So, has anyone put together something with XNA?

[joker454]

I'm curious if anyone here has put together something on 360 using XNA, be it a game, tech demo, or whatever. I've delayed the start of my next job by a couple of months to see if I can get something cool up and running. My plan is to just use XNA 2.0 and Visual Studio Express, and get the basics of a game running in 8 weeks. I'm a total noob to XNA, so I'd be interested in hearing about other peoples experiences, limits encountered, frustrations, hidden costs, etc. Thanks guys!

 

[ERP]

I've only messed about with it, but it's very straight forwards.
MS did a nice job. Their top level application class is a little limiting for my tastes, but it won't stop you doing anything.

 

[archangelmorph]

Hey Joker!

I've spent quite a bit of time with XNA (see my sig) & I must say it's pretty awesome.. It's really quick for prototyping simple games without much effort.. In fact when I started working at my current employer I spent the first 2 weeks waiting for my dev kit to arrive so I could start doing some work so during the first week I managed to get XNA setup on my Pc at work & kicked out a pretty cool puzzle game in about 4 days.. It wasn't finished but I was suprised by how simple & straight forward the whole process was..

My biggest gripe with XNA at the moment is with the support for animation.. to put it bluntly.. There isn't any & you basically have to deal with everything yourself at runtime.. I tried using the Animation Component Library for ver 1.1 but it failed to work with any of my own exported assets in all of the formats it supposedly supported.. In the end I decided that the best thing to do would be to setup my own animation system but at the moment I just don't have to time to finish it but as soon as I have, I will..

So I guess to summarize:-

Pros:

- Simple & fast development
- Excellent range of support
- Supports Xbox360 deployment (with a CC license)
- Supports Live multiplayer (ver 2.0) over Games for Windows & Xbox Live

Cons:

- No support for skinned animation (you have to support it yourself)
- Arsehole distribution process at the moment (see the creators club forums for more info on this)
- Content build process is a bit of an acquired taste IMO
- No C++ support (although this could be a good thing)

Good luck with whatever you decide to put together anyways..Let me know how you progress..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The XNA initiative hasn't born the sort of fruit I was hoping for. XBLive! Arcade could be showcasing zillions of homebrew games with a lively community, but instead we barely even see a few select homebrew games being adopted as real titles. The idea of bedroom gaming industries getting a second chance doesn't seem to have materialised, and you still have to be a proper paid-up developer to be able to produce and sell content.

 

[archangelmorph]

The XNA initiative hasn't born the sort of fruit I was hoping for. XBLive! Arcade could be showcasing zillions of homebrew games with a lively community, but instead we barely even see a few select homebrew games being adopted as real titles. The idea of bedroom gaming industries getting a second chance doesn't seem to have materialised, and you still have to be a proper paid-up developer to be able to produce and sell content.

The platform is still developing & the team has been working on the "youtube for games" concept since inception..

The thing is there's alot of legal issues & top end decisions which need to be made by MS in terms of how such a system is going to work, how it can be controlled, how it can be moderated & also thing like how it can support sale of homebrew titles but protect the IP rights of the developer; & subsequently how such a business model will affect the industry as a whole..
It's not an easy job as you can imagine & so it's clearly going to take time for a proper Live based distribution platform to materialize.. The most important thing is MS have provided hobbyists with the tools & SDKs to build their games now so that as soon as the platform is ready, there should be a swathe of quality content available to showcase it.. Smart move IMO..

On another note I'd be interested to see how such a platform would be received by the commercial industry.. It would be slightly unfair if, should the platform really take off & provide really great monetary prospects for developers of the best games on there, all the big companies like EA muscled in & stole the majority share of the market with bigger budgets & production values than any homebrew team could afford..

 

[AzBat]

The XNA initiative hasn't born the sort of fruit I was hoping for. XBLive! Arcade could be showcasing zillions of homebrew games with a lively community, but instead we barely even see a few select homebrew games being adopted as real titles. The idea of bedroom gaming industries getting a second chance doesn't seem to have materialised, and you still have to be a proper paid-up developer to be able to produce and sell content.

I'll agree with archangelmorph, it's a little more complicated than you give it credit for. First, the XNA platform has only been out a year and it just released version 2. Microsoft has been consistent on their plans to bring XNA games to the masses, but they're only been doing 2 dashboard updates per year. XNA 2.0(which added online gaming) wasn't ready in time for the latest dashboard update, but could get support in the upcoming Spring update. Give it some time and let them get it right. They rush it and then you'll crucify them for not doing it right. Let's see what they have in store for GDC and the Spring dashboard update before we start giving up on XNA.

Tommy McClain

 

[ERP]

Even back in the "good old days" where developing in your bedroom was relatively "normal" there really weren't all that many of us doing it, and even less turning out high quality product.

Writing a game is hard XNA makes the entry practical for a lot of people.

But there is a lot more to writing a good game than the basic tools.

 

[joker454]

- No support for skinned animation (you have to support it yourself)

Ahh, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info! No C++ is a bummer, if only because it would make it easier for me to toggle between my future day job and this side project if they both used the same language. But as you say, it may be a good thing

The XNA initiative hasn't born the sort of fruit I was hoping for.

I was talking with a friend who used to work at a start up studio that only makes XBLive games (they have now since been bought by Sierra). I asked him how long it takes to make a complete XBLive game, and he told me 6 to 12 months of full time work from a team 4+ people! I was surprised by that, but I guess it takes time to get that right level of polish, and to get through QA, even for a small game.

Either way, it's such an elegant little machine that it seems a shame not to try getting a game working on it. I've assembled a team of four to try this, and two more friends have expressed strong interest as well. So I guess we'll see what happens in the next eight weeks

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's what I was hoping for from XNA and these download services. The opportunity for a small group to work together at negligible fiscal outlay to produce a title and take it to market, whether devs in spare time or enthusiasts or university projects. There was an XNA competition recently which I remember seeing, which is the right idea. Sony have done something in the same vein in buying into mini-flash games and expanding them to full titles. I appreciate the YouTube of homebrew takes a lot of effort, but I would have hoped that there'd be a bit more promoting and supporting of XNA development in certain areas like Universities to get fresh thinking on board and give talent a leg-up.

 

[archangelmorph]

Either way, it's such an elegant little machine that it seems a shame not to try getting a game working on it. I've assembled a team of four to try this, and two more friends have expressed strong interest as well. So I guess we'll see what happens in the next eight weeks

Eight weeks is a long time..

I'm sure you guys shouldbe able to come up with something pretty darn stunning in that time frame..

& if whatever you end up developing is *really* good.. You may not even *need* to start your new job afterall..

 

[AzBat]

I would have hoped that there'd be a bit more promoting and supporting of XNA development in certain areas like Universities to get fresh thinking on board and give talent a leg-up.

Microsoft is already a step ahead of you...

From students at colleges, universities and high schools of the future to the proverbial “guys in the garage,” Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express will liberate anyone with a great game idea to create titles for Xbox 360 and Windows XP simultaneously. More than 10 universities and their game development schools — including University of Southern California, Georgia Tech College of Computing and Southern Methodist University Guildhall — have already pledged to integrate console game development and XNA Game Studio Express into their curricula for the first time, and Xbox 360 will be the only console at the center of all coursework.

“Great game ideas are incubating in the minds of students everywhere,” said Michael Zyda, director for Gamepipe Labs at the University of Southern California. “With XNA Game Studio Express, Microsoft is investing in these next-generation innovators, creating the canvas for dreamers to express their powerful game ideas. In incorporating XNA Game Studio Express and Xbox 360 consoles into our Gamepipe program, USC will be able to better provide game studios and publishers around the world with a newfound wellspring of talent and opportunity. It’s ingenious.”

Demonstrating its pledge to democratize game development for tomorrow’s game developers, Microsoft announced that four Japanese universities will use its XNA™ Game Studio Express software in educational material and research within their course offerings. The XNA software allows hobbyists, students and independent game developers to create games for Windows® and, for the first time, Xbox 360 with the goal that user-generated games made with XNA will arrive on Xbox Live Marketplace. Tokyo University, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Ritsumeikan University and Osaka Electro-Communication University join the dozens of universities worldwide that have pledged support for Microsoft’s XNA vision and are recognizing the potential of XNA Game Studio Express as an educational tool. As a result, these four schools will integrate XNA software into their game development curricula, labs and games-related research.

“As I turn my attention and passion toward teaching the next generation of game developers, I am thrilled with XNA Game Studio Express and related products,” said Toru Iwatani, a lecturer at Tokyo Polytechnic University and original creator of “Pac-Man.” “I believe that these products are attractive and effective because they create a development environment that matches the skill level and area of expertise, widening the entry of future developers into game development.”

From October 2007, we will visit universities with our Inspiration Tour.

The Inspiration Tour will consist of technically-focused sessions to help your students understand the latest software trends and how they can create compelling applications using Microsoft technologies.

Focusing on Silverlight, XNA and Microsoft Embedded technologies, the tour will provide your students with knowledge that they can use both in and out of class. It will also help prepare them for the modern IT and games industry, focusing on the boom areas of web 2.0, mobile and embedded devices.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/academia/inspirationtour/default.mspx

For more info check the Academic Corner Forum at Microsoft's Official XNA site.

http://forums.xna.com/60/ShowForum.aspx

Tommy McClain

 

[Arwin]

I'm going to set this up on my wife's machine and see how far I get. I'm not quite ready yet to fork the $100 (or whatever it is) yearly fee to get this running on the 360, but I'll first see how easy it is to get things going, and maybe I can help out as a tester here and there. I do have a number of ideas so who knows.

It's quite a bit of work to install all the required software - already downloading C# 2005 Express is a real b... because they seem to have throttled its download capacity greatly. I tried getting 2008 instead and indeed, download went 10x faster. It should work with 2008 but I don't know if that prevents the games from running on 360. Anyone know?

EDIT: Nope, never mind - won't work. It requires C# 2005 Express Edition as well as it's SP1. So it's going to take a little while longer still.

EDIT2: ah, at least bandwidth is better this time.

 

[ERP]

Didn't work with the full version of 2005 so I douby it'll work with 2008.
I had to install express edition in addition to my existing 2005 install. But I haven't upgraded since they went to 2.0.

 

[joker454]

& if whatever you end up developing is *really* good.. You may not even *need* to start your new job afterall..

Yeah, we're all secretly hoping for that but we won't bet the farm. We'll keep our day jobs for now. I just got the racing game and spacewar demos up and running on my 360. Sweet I can't believe this amount of development power is available for peanuts to the average joe. It's really quite amazing. This is gonna be fun!

t's quite a bit of work to install all the required software - already downloading C# 2005 Express is a real b... because they seem to have throttled its download capacity greatly. I tried getting 2008 instead and indeed, download went 10x faster. It should work with 2008 but I don't know if that prevents the games from running on 360. Anyone know?

It took a loooooooooooong time for me to download everything, but it's all running now. I'm using Visual Studio 2005 Professional. The order of install:

1) Visual Studio 2005 Pro
2) VS80sp1-KB926601-X86-ENU.exe (service pack 1)
3) VS80sp1-KB932232-X86-ENU (vista update)
4) XNAGS20_setup (XNA 2.0)

XNA 2.0 comes with the Spacewar sample, I added the Racing Game sample after that. I'm on Vista and initially XNA wouldn't work due to some registry goofyness. Long story short, after lots of searching I found this forum thread:

http://forums.xna.com/thread/33207.aspx

...and the fix for me was to run that subinacl tool like this:

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f


Now finally everything works. If you get that "The project file...cannot be opened...not supported by this installation" error, or some weird registry error after installing everything, just try the above. There is a guy on a forum that claims he got it working on VS 2008, but I figure why bother messing with that. I'll wait untill VS 2008 is officially supported.

 

[Arwin]

Thanks Joker, I think I got it . Didn't have to do any registry stuff either.

I've decided to get the 4 month subscription, so I can at least test out the Xbox connection once. We'll see how it turns out. At least I can now beta-test ... (hint hint )

Edit: trying the spacewar project, and it seems to be working right away, though it takes a while before it has uploaded all the stuff to the 360

Hey, it works. Though the game is weird, seems teleporting is standard, but accellerating is an option you have to earn and buy. Anyway, the basics are there and it all seems to work. Fun.

 

[Graham]

I've made loads of little random things with xna.

I'm currently working half-time on a small one off work project, which is using xna 2. However we have been running into a lot of bugs, and may move back to xna 1.1.
It currently looks something like this, and is scalable so you can zoom out and see the entire planet. It's a very quick one off project, which I've spent less than 2 weeks on so far, and will spend about another week on later (to pretty it up some more).

Locally the university here is moving all it's game programs to xna, and we expect to use it more going forward.

 

[Dominik D]

Didn't work with the full version of 2005 so I douby it'll work with 2008.
I had to install express edition in addition to my existing 2005 install. But I haven't upgraded since they went to 2.0.

XNA 2.0 works with all VS 2005 SKUs. VS 2008 was out after XNA 2.0 and is not (officially) supported IDE.

 

[ERP]

XNA 2.0 works with all VS 2005 SKUs. VS 2008 was out after XNA 2.0 and is not (officially) supported IDE.

Then I guess I'll have to upgrade.