ReCap - The XNA 2D 'from the ground up' tutorial series

Some time ago when I first started posting on XNA-UK (not my first posts ever, just when I joined XNA-UK), I focused on a very detailed 2D game development series.

It started with an original 2D tutorial series that was based on C# and DirectX run by the DigiPen institute (A game development college in the US). What was good about this series is that it was one of the ones that got me started in game development, then XNA came along and I went in that direction instead.

However the tutorial was well written and a good start for any budding game developer, so some years on harnessing my knowledge of XNA I updated it and added some of my own magic (as you can see from some of the intermissions). When Windows Phone 7 came along I then also made it multiplatform enabling the same tutorial series to be applied to WP7.

Source updated for Final project here on Codeplex

So here is the tutorial index (since I never in the end got round to writing one).

1. XNA 2D from the ground up
2. Session 1 continued – Game Development Introductions
3. C# Programming Overview (this is actually a lot of posts so only the intro is here)
4. Lesson 2 – Game Web Cast Project: Game Components
5. Intermission #1 – Welcome to XNA
6. Lesson 3 – Game Design – Engine Basics
7. Lesson 4 – Game Implementation Part one – Part two
8. Intermission #2 – Spritesheets (and Clean-up)
9. Intermission #2 – Code Changes
10. Intermission #3 – updating to allow for changeable resolution
11. Intermission #4 – Moving to Windows Phone
12. Lesson 5 – Transformation and collision of Sprites
13. Lesson 6 – Player Control of Sprites
14. Intermission #5 – Windows Phone controls
15. Intermission #6 – More meat on the bone
16. Intermission #6/2– Analogue Controls
17. Intermission #7 – Resource pools and Particles
18. Intermission #7 / 2–Bring on the Fire
19. Intermission #8–What has gone wrong?
20. Intermission #9–Back to the future (Phone 7)
21. Intermission #10–lets tax the brain Part 1 – Part 2
22. Lesson 7 – Game Music and Sound Effects
23. Lesson 8 – Behaviour

As you can see there is a lot there and I did add a fair amount on top of the original DigiPen series, mainly to reflect current best practices with XNA and to go beyond.

I did (and still do) intend to continue on the 2D series to add more features to the basic game and provide examples of shiny stuff .

Note, Final project code now updated and both projects have been merged into a single GS 4.0 project (Windows + Phone) and can be found here on codeplex

If you are more interested in 3D and want to skip all this 2D stuff (which I DO NOT recommend as it is good to know where the 3D stuff framework is built from) then catch the 3D XNA session I did with AT&T. Be warned the pace is quite fast (well it had to be to get 3D done in an hour!) so have the pause and rewind buttons at the ready.

For now I am preparing for the sessions mentioned in my last post plus some others I cannot disclose yet (even had to put on hold my new MMOG, lol), So I will get back to you when they are done.