Xna
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Transcript of Xna
GRAVITRON ULTRA
XNA
What is Gravitron Ultra?
Multiplayer space shooter
Single screen, two teams
Battle for Orbs
(SCREENSHOT)
Development
Less than three months, 3 people
Steve, Niklas, Christoffer
Not many bugs (pretty stable!), alright performance
Awards
Won ”Best XNA Game” in SGA07
Won ”Best XNA Game” in .NET Awards
2nd place in Dream, Build, Play 07
Postmortem – what went right:
A working initial system design Message broadcasting across subsystems made
encapsulation easier (could have facilitated networkmultiplayer!) (Kind of Object-C-like but with subsystems instead of objects)
Prioritizing the right things (ditching network multiplayer)
Using XNA / C# (managed) as opposed to SDL / C++ (unmanaged)
Worst-case scenarios in C# would mean working instead of sleeping.
Worst-case scenarios in C++ could have killed the project outright
General protection faults can be very depressing
Postmortem – what went wrong:
Bad requirements, design not detailed enoughAs the deadline loomed closer program structure was abandoned in favour of ”hacking”
HOWEVER, we managed to skirt disaster and finish on time
What is XNA?
Managed game development framework for Windows / Xbox 360 (and now Zune)
Integrates with Visual Studio
Provides access to graphics, input, network, etc.
Import assets via XNA Content Pipeline
XNA - PROs:
Working in a managed environment! Decreases bugs Increases productivity High portability (MSIL)
Performance – provides access to GPU, HLSL support Garbage collection, etc. is less of a problem than some
might think
Lets you focus on developing your game – Mature and extensive library (networking, windowing, etc. at a high level of abstraction)
Visual C# - good IDE
Content pipeline – just import into Visual Studio
Very good documentation! (for the most part) Examples Best practices Excellent support through Creators Club
Easiest way to make and distribute(!) console games, by far Nothing else even comes close
It just works! Plugging in peripherals, deploying to Xbox – no problem!
XNA - CONs:
Not as easy to deploy to users as it could be (will be adressed?)
Poor XBox performance (due to the XBox CLR!) XBox is built with high compile-time optimization in mind Abstraction starts leaking – many ”gotchas”
XACT No support for MP3 or other formats (will be adressed?) ”Fire and forget” sound engine, makes music games
difficult to develop
Weak support for character models and animation, could benefit from a standard format and dedicated tools
(XNA is flexible, write your own content importer!)
Not cross-platform (No *NIX or Mac support)
XNA 3.0 (Beta)
C# 3.0 support
Zune support
Community features
New sound API! (Music games, MP3 playback, finally?)
Enhanched multiplayer
One-click installer for Windows? (Not in Beta?)
Community Games
Create your XNA game
Submit it to Creators Club (requires Creators Club membership)
Your game gets reviewed by peers – filters out illegal or inappropriate content and ”broken” games
Your game goes on sale on the XBLA Marketplace!
Revenue is split 70/30 between developer / Microsoft (not yet confirmed)
No restrictions on who can develop No expensive devkits No licenses No publishers
Nothing quite like it Online distribution portals (Steam, Gamer's Gate, etc.) are
essentially just publishers willing to take risks The closest is probably Apple's App Store, but it is heavily
moderated by Apple
Community approval process – some level of quality control without expensive QA costs