about 360 game development

Summary:

windows vs 360 differences

about 360 game development

SepticTank53 01 Oct 2011 12:04

So what i basically need to know is this: The format of the windows game template and the xbox 360 game template doesn't really seem to be a great deal different. About 90% of tutorials i find on the net always starts out with opening a windows game project. I am not good with marketing on the web whatsoever, and when i create my dream game i plan on turning all that time and effort into monetary gain, so i moreso am looking into selling my game as an indie game for the 360. I don't want to start on it until i both have a strong grasp of various concepts (i'm a lone developer, so i need to learn about creating sprites, sounds, etc in addition to programming the game), as well as understand the differences between a game built with 360 in mind versus a pc game.

Thanks

Re: about 360 game development

rbwhitaker 05 Oct 2011 03:26

From a programming standpoint, there are very few actual differences. (Though there are a few, like no mouse or keyboard input on the Xbox 360.) The code you write will work on both without any changes (except things like the mouse/keyboard input).

It is probably worth mentioning, though, that behind the scenes there's a few big differences that XNA abstracts away, so you won't see any differences in the code. But since there are differences, you shouldn't launch your XNA game on the 360 until you've tested it on the 360.

If you intend on making a game for the 360, and you start with the Windows template, that won't cause any problems. At any time, you can right click on your project in the Solution Explorer and choose "Create Copy of Project for Xbox 360", which will create a second project in your solution that is set up for the Xbox. It is, in fact, the same project (referencing the same files and everything) but with all of the right compiler settings set up for building for the 360, so it is ready for you to deploy to your 360. Of course, you can also start with the Xbox 360 template and make a copy for Windows, which is the same thing, but in reverse. So it doesn't really matter what you start with.

One other thing that I should also bring up is that you can use the compiler settings to your advantage to do things differently between the two platforms. You can do this using what is called "preprocessor directives". In this case, we can create something that turns out to look a lot like a normal if statement, only this statement applies to the compiler, instead of actual code:

#if XBOX
        int width = 1000;
        int height = 800;
#else
        int width = 2000;
        int height = 800;
#endif

In this case, if the XBOX flag is set (which it is in the Xbox 360 project) the first set of code is used. Otherwise, the second set of code is used. If you look at this code inside of your Windows version of the project you'll see that the code in the #if XBOX part is grayed out, while the part in the #else block is colored like normal, but in the Xbox version of your project, the stuff in the #if XBOX part is colored like normal, while the stuff in the #else block is grayed out. This is because for the Xbox 360 version of your project, the XBOX flag is set, but in the Windows version, it isn't.

I'm kind of rambling… sorry. I really need to make a tutorial that explains this in a bit more detail, but that should probably get you started.

The bottom line: they are nearly identical, so don't worry about it too much as you're learning XNA. All of the concepts and code are the same on the two different platforms.

Re: about 360 game development

SepticTank53 05 Oct 2011 13:02

wow, heh, it's nice to get a response from the creator of the website. You hit the nail on the head though. I thought that maybe it had something to do with the code that is loaded through the template, but i couldn't find any anomalies between the codes. They both even have a back button for the game pad command for exiting the game. I had no idea that the compile was able to do different things based on the template, as well as editing the compiler info i didn't even know was possible. This does bring me to a question of how to mess with those settings, but please don't go into an explanation on that yet. Seeing as how i got a reply from the creator, i'm assuming this website is still active somewhat (I don't see much other users on here). Also, the main reason i'm sticking with this here is, your tutorials are the first that has really "taught" me something. a little background—

Let me say i've basically been messing with C#/xna for about 9 months. I started creating my first game to be an asteroids replica with a few additional features(such as the ability to place turrets that will shoot at the asteroids with you). I got the sprites, gave controls to deploy a turret, move the ship, shoot bullets, collision detail with these (no collision between turret and asteroid. it was planned, however i was still in the process of coding the turrets ability to shoot bullets, and wasn't quite ready to handle a "life bar" for the turrets with 3 hits and destroyed system). In this project i got the feeling of using arrays, got a basic understanding of how collision is determined on a per-pixel basis, as well as understanding the update, draw, loadcontent methods etc. I used riemers to do this. If you've never seen those xna tutorials, you should consider putting in your head a complete noobs mind to c#, and then try to understand them. I didn't actual "learn" much of anything. All websites have been like this, except this one. They would teach me the syntax of things, but leave out a whole bunch of information.

I hope you understand how greatful i am to this site. I actually see WHY we start a new class template in our project, cuz now i actually know the purpose of a class (that's right, i had a halfway done asteroids game, with all of the code in program.cs lol).

To "get on with it"(i know you were thinking it), I want to go ahead and ask if you will help me with a few things that will ultimately expand my knowledge in c#. If you don't mind, i will use this one topic for my further questions. If this forum was much more livelier i would create a new topic for each "big" thing, as to not throw anyone off.

My current project is basically creating class sheets that provide methods and super simplify C#. In essence, i'm wanting to add commands that were used in GML(game maker language). If your interested, game maker is basically a drag and drop interface for game creation, but within it is also a programming language that extends it's functionality. Collision detail, instead of being over a hundred lines of code, was as simple as:

if (collision(object1, object2, use mask bool)) then instance_destroy();

This code was done on a per pixel level unless you added true as the third parameter and plugged in a collision mask. If you grab the free version of game maker, it's basically more reference to my problem than anything. It doesn't make too much sense for someone well-versed in C# to move to it, as I have heard that at runtime it's processing is much slower and not as efficient.

So for my first primary question. I'm trying to recreate the repeat command of GML. it's basically a for loop, but made so much more simple, givin the syntax itself, which is as follows:

repeat(5)
{
// this code will be repeated 5 times before moving on to the next line
}

I've thought about making a separate class/method for this, but i ran into quite a large problem. Not knowing what other options i have, it will have to take two parameters. an int and string. The integer tells how many times to repeat, and the string is the command to be repeated. I don't know how to make the string be read as more C# code that needs to be executed. If you could help me with this I will definitely be greatful, and can start replicating commands from GML both as good experience in using what i've learned through the tutorials here as well as when it comes time i feel i'm ready to complete my first game (asteroids is abandoned), i will have additional commands at my disposal. the most important are the collision codes.

If you made it this far, I promise my responses from here on out will be much, much shorter. I thought though that i should give you some background on myself, feedback for your C# tutorials, and my current objective as a programmer (create my own mini-language, start on a 2d game). Also, thanks for all the help you've given me. The reply was on the dot and answered my question, plus the tutorials are very, very helpful.

Re: about 360 game development

rbwhitaker 12 Oct 2011 12:26

Yes, this website is still active, though the forums usually seem to have only a handful of people around. The basic problem is everyone comes here, learns what the need to, and leaves, once they get decent at it. I'm hoping to change that by providing more features for people who are more "expert", but until I do, I can't blame people for moving on. But at any rate, the forums are growing, but slowly.

Your repeat(5) loop would definitely be a nice feature, but it's not once C# supports (unfortunately—I've always been disappointed about that) so you're talking about either adding in functionality to the language itself or coming up with some clever way of making it look like you're doing that. There's a discussion of several approaches that you might use to do this over on stack overflow, but the approach that popped into my mind first was something like this:

foreach (int i in Enumerable.Range(0, 5))
{
    // do something 
}

This isn't nearly as readable as repeat(5), but that's about all you can do, short of making your own little language with it's own compiler/interpreter.

Fortunately, though, this may be the only real problem you'll have, as far as your plans go. The collision detection stuff that you brought up can be done just as regular old methods in a regular old class, like everything else.