Hi all,

I was looking into trying out XNA but realised it needs Visual Studio 2010, which probably costs hundreds of pounds. Is there no way to program a royalty free game for windows without incurring heavy costs upfront?

I have a couple of great ideas, already am quite competent in C# and just want to get cracking then look into how to get it on steam. Any pointers are welcome.

Also if there's any particularly good turorials out there for C# games dev please share!

Welcome,

The express versions of Visual tools are free! http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/e ... ns/express

They are cut down versions, but they have everything you need to get started.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

There are many ways of writing royalty free games for windows. XNA isn't necessary.

Some programmers love XNA; others hate it. It also depends on what you want to make.

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I ain't pushing no moon buttons.

To start with a 2D adventure game, with turn based combat.

So yeah, not touching 3D for my first project.. that'd be in at the deep end really!

I've been looknig at the XNA options out there and find it very confusing. When I try to get version 4.0 I end up here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa937791

Can't see which one is for windows programming; it suggests directX 11 instead which has me even more confuzzled.

The "app hub" seems to want to give me windows phone SDK 7.1 - geeze. I just want the XNA studio 4.0 but can't find it anywhere. Perhaps I'm being thick.

I mean if anything I'd expect a link from here but noooo
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb200104.aspx

I came across just XNA while googling yesterday... Might want to take a look since it also works on XP.

http://blog.gockelhut.com/2010/10/xna-game-studio-40-for-windows-xp.html

Microsoft tends to make it unusually difficult to find stuff on their site. I spent a good amount of time looking for a download link to XNA 4.0 a couple weeks ago, so I could send a friend the link to it and he could burn it to disc for me. I finally threw my hands up in the air and gave up... he knows about XNA-related stuff though, so I'm hoping he (eventually) found the download link...

Microsoft's site is so labyrinthine that clicking the wrong link directs you to a page with a Minotaur. And these guys are behind the Bing search engine...

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."