If you want to code c# games right now, instead of waiting for xbox one, then use monogame. It's at least still being updated.
Is XNA still worth learning?
Author
Hey everyone, thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate all the time you guys have put in to answering my questions. I think I'm going to take the common suggestion and "wait" to see what happens for the Xbox One indie support(I saw on the microsoft site that they were planning to have something free for indies anyway).
I have a lot of experience in LibGdx and Slick2D, right now I'm working with LibGdx but I don't really like it due to poor documentation and deployment seems like a hastle.
So now my three thoughts are:
1) Work on a few projects with LibGdx and try getting a few finished, polished projects done by the time I can work on something for the Xbox One
2) Learn XNA anyways because I have free access to XNA creators club for Xbox360 due to being a student
3) Pick up a SFML book and attempt learning C++/SFML simultaneously (Not sure if good idea)
Also, this isn't something I'm going to jump on immediately. I'm working on a fairly large project with LibGdx at the moment, but I like to plan a little ways into the future.
3) Pick up a SFML book and attempt learning C++/SFML simultaneously (Not sure if good idea)
When I go back to when I started with Game Development with C++, I remember people telling me "Oh, hard stuff", "You'll have to be really dedicated!" and other words of advice (or should I say discouragement?). Well, turned out to be really better than I expected. I simply practice and learn, that's as simple as that. C++ turned out as my favorite language over all others I've learned.
I must tell you that it is a little... bureaucratic... but really powerful. Most of what I heard before turned out as unfounded terrorism.
It is absolutely possible to learn SFML and C++ simultaneously.
But before that, go ahead, finish your LibGDX project.
Finishing something is the most important part of game dev as I know it.
Coursera is offering a free college course on it right now, about halfway through. I believe you can still sign up. https://class.coursera.org/gameprogramming-001
Over 22,000 students are enrolled in it. Not exactly a small number of people still interested in this...
Also, a few weeks ago, I released a book on learning XNA and C#, for free. http://learnbuildplay.com/Training/IndieGameDevBook
this is a over 300 pages. It was intended for print, but I decided to release it for free. Enjoy.
I think its fun to use and learn. However, Unity also uses C#, is free to work with, is Multi OS, and will gain support for XBox One in 2014. I use Unity now, but I still Use XNA with my students as a precursor to start learning about back buffers, Init/Update/Draw methods, and other common game architectures/models/methodologies. And as is, XNA still has better 2D support. Nearly anything you build in XNA (2D or 3D) will run in MonoGame.
Dan,
That's very gernerous of you to release your book. And certainly there is much still interest in xna . The 22,000 in the coursera class does in fact prove there is not only interest from existing devs who use it but this course is structured at beginners who most know now about xna future with Microsoft and yet still want to learn it. These are 22000 new folks interested. In fact I guess I am 22001 , I started the course yesterday --Dr T left it open to join. You do not have any feedback etc like a live course but all the lectures etc are accessable. And after going through the first week's worth am very satisfied with it indeed.
my thoughts ---maybe misgivings is to learn c# and beginnings of xna through this course. See how I progress ---and begin to learn some basic game programming tennets. After that ---I may try to a look at your book and see if I can work my way through it --not sure what level its at ------
and then -----check out what is out there for c# development and games.
Rich
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