I want to start on a 2D game using C#, so I'm checking out my options.
XNA sounds good, but a few points are not very clear to me.
If I use XNA, can I just build my game and distribute my game as a standalone executable from my website ?
Or are there any catches ?
Do people need special libraries to play my game ? Do I have to pay MS to be able to distribute my game ?
Normally I'll write a program, build it, put the executable up for download and presto, anybody can download, install and use it.
Will it also work like this when using XNA or are there any restrictions ?
If you're a student your university/college whatever can provide you with a years free membership.
But if you're doing Windows only games, then there is no fee. Just include the necessary dependencies as already discussed and you're good to go.
At first my university was not on the list of valid locations, but it was soon sorted out.
People will need the XNA redistributable package which is automatically (downloaded and) installed if you create a game with the default installer.
You can distribute your application anyway you want. You can mail it to your friend only or you can record it on a disc and start selling it. People will only need .NET and XNA reditributable package which will be automatically downloaded and installed and they doesn't require paying any fees. I think you may need to pay something if you would like your game to be distributed on Xbox Live Marketplace (I know you can earn money from selling your game through Marketplace but I'm not sure if there isn't any initial fee to submit it).
If you want to deploy your XNA game to Xbox 360 as well, you need a creator's club premium membership, which will set you back something like $100 a year (it depends on your Xbox live currency as far as I can tell). Please see the FAQ for more info.
For Windows only games you don't need the membership.
You only need a membership if you want to distribute the game through XBox Live Indie games.
XNA is just an SDK. You can use it to develop a PC or an Xbox game. If you want to distribute to XBox then you have have to be a member of the XNA creators club.
If you want to distribute a PC game, then you can put the game up for free on your own website or do whatever you want. You could even make a codeplex project and make your game free open source.
Most people who write XNA PC games distribute through steam. I do not know what they charge.
You can write and develop an XNA game for absolutely nothing if you use Visual Studio C# express for your IDE, Blender for your modeling, XACT and Audacity for your audio, Inkscape for your vector graphics and fx composer for your shader authoring.
Most of the posts above are incorrect.
You only need the trial membership to deploy and debug on the Xbox 360, you don't need one for Windows development as there is currently no marketplace available for Windows Indie Games.
To get a "Trial Licence", that is a licence that allows you to deploy and debug to your Xbox 360 (But does not allow you to submit a game for peer review, playtesting or the XBox Indie Marketplace) there are a few methods:
DreamBuildPlay - The annual contest for developing games using XNA, generally making games for a particular theme such as Environment etc.. . By registering (Before 18th Jan 2010) you can get the free 12 Month trial.
Dreamspark - Website dedicated to students, personally i use MSDNAA but Dreamspark is more user friendly. By providing basic details of your course you can get a trial membership.
The Dreamspark website requires details that are generally only known to students, therefore if you're not a student it probably won't validate your request. Best thing to do is to use the DreamBuildPlay option, you don't have to submit an entry (Although it would be good practice to) and there is no need to be a student, it's open to everyone.
In terms of redistributing it to other people the development tool that you're using (Either Visual C# Express or Visual Studio) will allow you to package them in a way that makes it usable to other people.
Of course there is nothing stopping you from hosting the game on your own webspace and letting people sort it out for themselves =]
This link should get you in the right direction:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb464156.aspx
Hope this helps.
Trial Membership Links:
Dreamspark: - Dreamspark ,
DreamBuildPlay: - DreamBuildPlay
You can also develop a 2d XNA game and host it on a website through a silverlight plugin for free although it would be difficult because all XNA development would have to be in c# express and all Silverlight development would have to be in Web Developer express.
Related
Is there any way available to remove unity 5 default splash screen which comes after building standalone player? and is this legal?
It depends on the license that you have(ex. Pro/Personal).
Please refer to UNITY PRO AND UNITY PERSONAL SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT 5.X
Although Unity Personal has most of the features and functionality that Unity Pro has, Unity Personal: (a) includes certain features that cannot be disabled when your application is launched, including a Unity branded startup screen and certain analytics data collection;
I got it in buildSettings.-> Player setting(button)-> on Inspector I got the option. unchecked
Note: This feature is not available(or active) in Unity Personal version, as Greg Zetko answer suggested.
I’ve been learning C# for some time now and I am starting to feel confident. I want to develop mobile games for Android but I don’t know where to start. Can Unity be used for that purpose or are there any other engines that are better suited for Android game development. Also, are there any tutorials on the topic?Because I couldn't find any.. Thanks in advance!
I would say that Unity3D is currently the most popular game engine for Android. Considering that they recently release a new license, the full engine is available for free. You can publish your games for Android paying nothing.
And you don't need a specific tutorial for Android. It's everything the same (obviously not the input though), you just have to select Android platform when you want to build and that is it.
We have a little problem with our 3D game being displayed in the WP7 Store as well. Our game was developed exclusively on Windows Phone 8 devices, but since it’s based on XNA, WP7 users can see and download the game as well. We handled the situation by letting the people know - after they launch the app - that it isn’t supported for their OS.
That is a temporary fix, because people get mad being able to download a game, but not being able to play it. So we might get bad reviews because of that. We’ve tried several things, like porting our app into Monogame to make it WP8 exclusive, but that didn’t work out, since Monogame itself is in beta phase and therefore pretty buggy.
Do you know any solution to opt out the game from the WP7 store or make it hidden there by adding any specific code? People are likely to give us a 1-star review because of something like that and obviously we do not want that.
Is there any way, besides Monogame, for us to fix this issue?
Kind regards.
I have just completed my game with C# XNA 4.0 and when I compile and run it works perfectly.
I just have 1 question. What do I do next to package it all up and make it uploadable so people can download and play.
This is answered throughly on the MSDN page Distributing Your Finished Windows Game. Especially if you just want to use the simple, standard ClickOnce method of distribution.
The page Packing and Distributing Your Game has info if you're not doing a normal Windows distribution.
If you're looking for a bit more info, this answer here is probably worth reading.
for what? Windows Phone 7? Xbox?
go to: http://create.msdn.com for all the info you need on distribution
If you intend to use it on Xbox, try:
Create game for xbox
or Creator's Club
You will need a creator's club membership to post games on Xbox. Also, remember to change the input of you project to:
GamePadState gPad = GamePad.GetState();
if (gPad.Triggers.Left > 0.5)
{
//Game pad trigger is pressed
}
i am want to build some games,not something big like mmorpg ,games like snake and similar,maybe in future i would like to make a progress.
i built "pong" with xna before 3 month and left it without any progression.
now i want program games again and i search on the internet and got to 2 final best options
xna/unity3d.
which is better if i know c#?
tyvm.
Well, XNA Game Studio [GS] and Unity3D do not really compare as the former is “only” a framework and the latter a full fledged game engine with visual editor and stuff.
So, XNA GS would be the right choice if you want to do it all on your own, e.g. write your own graphics renderer, the game logic infrastructure (as opposed to writing the game logic only in Unity3D) and pretty much everything else.
Unity3D would be the better choice if you want to concentrate on the game play only without having to write a lot (or any at all) infrastructure code.
However, there’s another thing to consider: if you want your game to run on the 360 you might need to use XNA GS as Unity3D doesn’t seem to support Xbox LIVE Indie Games publishing. If you’re in it for a broad range of target platforms (e.g. outside the Microsoft realm), Unity3D is the better choice (Mono.Xna, while it returned from the dead, is still in a rather unusable state).
Disclaimer: I haven’t used Unity3D at all so my words about it may be totally wrong.
XNA is fully integrated into Visual Studio and is a "first party" product (as in Microsoft produces it). You also get relatively cheap access to running it on an XBox (a nice bonus).
Unity3d has the advantage of being multi-platform (such as their iPhone port).