XNA

Fizzy Duck

Hi,
I have recently began learning XNA. I would like to build a simple 2D game, something along the lines of pacman/frogger. Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction in how to go about this? ie. Tutorials, Book, eBooks. I don't want it to be overly complicated I just want to use it so that I will have a reference point, when I get further into XNA.

Also what exactly would be the best way to go about designing the levels?

FD

unknownlegend

Fizzy Duck wrote: »

Hi,
I have recently began learning XNA. I would like to build a simple 2D game, something along the lines of pacman/frogger. Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction in how to go about this? ie. Tutorials, Book, eBooks. I don't want it to be overly complicated I just want to use it so that I will have a reference point, when I get further into XNA.

Also what exactly would be the best way to go about designing the levels?

FD

I suggest http://www.riemers.net - take a look at the tutorials down the right hand side of the page. Also http://www.xnadevelopment.com/tutorials.shtml provides a wealth of information.

As for designing the levels that could be interpreted in dozens of ways and would really need to fall into what you have conceptualized in your own mind. Are you thinking levels in the old pac-man-esque paradigm, where the same landscape exists just with more 'enemies', or something else?

Fizzy Duck

unknownlegend wrote: »

I suggest http://www.riemers.net - take a look at the tutorials down the right hand side of the page. Also http://www.xnadevelopment.com/tutorials.shtml provides a wealth of information.

As for designing the levels that could be interpreted in dozens of ways and would really need to fall into what you have conceptualized in your own mind. Are you thinking levels in the old pac-man-esque paradigm, where the same landscape exists just with more 'enemies', or something else?

Thanks for the links.

With regards the level designs, I was thinking of the same (or very similar) landscape, with more enemies (faster, bigger).

Jayo_M

+1 on the sites suggested above. There's soooo much information and really helpful tutorials available over at http://create.msdn.com. Fantastic resource.

Kidchameleon

I find level design very difficult. The best way I have found is to play lotts of games, get ideas. When you have your engine up and running, make a load of quick, scrappy levels, get a feel of how the game is playing, keep designs that work, bin the rest. Try to imagine what your audience are feeling while playing these levels. I started making levels by hard coding them into the engine. I highly recommend making a level editor.

Oh by the way OP, download my XNA game!

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?irb9rr1hzveb6yl

Smoggy

good to see this thread. i just bought 2 x XNA books with the aim of making Pacman

Smoggy

Kidchameleon wrote: »

I find level design very difficult. The best way I have found is to play lotts of games, get ideas. When you have your engine up and running, make a load of quick, scrappy levels, get a feel of how the game is playing, keep designs that work, bin the rest. Try to imagine what your audience are feeling while playing these levels. I started making levels by hard coding them into the engine. I highly recommend making a level editor.

Oh by the way OP, download my XNA game!

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?irb9rr1hzveb6yl

Kid, I have XNA 4 and Framework 4, but it crashes on load. Do you know why thios could be ?

Kidchameleon

Smoggy wrote: »

Kid, I have XNA 4 and Framework 4, but it crashes on load. Do you know why thios could be ?

Hmmm, my game is XNA 3.1. XNA tends to be very choosey aboout what dependencies are installed. But if other XNA games are working for you then I dont know why this would happen. Can you run other games?

Smoggy

To be honest - this is the first XNA app I have run - so it could be my settings.

Fizzy Duck

I downloaded that game, it's quite good.

I am currently working on a version of Frogger, I want to use it as a reference for further into my game making. I have used some smaple code from the above two sites. This is the game I have so far:

http://cid-a08d205daa935b95.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Frogger.rar

I do have a few questions about issues I am having though:

- Would anyone know how the best way to add collisions based on the frog standing on certain tiles? ie. can't stand on blue, can stand on green.
- Would anyone know how to stop diagonal movement?
- Would anyone know how to make the game progress to level 2, when the frog collides with a black tile for example?

If anybody could help me with these that would be great.
Darren

Kidchameleon

Fizzy Duck wrote: »

Would anyone know how the best way to add collisions based on the frog standing on certain tiles? ie. can't stand on blue, can stand on green.

Its called "Tile based collision detection" Google it, there are loads of tutorials on it.

Fizzy Duck wrote: »

- Would anyone know how to stop diagonal movement?

Hmmm, well if you have an xspeed and a yspeed, perhaps you could set xspeed to 0 if the character is moving vertical and vice versa...

Fizzy Duck wrote: »

- Would anyone know how to make the game progress to level 2, when the frog collides with a black tile for example?

Pseudo code:

if(level == 1)
{
    moveSprites();

    handleInput();

    draw();

    level1specifics();

    if(player collides with black tile)
    {
        level = 2;
    }
}

same again for level 2 ext...

Smoggy

Frogger loaded - was it written framework 4 and XNA 4 ?