I'm looking to learn programming but with a direction - to make some kind of game. After reading the FAQ I came to the conclusion that C# with XNA was the way to go, but after researching that a bit further it doesn't seem to best thing to work with considering I want to make a PC game rather than some kind of Indie Xbox360 game. From a recent thread on here it seems that an XNA GUI is hard to come by (I take a GUI to be the menus and control inputs, please correct me if I'm wrong!).
I have dabbled in Game Maker and MMF2Dev in the past but I REALLY don't like how you don't seem to have much control over what is going and decided I'd rather make a game through programming, rather than setting pre-configured events. I am not planning to turn this into my career - I'm actually doing a degree in Mechanical Engineering; however having said that knowing a programming language is not going to be a negative for me.
I have also done some programming in the past, nothing too in depth but I am fairly confident with programming logic so I have an appreciation for how good I need to become; the furthest I have gone in to it is with mIRC script - making some bots that parse information on websites and manipulate it for me;I really enjoyed that.
I just wondered what you guys would suggest? The endgame for is some kind of platforming game which I could maybe make some money from (not to support myself, just for some kind of reward for my efforts). I'm well aware this won't be completed within months or perhaps even years, I would have to first learn the language, practice using, maybe try clone some games to get the experience I would need to make my own, but I'm willing to do it.
Where to Start
I can't speak for the ease of making an in-game GUI, but you can make a PC game with XNA. I'm not sure why you thought otherwise. Maybe the Microsoft information was heavily focused on how you can make games run on the Xbox 360 but its not limited to that by any means. Wikipedia states " The runtime is available for [color="#0645ad"]Windows XP, [color="#0645ad"]Windows Vista, [color="#0645ad"]Windows 7, [color="#0645ad"]Windows Phone 7 and [color="#0645ad"]Xbox 360. Since XNA games are written for the runtime, they can run on any platform that supports the XNA Framework with minimal or no modification." So you don't need to worry about being limited to Xbox 360. In fact you can ignore it entirely.
I'm looking to learn programming but with a direction - to make some kind of game. After reading the FAQ I came to the conclusion that C# with XNA was the way to go, but after researching that a bit further it doesn't seem to best thing to work with considering I want to make a PC game rather than some kind of Indie Xbox360 game. From a recent thread on here it seems that an XNA GUI is hard to come by (I take a GUI to be the menus and control inputs, please correct me if I'm wrong!).
I just wondered what you guys would suggest? The endgame for is some kind of platforming game which I could maybe make some money from (not to support myself, just for some kind of reward for my efforts). I'm well aware this won't be completed within months or perhaps even years, I would have to first learn the language, practice using, maybe try clone some games to get the experience I would need to make my own, but I'm willing to do it.
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Based on what you've written I suggest C# with XNA first and Unity second.
My recommendations are here. ( Long read )
That said, your GUI issue is not specific to XNA. DirectX, OpenGL nor XNA have a specific GUI layer, or rely on something else to provide one. If you want a more turn key solution, your best bet is picking up an engine, like Unity or jMonkey
That said, your GUI issue is not specific to XNA. DirectX, OpenGL nor XNA have a specific GUI layer, or rely on something else to provide one. If you want a more turn key solution, your best bet is picking up an engine, like Unity or jMonkey
The first thing to do in your case would be to learn C# and not jump right into either XNA or some other framework that supports game programming. If you have the bucks, consider ordering a book from Amazon.com or any other site. There is a pretty good thread about C# beginner books here.
If you do not want to dish out the bucks, you can always settle for MSDN witch has a great tutorial for C# here. The bad side of the guide is that it can get technical and sometimes it does not explain things deeply enought so further googleing is neede - if you are up for the task then it is a great and free way of learning the basics.
Third option is to google different guides, however, the obvious problem is that these can not be sufficient quality or up-to-date.
After you are familiar with the language, you have many frameworks and platforms to choose from when it comes to game creation, obvious ones being XNA, Silverlight and DirectX(SlimDX).
If you do not want to dish out the bucks, you can always settle for MSDN witch has a great tutorial for C# here. The bad side of the guide is that it can get technical and sometimes it does not explain things deeply enought so further googleing is neede - if you are up for the task then it is a great and free way of learning the basics.
Third option is to google different guides, however, the obvious problem is that these can not be sufficient quality or up-to-date.
After you are familiar with the language, you have many frameworks and platforms to choose from when it comes to game creation, obvious ones being XNA, Silverlight and DirectX(SlimDX).
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