An excellent starter kit would be... First Person Shooter, of course. A more "advanced-user" oriented starter kit (ignore the paradox), showing how to use a decent physics engine with XNA, as well a modern graphics engine (bump mapping, LOD, etc.), and multiplayer capabilities (lobby with list of servers, etc.). A huge project, but i also believe that this would be the ultimate starter kit. We already have beginner kits, like Spacewar and Marblets, and medium kits, like RPG and Racing. We need an advanced kit, dealing with the best parts of the XNA. An FPS would be the perfect game to handle a decent physics engine, as well graphics and mapping engine.

It doesn't do all this, but you could take a look at the Robot Game (you need to be a premium member for this though)

My 5 c.
Any kit that has ALL the best practices demonstrated with CLEAR and WELL DOCUMENTED examples. Maybe a surrounding educational doc or video.

What the heck, might as well chime in, right?

I'd like to see a starter kit focused on practical implementation of AI--group behavior, and pathfinding as it interacts with game maps, collision, player input, and other units.  My suggestion for this would be a simple tower defense starter kit--the kind where you can lay down a maze of towers, and the monsters will use A* pathfinding (or an alternative) to find their way out.

Is there already something like this?  I know there are some AI examples, and components within existing starter kits, but the ones I've seen are either isolated or relatively simple or don't address core navigational issues.

Does anyone knows if this thread is making any results? The last time I saw a new sample was "Input Sequence Sample" ( Are you kidding?? ), sumitted at 2/19/2009. And before that it was "Safe Are" ( Are you kidding again??  ), submitted at 11/14/2008. Ahh, I was also forgoting the "Oficial XNA Logos Pack" ( rsrsrsss ) for premium only. Or the XNA team manager is sleeping or he is not paying much attention to the EDUCATION CONTENT CATALOG.
Perhaps they don't read this thread, because this starts to look as some kind of lack of ideas ( rsrsrsrs ). So, here it is, just one more:
Start to change all samples that you guys made for working in 2D and make them to work in 3D.  ;)

This thread is about Starter Kits, not Samples. Two totally different things.

And, yes, they are listening. We've gotten a Platformer starter kit and an RPG starter kit.

I'm just starting out, and I find the tutorials to be of significantly more value than the examples. I imagine the examples will be more useful once I'm ready to start ripping out code sections, but they haven't done nearly as much to teach me about the framework than the two tutorials.

I'd like to see more information on creating sounds and music. From what I've seen so far, it looks like everything is .wav file based. If so, then in some sense, it was a lot easier to create sounds back in the 1980's. I was really surprised to find that there are no wave generation tools included in the development kit. I've tried some third party apps, but haven't found one yet that does what a Nintendo could do back in 1985.

I guess my problem is that I just want to create a "boing" sound, not compose a symphony. Most of the free tools I've seen are very complex, and I have yet to find one that has a white noise generator.

I know the tools and information on how to use them must be out there, but some guidance in that direction would save me a lot of searching. Also, a simple wave generation tool in the developer's kit (that could at least mimic the sound chips of the 1980's) wouldn't hurt.

Thanks.

LOVE TO SEE A :

• Platformer Starter Kit
• 3rd person RPG Starter Kit
• 2-D RPG Starter Kit (with Platformer Feel)

 

Crunch4:

Platformer Starter Kit

There already is one. It comes installed with XNA Game Studio 3.0.

I would REALLY like to see a fighting game starter kit. It could help with

• Input
• Collision Detection
• Animation and
• AI

I would like to make a fighting game and I am a huge fan of the genre and really have no idea how to go about that.

Captain Comic:

Also, a simple wave generation tool in the developer's kit (that could at least mimic the sound chips of the 1980's) wouldn't hurt.

There's sfxr - http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2007/12/sfxr-sound-effect-generator.html

I totally agree, and i am sure that many others agree agree too.