From about 2003 until 2006, Microsoft created an even more stripped-down version of the Compact Framework that was capable of running on the Xbox 360.

This version still has the easy to use functionality of its ‘Dad’, the .NET Framework and its ‘older brother’, the Compact Framework, but it had some pretty cool new abilities too. These new abilities include 3d/2d graphics and sound which makes it ideal for games.

As the XNA Framework runs on Windows PCs and Xbox 360s, any game you write will work exactly the same on both under XNA.

All you need to do now, is start getting things done!

Getting Things Done?

With traditional Windows games programming, just to display a shape on screen would take a quite substantial effort for a beginner. You’d have to convert graphics to a format that you could load in and display, you’d also then need to learn enough about Windows and the graphics libraries to be able to set-up the screen just for drawing. With the XNA framework, as soon as you select “New XNA Project”, you have a program that, once run, will be immediately ready to allow you to start drawing things.

This accessibility is what I hope will encourage a lot more people to ’stick at it’ and write some cool games!

I’m currently developing the game that will form the basis of the first tutorial, cannonout – a breakout clone. It’ll be a full game but I’ll introduce enough of the C# language as I go along to get you up to speed.

Coming soon in Game programming with XNA – part 2 I’ll introduce the basic empty XNA game project template and show you how to get something on screen.

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