Game design with C#

[Shinykirby]

I'm looking for tutorials or at least some kind of base to begin working on an 2D, screen-scrolling type RPG game in C#.

I'm quite interested in the XNA libraries for this. It's not so much the actual game and its objects I'm worried about, it's player interaction + graphics and the coding behind them (graphics are definitely not my strong point :rolleyes:).

I've done some searching and I have some C# books I've read, but nothing covers graphics or XNA in much detail, if any. Help is appreciated.

[Gox]

Personally, I quite like XNA and use it in my personal game projects. I don't know how much research you've done but be aware that XNA is a framework and not a game engine.

XNA provides many helpful classes and wrappers for directX and setups up a game loop for you with an Update and Draw method (you have to supply the code for these methods) which get called every frame but not things like Physics/collision detection, post-processing effect, Scene graphs etc. Again, XNA provides classes and routines to help you with these things, but implementation is up to you.

I'll provide a few websites that I find helpful (and will update when I get home and can search my bookmarks).

Your first stop of course should be the XNA website http://creators.xna.com/en-US/
There are community forums and tutorials written by valued XNA community members as well as some links to some community blogs.
In the Education section you'll also find plenty of nice Samples and Starter Kits written by the XNA team. You may find this one helpful http://creators.xna.com/en-US/starterkit/roleplayinggame

Other useful XNA websites include:

MSDN-XNA page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/default.aspx

XNA article on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA

Resource Site with Tutorials, Articles, Links to resources and samples, forums:
http://www.ziggyware.com

Riemers: Some good samples/tutorials on this site. He has also authored a couple XNA "recipe" books. I've been debating picking up the most recent version myself.
http://www.riemers.net/

GameDev: They have a DirectX/XNA section in their forums, but are a "Game development" site more than an XNA site. That said, Jeromy Walsh (of GameDev) is going to be running a free XNA workshop through the site to coincide with the release of his new XNA book. The publish date of the book has been pushed back so the workshop is "postponed" at the moment, but keep your eye on the XNA section of the forums for an announcement, or in the [proposed] workshop thread.
http://www.gamedev.net/
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=516361

XNA Community created Wiki: It's slowly getting more content, but there still isn't a lot of content here. But what's there may be helpful.
http://www.xnawiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Coding4XNA: Just noticed this one in the XNA Wiki article. Looks like there is some content though so it might be worth a look. Specifically I see a post about DEngine which may be helpful to you. I hadn't heard of it before.
http://www.coding4xna.com/news.php

DEngine (as mentioned above)
A 2D game engine written in C# and XNA. Features animated sprite capability and physics simulation by FarseerPhysics. Includes a level editor, a GUI controls library and a sample RTS game, Factions. Contains A* pathfinding for unit movement and an ants system for AI navigation.
http://dengine.codeplex.com/

Codeplex: Lots of community projects are hosted on codeplex, so here's a link to a search for "XNA" projects hosted by codeplex.
http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?ProjectSearchText=XNA


As for books, I can't recommend any as I don't own any. I try to solve my problems through community websites/forums. However, on the left hand side of ziggyware.com main page you should see a "Released XNA Books".

EDIT: I've checked my bookmarks at home and was surprised to find around 30 bookmarks relating to XNA (sites, code sample, XNA Games). I haven't taken the time to open them all to see how useful they are now, or whether the sites still exist or have been updated recently, and since the bookmark list is fairly large I'm going to resist the temptation to make this post needlessly long. However, if you want to have a look at my full bookmark list send me a PM and I'll be happy to pass them along.

Gox

[Shinykirby]

Thanks, this will help out quite a bit. I'm going to look through these and see what I can get from them.

I did mess with DEngine a bit not that long ago, actually. However, I'm looking for either tutorials/guides that I can learn from and start with myself, or just a very simple base of code to work with. I don't want everything handed to me, I'd rather learn myself.

I will probably take you up on that offer of the list of sites soon enough, I just need to work through the ones you've provided first.

[Gox]

Some of the sites that I've listed will quite possibly have links to other useful sites including ones in my bookmark list. If I stumble across something that might be useful to you in my travels I'll let you know.

For the time being I'll leave you with a few more sites/blogs that I read. They're mostly 3D related but you might find something interesting

Randomchaos: I've used some of Charles' samples and components in previous projects of mine. The site is a little unorganized so you might have to sift through the archives of his blog. Also check out the Downloads section
http://xna-uk.net/blogs/randomchaos/default.aspx

CatalinZima: Generally provides good posts and samples. Under "Samples->12 months, 12 samples" you'll find a post about Dynamic 2d Shadows
http://www.catalinzima.com/

JWatte: Dabbles in many different things: XNA, FBX export plug-ins but it's all good stuff. Have a poke around his site.
http://www.enchantedage.com/

Kyle: Deals mainly with 3D graphics algorithms and implementation. Down the road one of his posts may be helpful. [Not frequently updated unfortunately]
http://graphicsrunner.blogspot.com/

Building a 3D Game in XNA From Scratch: I never finished watching this video tutorial series but it seemed to be well put together.
http://blogs.msdn.com/dawate/archive/2008/02/05/building-a-3d-game-in-xna-from-scratch-free-video-tutorial-series-now-available.aspx