've written.

Thanks guys, I've been using Ziggyware alot, although I ran into problems from the very beginning so had to improvise and write code that actually worked, so when it came to later sections I couldn't use the code that was given, which is why I want explainations so I can use it easier.

I don't have any C# experience so I'l look into that a bit before carrying on and I'l make sure i check out the other links you gave afterwards.

Thanks.

For help with the Game State Management sample specifically, be sure to check out Nazeeh's detailed tutorial/explanation about it.  He is part of the XNA team.

B4 even trying to make games its a good idea to do a programmer education and get 5-10 profession programming experiance b4 you try to PROGRAM games LOL.

I make software for over 12 years i read about XNA yesterday went to the stores and bougth an xbox 360 slept installed the 360 on my network in 10 minutes ran a starter kit game 3 minutes later and created my own game (a hello world window in full screen) 2 minutes after that.

I feel sorry for kinda chrushing your hopes, dreams and asperations but b4 you can make games you need experiance and education if you cant even manage to run a game its kinda hopeless and pointless to go on.

I never made any games in my life b4 today.

Neukworst:

B4 even trying to make games its a good idea to do a programmer education and get 5-10 profession programming experiance b4 you try to PROGRAM games LOL.

I make software for over 12 years i read about XNA yesterday went to the stores and bougth an xbox 360 slept installed the 360 on my network in 10 minutes ran a starter kit game 3 minutes later and created my own game (a hello world window in full screen) 2 minutes after that.

I feel sorry for kinda chrushing your hopes, dreams and asperations but b4 you can make games you need experiance and education if you cant even manage to run a game its kinda hopeless and pointless to go on.

I never made any games in my life b4 today.

This is just not true. To make a professional game this might be the case, but to get started making games? Just entirely wrong. You can get started making games with just a little programming knowledge. Especially since the XNA framework takes out and abstracts some of the more complicated parts of game development.

Being knowledgeable of C# syntax and how object oriented development works is helpful, but you don't need to be an expert or have years of experience.

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George Clingerman - Microsoft XNA MVP
XNADevelopment.com

Neukworst:

B4 even trying to make games its a good idea to do a programmer education and get 5-10 profession programming experiance b4 you try to PROGRAM games LOL.

I make software for over 12 years i read about XNA yesterday went to the stores and bougth an xbox 360 slept installed the 360 on my network in 10 minutes ran a starter kit game 3 minutes later and created my own game (a hello world window in full screen) 2 minutes after that.

I feel sorry for kinda chrushing your hopes, dreams and asperations but b4 you can make games you need experiance and education if you cant even manage to run a game its kinda hopeless and pointless to go on.

I never made any games in my life b4 today.

I made my first game when I as 13 on GW basic called "fighting stick men" with no background in programming…it used a heck of a lot of goto commands but it worked. as well as made many games for my Ti -83 , 12 years of programming is not needed in the least...just a drive to learn.

 

 

Folan:

I downloaded and started trying to learn XNA about 2 weeks ago now. I’ve been as patient as possible, and spent a long time trying to find easy to understand resources, such as tutorials, that actually work.

But no matter how hard I try I cannot get a basic game up and running, the tutorials on this site are out of date and all the others I have found from other sites, will not work in their entirety, other than small, basic articles about drawing or moving a sprite etc.

At the moment I’m trying to find somewhere that explains how to make and use a game state manager, the one from this site, although it works, I don’t understand and, in the end, I’m not learning anything.

So what I’m asking for is a good set of tutorials that both work with 2.0 and are understandable. Failing that, can someone give me some pointers on the game states please?

Thanks.

 

http://creators.xna.com/Headlines/tutorialscol1/archive/2007/05/24/Collision-Series-1_3A00_-2D-Rectangle-Collision.aspx

 

This is the tutorial I used to learn what I know. It's only the bare basics, but if you look through the code you can start learning how things like Vector2's work. I highly recommend you learning from it.

i think first you need to get basic knowledge of c#.

then you can easely create games in xna.

Lerning resouces for c#.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336766.aspx

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Imagine cup Game development Semi Finalist
http://uditha.wordpress.com/

I remember learning to program BASIC back in 1980 on a TRS-80 Model 3.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I was writing code that came out of several primer books on basic programming.  By the end of the excercise, I was easily able to program a simple game.  (My game by the way was a spin-off of Mad-Libbs). 

Having said that, the lesson to learn is, although many people are aspousing that you need to learn C# first, take this opportunity to learn C#.  There are several excellent tutorial sites available ( http://www.xnadevelopment.com/index.shtml) that start with the absolute basic, and move you toward writing an efficient 2D game. 

Don't dream so big that your abilities overrun your ambitions, keep the dream alive by building up to it! 

So, what's my authority to speak like this?  I have been programming professionaly now for twenty years, making decent money as a VB programmer, who has recently learned that it is not a contest of VB vs C#, but rather a complete .Net developer knows both; they both serve .Net and .Net serves your programming needs.  (Sorry for the editorial).

Anyway, best of luck on your exciting endevour of programming.  You may find it to be rewarding, frustrating, and at times demanding, but, like an artist, what you put in to it shows with what you get out of it!