Getting Started Tutorials
15 Sep 2021
Before you get started, there are a few things you will need to know and do in these four tutorials. These tutorials explain a little bit about what XNA is, how to install the necessary (free) software to use XNA, and how to do some of the basic things in an XNA game. Once you have been through these few tutorials, you will be able to go on to just about anything that you want, though I recommend going to the 2D tutorials next, and then the 3D tutorials, and pick up the rest of the tutorials as you need them.
2D Tutorials
11 Sep 2021
These tutorials cover the basics of doing 2D stuff, like drawing text and images, as well as 2D animation, and some fancy effects in 2D. After you have completed these tutorials, you should be able to make some pretty interesting 2D games with XNA.
3D Tutorials
11 Sep 2021
These tutorials should get you going with a 3D game. They cover things like drawing models, animation in 3D, and some simple effects, like lighting, and fog. These tutorials should really get you going on any 3D game.
Input Tutorials
14 Sep 2021
Below is a collection of tutorials about getting input from the player in many different ways, including a keyboard, a mouse, and an Xbox controller. These tutorials are designed in such a way that you should be able to go through them at any time, even if you haven’t completed the 2D or 3D tutorials, or even before you’ve started on any of them. A few of the tutorials will use stuff in other tutorials to display what the user is currently doing, but in these cases, there is a link back to the tutorial that discusses this, although is shouldn’t be too hard to just ignore that stuff if you don’t want to go back to another tutorial.
Audio Tutorials
15 Sep 2021
Adding sound effects and background music to a game really makes the game come alive. These tutorials will teach you the basics (and some more advanced stuff) about playing all types of audio in your game. When you are ready to add audio to your game, come check out these tutorials.
Publishing Your Game Tutorials
17 Sep 2021
This tutorial outlines the possible options for publishing your game so that you can choose the one that works best for you. It links to the tutorials below.
Utility Tutorials
17 Sep 2021
During the time that I have been working on these tutorials and teaching this stuff, I have come across a large variety of small random things that people occasionally like to do with their game. These tutorials are all small, and cover some random aspect of creating XNA games that you may find useful. At any point in your game development, you might want to check out these tutorials, which cover a broad variety of topics from creating games that run in full screen, to displaying the cursor, to changing the window size.
Content Pipeline Tutorials
11 Sep 2021
XNA comes with a feature called the content pipeline, which manages all of your content, like 3D models, audio files, textures, images, and so on. The content pipeline is extensible, and you can add on anything you want to it, which is pretty nice. These tutorials cover more detailed information about how the content pipeline works, and how to create extensions for it. When you want to know more about the content pipeline, or how to extend it, come back to these tutorials.
Math Tutorials
19 Sep 2021
The tutorials in this category usually will not deal with a lot of XNA coding, but will rather focus on math that may come up frequently or be useful in game development.
Physics Tutorials
21 Sep 2021
This category is for tutorials that involve physics. Proper physics in games is important so that the game acts like it should. Like the math tutorials, these tutorials may not have as much XNA coding, since they focus on the physics involved, but these tutorials usually explain how to implement the physics in your game.
Primitives Tutorials
22 Sep 2021
Vertex and index buffers allow us to store data on the graphics card and store that data in a fairly efficient manner. In this tutorial, we will discuss how vertex and index buffers work and go through the code to make and use them.
HLSL Tutorials
24 Sep 2021
Today’s graphics cards allow you to program them. The old way, the fixed function pipeline, allows you to only do specific effects while rendering. But now that you can program the graphics card, the possibilities are limitless. These tutorials teach you how to program the graphics card using a programming language called HLSL by using effects. Once you have a good understanding of the basic 3D tutorials, check these tutorials out.
Advanced Tutorials
3 Oct 2021
Once you have completed the stuff in the 2D and 3D tutorial categories, you might want to look at this set of tutorials, which discuss some of the more advanced topics in XNA that aren’t covered in one of the other categories.