Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator’s Guide- P2:The release of the XNA platform and specifically the ability for anyone to write Xbox 360 console games was truly a major progression in the game-programming world. Before XNA, it was simply too complicated and costly for a student, software hobbyist, or independent game developer to gain access to a decent development kit for a major console platform. | IF you re itching to get coding but are not familiar with Microsoft s integrated development environment IDE this chapter will help you use Microsoft XNA Game Studio GS to program debug and deploy your game projects. Once your PC Zune and Xbox 360 have been prepared as outlined in Chapter 1 Set Up an XNA Development Environment you are ready to code with GS. Managing the code project GS is a first-class integrated development environment IDE that leverages the C language. Although Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Visual C Express are both supported. Microsoft Visual C Express is a free coding studio and it is very similar to Microsoft Visual C .NET enabling you to program edit debug and deploy your C applications. Compared to other freeware developer tools GS is a Rolls Royce. Using this software you can code in comfort and allow the IDE to improve your efficiency. Opening Microsoft XNA Game Studio To launch GS from the Start menu select Programs and choose Microsoft XNA Game Studio or Microsft Visual C 2008. GS will open the Start Page which presents your recent projects links to tutorials and links to online articles discussions and events related to C development. Creating a Game Studio Project A GS project will store references to all of your code files and resources that are used by your game application. There are currently three types of stand-alone XNA game projects the Windows Game project the Zune Game project and the Xbox 360 Game project. Each type of project references a slightly different instruction set. For example the Windows Game project can be run on a PC but the Xbox 360 Game project cannot because it uses a reduced instruction set that is required by the Xbox 360 console. Opening an Existing Game Studio Project A GS project can be opened by double-clicking the solution file. Solution files have an .sln extension. The project will launch GS and show the code editor Solution Ex- CHAPTER 2 9 plorer and Error List. If any of these items do not
