102 posts tagged with "xna"

TL;DR -> .NET 8 language support is now available for MonoGame and opening up a whole new world of goodness and speed for games.

*Note, the information contained below is for those developers who want access to the cutting edge, as it requires access to the development source. (with the exception of upgrading your game to .NET 8)​

The full release of the .NET 8 MonoGame support will be included with the 3.9 release, coming soon.​

MonoGame may have seemed stagnant or unmoving in the past, mainly because of the rigors of a group of developers working unpaid on the development of an OpenSource framework, meaning the focus had to be on what enabled the developers to make money in their own projects based on MonoGame. But thanks to recent investments by ReLogic and our awesome MonoGame community, the MonoGame Foundation was born and more significant investments could be made.

Source code on GitHub

TL;DR -> With a little effort, publishing MonoGame projects to the Web is possible, so long as you remember it is the Web and you cannot do EVERYTHING!

When it comes to GameJams, like the one mentioned in this post, pushing out the finished project as an EXE or Appx usually results in your project either getting downvoted or ignored, because who wants to infect their machine with an unknown just to test out a Jam project. This applies to most Game Engines out there that are not web-based, including MonoGame, but thankfully due to the hard work of Nikos Kastellanos (NKast) there is an option available to us.

Source code on GitHub

TL;DR -> Getting started with MonoGame is easy, mastering it takes time. So, throw all that out the window and get hacking instead!

The 5th annual MonoGameJam is kicking off soon on the 30th November 2023, which is by far one of the best ways to throw yourself into MonoGame and learn something new:

Source code on GitHub

TL;DR -> It is as simple as Initialize, LoadContent, Update, Draw, UnloadContent and finish, with a little sauce in between.

Every Game, Program or process runs on a specific loop, it might go through just once, or as is in the case with Games, the loop continues until the game is over, finished, kaput, crashed or simply closed (but who really wants a Game to ever end :D). Put simply, this is known as the Game loop, and whether it is Unity, Unreal or MonoGame, they all have their own specific order of things.

Source code on GitHub

TL;DR -> Today, cross-platform projects are easy to setup (except UWP), with .NET7, it gets easier. Read the article for the How-to!

Most Game projects when built are solely for a single platform, usually the same as the development machine they are being built upon. Only later does the idea surface to maybe ship to another console, handheld or platform which then highlights issues in the games implementation that can lead to issues.

Source code on GitHub

TL;DR -> MonoGame rocks and continues to be one of the best open-source frameworks for building games including with lightweight editors like VSCode, on ANY platform.

Things are busy and heating up in the Open-Source development space and the MonoGame Team announced their plans to step up to the recent demand.

Source code on GitHub

TL;DR -> MonoGame rocks and continues to be one of the best open-source frameworks for building games.

Making games is hard enough (or the most fun you will ever have) without the worry of the Framework or Engine you use either being cancelled or changing the terms of its use in the future, which can provide uncertainty for the years of effort you put into making your dream a reality that everyone can play.

Back in the day, Riemer Grootjans had one of the best XNA tutorial sites available (along with some C++ and other series), featuring a great balance of beginner, intermediate and advanced content.

I personally hate link-baity titles, however this one is completely justified.

A fantastic announcement over on the SunBurn community blogs has just surfaced which is just amazing. HolPhone3D ad already built an amazing plug-in for SunBurn to allow easy stereoscopic rendering with just a few lines of code, todays announcement goes above and beyond hat, read the except from the blog below:

A ways back when, Mike Ormond (Microsoft Evangelist for Windows Phone and all round nice guy) put out a request for articles for a Microsoft sponsored Windows Phone book (which you can still find the first edition of here), I like so many others gladly took up the challenge and wrote a chapter or two for said book and submitted them.

Just to round up the overview part of this series where I have covered frameworks doing their level best to take the dream of XNA onward and available to more platforms, plus looking further into the future to extend and build upon XNA’s humble beginnings, it is worth looking over some of the other frameworks which use XNA as a baseline and give you more bang for your buck (time wise).