I have an idea for one that I might try to create (in all that free time I have :D), but I thought I'd solicit the community for ideas.

What happened to all the people crying for more starter kits? :(

I have been thinking the of the same thing, both starting a new starter kit, and were are all the requests for kits..

In thinking it would be noce to get one in the main themes of games.

• 2d Shooter
• 3d Shooter
• First Person Shooter
• First Person RPG
• 2d Tile based RPG - this is one of the ideas I was thinking of, and I did start to drop hints on the IRC Channel about this.

The 2D tile-based RPG was the one I was thinking about as well. I've already got most of the guts of an RPG engine done. I figured I could use Reiner's tileset graphics for it so it would have been very easy to put together.

I guess I'm missing all the good stuff on IRC. There's usually not much going on when I get on. :(

Heh, are we not still "owed" Pocket Jongg and Culture?

We haven't forgotten :)

ajmiles

I would like a 2d tile based RPG and even a FPS starter kit. I have some ideas that I would like to try, but my lack of knowledge for creating a game engine is preventing me from doing this.

I'm currently messing around with the space wars and Racing Game starter kits and I do have to say that these kits are a big help when you need a basic game engine.

Hello,

I think a simple 2D RPG would be intresting to see, with an added save/load game feature.

I also like the FPS idea, with incorporating animation for a figure walking and moving.

Just my 2 cents

 

 

 

mmorpg - just this one - working on Xbox360 and PC ;)

Whatever you do is great.  These kits are very important to the learning process.

Machaira:

I have an idea for one that I might try to create (in all that free time I have :D), but I thought I'd solicit the community for ideas.

First person shooter

I was going to say an RTS kit but I already know how to write those. ;)

I think there is such a solid fanbase for 2D RPGs (like Square's SNES ones) that it's worth a starter kit and will expand XNA's fanbase too. It's sure not hard to create your own base for such a game but I am sure many people find it quite hard to start with.

Glenn Wilson:

In thinking it would be noce to get one in the main themes of games.

• 2d Shooter
• 3d Shooter
• First Person Shooter
• First Person RPG
• 2d Tile based RPG - this is one of the ideas I was thinking of, and I did start to drop hints on the IRC Channel about this.

If they bring out a starter kit for each one of these genres, I can't see any newbie game developers using anything other than XNA in the future. The hurdle most newbies game devers face it that they have a game idea, but don't really know where to start. These starter kits would give them all a massive boost to starting and hopefully finishing their games.

I would add RTS as a game genre to the list above.

Point and Click adventure game. Like the Nancy Drew series. My wife and kids are busy working on the story and puzzles, and I'm am climbing the huge lerning curve of building the world to host that story and puzzles. To be honest, I'm very overwhelmed.

I made a 2D tile engine in XNA once. It was scriptable using LUA, and you used LUA to define the map arrays and add objects and events to the game. I never added characters or health or a battle system yet, but health could be a simple LUA variable and characters could just be a map object, so you could get a simple story written. It had no menu system, so you had to implement a a function in LUA that made a map with a 'yes' box and a 'no' box and tell the user to walk on one of them. :)

Anyway.. I'd love to see a 3rd person starter kit. Maybe an 3rd person RPG in XNA with a landscape editor (so we can 'paint' dirt, road, grass, water, snow, and lower/raise land) and some sort of simple story/event system, and maybe money (to give items a value), monsters (to demonstrate how different entites can have different health and stats), weapons, spells (to show how the player can influence things the game normally possible), and a battle-system (to connect most of these ideas togeather).

Well, what I was planning on wouldn't be 3D. I don't have the time to build a 3D engine nor get one of the existing ones to work. That might be appropriate for a shooter kit, 1st or 3rd person toggle. I was thinking something more along the lines of RPG Maker (which I actually downloaded the demo for yesterday to check out and compare) :) Pretty much everything else you mentioned I was planning and have a good bit done. It would have a simple quest and conversation system as well.

We'll see what happens.

What I would really like to see is a nearly full-functional Game Starter Kit template for the XNA GSE/Visual C# 2005 Express Edition that (unlike the current Windows game and Xbox game templates that insert nothing but two empty .CS files for you to put all your own code into) actually includes the basics implemented into a single, compile-and-run solution that includes:

• A basic intro splash screen feature.
• A basic menu system implementation.
• A basic sound implementation system.
• A basic music implementation system.
  
• And a basic end-credits/exit game feature.

The basic menu implementation should include:

• A "Play game" option that directs to empty code area for my own engine to be created in.
• An "Options" feature that allows: Adjust Brightness, Adjusting Contrast, Adjust Sound Volume, Adjust Music Volume.
• An "Exit" option for leaving the game.
• A basic, in-game "Pause" feature for use over the top of the game that will allow access to the base menu, "Options" and "Exit".

Right now it feels like I am trying to completely re-invent the wheel in order to get the encapsulation for a game up and running when all I really want to be doing is crafting the actual game, engine and features inside of that. I have a great design document for my title. I know exactly all of the features I want to implement, how I want my game to look, feel, and play out, etc... But I'm struggling on getting to the point where I can actually work on the code to make that work because I'm stuck re-inventing the wheel on a basic interface and engine encapsulation to hold my game and start testing features.

Perhaps this is more something I should ask for in the Help Wanted section and just hire someone to design a template so I can actually get started on my game instead of working on something that literally thousands (if not millions) of others have already designed to a fairly standardized point, but it's what I would really like to see so I'm throwing that request out here.

I don't want to just copy and paste and get a generic looking game out there for people. I want to customize these basic pieces into something fabulous that has a "new" feel and unique quality to it. But I feel the basics are pretty much automatically included in every game and therefore should be included in a template for a Windows or Xbox game in the XNA GSE software. I really don't feel it should be something that designers (especially the group of designers you're trying to attract with XNA GSE) should have to re-invent for every single game project they are working on in order to bring their creative ideas into the game industry.

Anyhow, that's what I'd like to see. =) It doesn't seem all that hard as there are already pieces of it separated out into a bunch of separate sample files right now in the Creator's Club, but you'd be surprised at how hard it is to piece all of these little samples together into a working solution for people like me who are more focused on the design and development side than on the hardcore programming side.

I do have a background in programming and I'm steadily improving my C# knowledge. And at some point I'm certain I'll be able to write whole entire game solutions on my own just like the rest of you hardcore programmers out there. But until I get to that point, it'd be nice to have somewhere to start without having to be a near-expert C# programmer to get a basic proof-of-concept up and running first.

Leave it with me I will see what I can come up with.. Watch Virtual Realm for more info... or this thread.

MadMojo, check out the Game State Management Sample...
http://creators.xna.com/Headlines/developmentaspx/archive/2007/02/13/Game-State-Management-Sample.aspx

It's a basic game shell that appears to do a lot of what you want, although it doesn't include sound or music.

I am currently working with some community Memebers to see what we can come up with, and yes the main idea is to use the game state sample as a base and then see what other options we can add to it. Hopefully we will have something soon that we can publish so that we can get feedback. If you have any other suggestions on what you would like please post either here or directly to me.

Thanks, Glenn! I'll keep an eye out. =)

Yeah, I liked that sample a lot, iq01. But it is a sample and not a template. A template form of that game state manager with a more solidly packaged, game-like encapsulation that could be instantly compiled and run to test out various features in a custom engine would be an invaluable time-saver. And not only that, would reduce a lot of the major coding work and education required that it takes to get from any form of sample code to running custom code in a person's own project.

I think a lot of people are getting lost in how to put all of these pieces of the puzzle together into something working that looks anywhere near a game. (I know I am, at least, and I at least hope I'm not alone. Heheh.) And we get all excited when we learn how to display a 2D image, or load up our first 3D model from these tutorials and samples, and it pushes us to keep learning more and to go forward. But then we can't get anywhere near an actual game-like interface or design so that we can see how it would look or feel if it were actually in a game. We have to learn just way too much about programming to get past that huge wall of a step. A template guide we could use as a sandbox environment to test out and play with the ideas in our heads would be so extremely helpful that I feel it would be the holy grail for a designer like me.

As I learn more about C# and game design, I can gradually replace all of that basic, rudimentary encapsulation code with my own code that is custom-built for the title I'm working on without (and this is the key) having to re-invent the wheel entirely from the beginning of each project all the while I'm trying to figure out how it all goes together in the first place. I'll be able to focus on each piece of my project as I move along in the design and creation phases and fit them into a temporary, working system that I can run and test nearly instantly.

And then I can keep enhancing it and adding in new features until it's Something Special. =)

Well I have to admit to being lazy, as I did not read this entire thread. However, I wanted to chime in and say that I think the Starter Kits are a little off track. I think SpaceWar, Marblets, and the Racing Game are all great examples of full blown games that can be built with XNA, but I don't think they are appropriate content for a "Starter Kit". A Starter Kit should be something more abstract that can be used to build a game of any type. I'd love to see more sample games, but just give us the source code rather than installing them as a template.

What I would love to see, however, would be some re-usable game components published on this site that you can immediately import into your project and begin using. For example, the Particle Sample could be converted to a game component such that you need only create an instance of the game component in your project and boom you have particles with editable properties. If more advanced particles are needed, we can modify the source code of the game component to suit our needs (I'd love to see Microsoft make the particle sample work in 3D though). The Skinning Sample might be another candidate for a game component or simply a re-usable class that you can import and use to play back animation from any Model. There could be a component for ray-to-triangle and triangle-to-triangle Model collision detection, or a component for physics simulations... the possibilities are endless.

Perhaps at some point the community could be allowed to share re-usable components that they have made on this site as well.

Kyle_W_:

Well I have to admit to being lazy, as I did not read this entire thread. However, I wanted to chime in and say that I think the Starter Kits are a little off track. I think SpaceWar, Marblets, and the Racing Game are all great examples of full blown games that can be built with XNA, but I don't think they are appropriate content for a "Starter Kit". A Starter Kit should be something more abstract that can be used to build a game of any type.

I'd have to disagree with you. Starter Kits should be for a specific type of game in order to be really useful. The basic template is a starter kit for building a game of any type. :)

Kyle_W_:

I'd love to see more sample games, but just give us the source code rather than installing them as a template.

If you create a project using the template you have all the source code. You can also just unzip the template file to get the source code.

Kyle_W_:

Perhaps at some point the community could be allowed to share re-usable components that they have made on this site as well.

While it might not be on this site, that's the plan, but it's going to take time.

I have to agree with MadMojo and Kyle_W_...

A starter kit should be more abstract than a specific genre. Most games have common elements such as a menu system. A basic game shell structure that's a real "game" from scratch -- even though it doesn't do anything -- is what (I think) most XNA users are looking for. I think the Game State Management Sample (GSMS) more or less does this and is a great starting point but it doesn't go far enough.

For what it's worth, I'm using the GSMS as the base for my game. Combined with the Racing Game, I think I should be able to extract what I need from both! :)

How much further should the GSMS go then if the other starter kits are too far? I'm confused. :(

I think the conflict that you're uncertain about Machaira is between what each of those items offers up to the developer/designer, especially in regards to people who are more recently adventuring into the wide world of gaming. =) Hopefully I can try to clear some of it up as I see it from my point of view.

(Apologies for the long post yet again... Sometimes I feel like I run at the mouth <fingers?> but I really want to be clear about things when I explain them and give as many viewpoints as I can to help people understand.)

Here's a more amusing explanation: A starter kit is like looking at a picture of a cookie on a box. And being able to pull out the ready-made (probably stale) cookie and eat it or give it to someone else to eat. I could change the cookie, add some toppings, but it's still the basic cookie I started with in the starter kit "box".

Using a template (like the one I'm talking about someone crafting) would be like a baker cutting out christmas-tree-shaped cookies, with the most ordinary of cookie-dough/batter/squishy-stuff. He's got a tree-shaped bit of edible stuff here... (A game-like program that is functional in it's limited way.) ...but once he has the basic cookie, it's up to him to make it interesting for the people eating the cookie. (Playing the game.) He has to add some frosting, some sprinkles, maybe some candies for ornaments in order to make the ordinary squishy stuff appealing to the eater. (Add in new game screens, models, backgrounds, etc... to his game.) But, if the baker really wants to become a professional cookie maker (and real game crafters), he's going to add in his own ingredients to the squishy-stuff to start with. A dash of salt, a pinch of sugar, etc... Until he has discovered how to make his own unique recipe and flavor of cookie. (He'll learn the small stuff first, and eventually have a completely unique game simply by being eased into game design through experimentation with the basic template of a fairly basic game.)

He'll make the cookie unique so people will be interested in eating it. And we'll do the same thing with the template for making a game, we'll get a basic game of a cookie. And then we'll fancy it up with our own code and make people want to eat it. (Err... play it.) ;) Heheh.

For a more serious and detailed explanation: A starter kit, for instance, will show someone a "finished" version of whatever the starter kit is for. For example, the race car starter kit shows off a fully functional racing game of sorts. If you were wanting to make a racer, and you were a beginner at programming, you could use this starter kit and then make modifications upon it to develop what you're wanting to make while also gaining an understanding of how a racing game (or any game for that matter) works. But it is still, at it's heart, a racing game. And there is a lot of code strewn about within the solution you're working with that would only be useful if you are making a racing game title.

A template on the other hand includes things that are necessary for whatever you are creating and tries to limit any extraneous data that isn't exactly necessary for the type of solution it is templating. To use an example you can view right away, if you were to start up and use the Xbox Game or Windows Game templates that are currently available when you start up a "New project..." you will find that you are given two files filled up with some similiar starter code. This code provides an entry point to your application in the "Program.cs" file. And it also provides your namespace and basic encapsulations for either a Windows or Xbox game in the "Game1.cs" file. In the Game1.cs file you will also find that there are pre-built areas to be modified that will help you to instantiate content, pre-load content, initialize whatever, load graphics content, unload graphics content, an area for your update logic, and add your drawing code, etc... These are important starter features and don't lead a designer in any direction so they get confused or mislead in trying to craft their own unique game.

This is a first step in getting a game started. In general, most games use each of these areas at some point or another. So the template is useful for most anyone starting out in crafting a Windows or Xbox game. The only problem we are finding is that there are actually MORE things in common between all genres of games than are provided within the base templates we have available to us right now. =) And that a lot of work has to be done to get even the most basic semblance of a game up and running. And we're hoping that if a more fully-functional version of these basic templates were combined with a few of the other samples (for example the game state manager sample) we would have a better starting point without having to spend a significant amount of time mastering and analyzing current game code before we could get started writing our own.

If there was a more solid template available, one that would include more of the basics of pretty much every game created these days such as handling menus, handling sound and music, handling controller or keyboard/mouse inputs, BUT (and here is the VERY important part to really understand why this would be such an AMAZING tool for us) this template has to avoid at all costs trying to pigeon-hole a developer into using simply ALL of the code provided by making it too "busy" with code in a single file that it is unlearnable or unmodifiable in it's template form. (This is what many of the samples we have already have issues with and why a new template would be more valuable as it would hopefully separate the different functions into more modular code.)

For example, instead of having one or two .CS files in the sample or template, you would have separate files that explicitly lay out information about the tools provided in them and how they interact with the other portions of the solution. Perhaps a Sound.cs file, a Music.cs file, a Controls.cs file, a Menu.cs file (GameStateManager.cs or whatever...etc...) that not only explains how a lot of the functions work, but is able to separate out a lot of the functionality that is squeezed into simply one single "Game.cs" file in the real GameStateManagement Windows sample. (It would provide the same functionality, but separated out into a "learnable" interface (template).

While this template would allow me some instantaneous feedback on a "game" of sorts by pressing F5 when I first load the template it will definitely not be of much use until I really dive into the meat of each of those sections of code that is provided to me. I could quickly and easily see how to "yank out" perhaps the sound.cs file and write my own custom 3D Audio file using the functions and features I learned in the 3D Audio sample available here on the Creator's Club because there would be information on how the "sound.cs" file interacts with the rest of the game code (like a game.cs file) within that "sound.cs" file and remarks within the "game.cs" file where the functionality in the "sound.cs" file is actually called.

I hope that explains a bit more clearly what I'd like to see of a new Starter Game Template of some sort. =)