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 collage 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).
- XNA 2D from the ground up
- Session 1 continued – Game Development Introductions
- C# Programming Overview (this is actually a lot of posts so only the intro is here)
- Lesson 2 – Game Web Cast Project: Game Components
- Intermission #1 – Welcome to XNA
- Lesson 3 – Game Design – Engine Basics
- Lesson 4 – Game Implementation Part one – Part two
- Intermission #2 – Spritesheets (and Clean-up)
- Intermission #2 – Code Changes
- Intermission #3 – updating to allow for changeable resolution
- Intermission #4 – Moving to Windows Phone
- Lesson 5 – Transformation and collision of Sprites
- Lesson 6 – Player Control of Sprites
- Intermission #5 – Windows Phone controls
- Intermission #6 – More meat on the bone
- Intermission #6/2– Analogue Controls
- Intermission #7 – Resource pools and Particles
- Intermission #7 / 2–Bring on the Fire
- Intermission #8–What is gone wrong?
- Intermission #9–Back to the future (Phone 7)
- Intermission #10–lets tax the brain Part 1 – Part 2
- Lesson 7 – Game Music and Sound Effects
- 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 
.
The source is still in XNA 4.0 Beta (and WP7 beta) state but I plan to update the final code to the current release soon, I will update here and in the posts as well. Although to be honest the code will remain the same, it is just the project definition itself that will change (which anyone can do easily by creating a new project and just copying over the code and assets – Do not forget to update the namespace if different!)
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 (to be fixed)
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 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.
Simon (darkside) Jackson
Engineer, industry executive, research enthusiast. Avid learner with diverse interests in coding, game development, Mixed Reality (AR/VR/XR) and reinforcement learning. 25+ years of experience working in multinational corporations and startups.
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