Building XNA 2.0 Games: A Practical Guide for Independent Game Development (Books for Professionals by Professionals)

Mostly, I bought this book because it was dirt cheap, and I'm glad I spent the money. If you have no knowledge of game design or programming, this probably isn't a great place to start. The book is riddled with errors and they aren't easy to fix if you don't know what you're doing. However, anybody with a little experience can easily overcome this. The book is a GREAT place to start creating a 2D platformer and covers EVERYTHING from start to finish that you could possibly need to know to begin creating a game, including a Character Editor and Map Editor with custom scripting. For anybody unwilling to learn the XNA 2.0 environment, somebody has happily provided a 4.0 conversion (just google for it) to use as a reference. I would give this book 5 stars but for the errors in the book and the fact that some things aren't explained in as much detail as they maybe should be. All that being said, I can't begin to describe how much I've learned from this book. I feel it was a worthwhile purchase.

Like others here, I noticed this book doesn't really cover a whole lot of XNA; there are much better books for that. If you want to get into serious Xbox programming you'll need a good sized book collection anyway though; just one book won't make you into a master.What this book does do is walk you through a big, easy-to-understand tutorial so you can make your own 2D game for Xbox (like a platform game or fighting game). It uses plain and sometimes funny language that anyone can understand and it assumes you know nothing about XNA, C#, or Visual Studio (but a little bit about programming).This book is also actually very good for learning generic programming principles such as how to create an animated character editor, map editor, AI system, and particle system.I bought a used copy on Amazon for about two bucks and it was more than worth the price.

This book is really good. Make sure you already know C# and just do a few XNA tutorials online first. This book is strictly a 2D book, so don't expect doing any crazy 3D things here. What's great about this book is that it clearly explains what tools you need to build a game and how you go about building those tools.Another great thing is that the ideas and code can be easily expanded on. For example, the author does some quick and dirty solutions that are really good at getting the point across but it leaves the door wide open for you to add your own improvements and touches to it.

I am really glad Silva wrote this, it help me fill a lot of gaps I had developing small games. It also taught me a lot on using the XBox 360 networking features, sending data across clients, create my own map and sprite editor. I would say this is one of the best books for my own personal self development that I have bought in the last 10 years.

This MAY be a good book, but certainly not for beginners. It doesn't guide the user step by step in creating/editing a project. When the author talks about adding code, he doesn't tell you exactly where to do so. Just too many details skipped for beginners (like myself). I wouldn't recommend this book if you're a beginner in XNA game programming.

Really really excellent book teaching people how to get started with XNA.It does have some problems with the code being incorrect, and keep in mind this isn't a book of best practices, just down and dirty how to make a game work.

This book is clearly a series of tutorials on how to build your own game similar to The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. (The author's award winning game.) I think the title is therefore a little misleading. This would be helped a bit if the publisher had included a browsable table of contents here or on their own website.There's tons of useful information in the book, but it is not a general introduction to building XNA games. For example, there's nothing in this book on 3D programming. So if you're looking for a book that covers that sort of stuff, look elsewhere. If you're looking to learn how The Dishwasher was made, and how you can build your own similar game, this is exactly the book you want and I would recommend you buy it.

I am almost done with College with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Computer Engineering, and this is one of the better computer books i have read (reading right now, but should be done with it within about 4 days). The software engineering principals are terrible, BUT, they talk about how YES yes they are terrible, and it is ment to be a quick mock-up on how to create a decent game.Pros:-They actually make a good level and character editor, while going through scripting systems. ******No where do you find something that has scripting just right ******off the bat and makes it easy to understand.-They dont promise the best, they tell the truth, and i like that.-They show why its important to create tools to create a game, instead of hard coding all the levels in.-There actual coding techniques are good and understandable, they dont weigh you down with how to do everything in XNA, they do expect you to know about programming (Though they have like a 50 page introduction to .NET and XNA.)Cons:-Maybe a 2nd game, one that they have not already made (this is a mock up of another game).I have read about 20 books on programming video games. This is by far one of the best.As a warning, there are a few code errors, just find the source on there website and you can figure it out < IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN >5 stars. All the way!

This book is a must for beginners and intermediate XNA indie developers.It covers simple things such as putting something on screen and playing sounds to advanced topics such as particle system and shaders.It all very well written and all the code is oriented to building an actual game from scratch.

It's too bad that this was built exclusively around XNA - it's still a great guide to developing a very specific type of game, whatever tool set you use.