So I know C# and have a pretty solid understanding of computers and programming, and have modded a little, and even made the occasional program. Now I want to make games. I was thinking of a simple tile based rpg (kill the wizard, rescue the princess...) Any good advice or tutorials for making a tile based engine with XNA?

Go through Nick's tile tutorials

Alternatively, you could buy my book.

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They're not C# specific, but a lot of the knowledge you'll need can be found here:

http://www.rookscape.com/vbgaming/GBeebe/tiles.php
http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/Fra ... _Algorithm
http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/RPG_Map
http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/RPG_MAP2
http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/RPG_CHAR

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Also, http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/VB: ... ling_Tiles

(Couldn't put >5 URLs in one post)

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

Thanks! I noticed almost no one actually writes games in C#, so if I get professional (eventually), i'll probably have to switch languages...

Hehe, depends what you mean by "no one". If you're talking AAA titles, then yeah that's all C/C++. For indie stuff though, C# with XNA is great as it performs really well and gives you access to the Xbox360. You can make some really delicious looking stuff in C# that still runs well - and you'll have less headache than trying to do the equivalent in C++.

Definitely learn C++ as well eventually but you don't need to worry about learning and using C# in the mean time.

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

In the mean time, does anyone know a good (non-msdn) tutorial for the essentials of XNA? Just the basics, like how to import content and some essential classes?

Learn C++ if you want to get into the game industry as a professional, want to do cross-OS games or want to do cutting edge games as an indie. Otherwise there's no reason to not just stick with C# and XNA.

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Riemers is pretty cool http://www.riemers.net/

I can't ever find anything on the MS site, but they had very nice code samples showing how to do pretty much everything from basic to advanced. There was also a nice little Game State example which you could use to build a cool menu system. Maybe Machaira can link to the samples index.

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

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Bored? Head on over to my blog and see what I'm up to.

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holy crap you have your own BOOK?

that's epicsauce, i might actually check that out

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http://tankzgame.blogspot.com

More than one, actually.

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My other one is too out of date to be useful though. It was from XNA 2.0. At least most of the code from my RPG book is version independent.

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1+ customer. Well, soon anyway. Mr. Perry

I appreciate it.

I'm still hoping to update my RPG book, maybe next year. I'd love to do the MMORPG book that I was going to work on as well.

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Bored? Head on over to my blog and see what I'm up to.

Microsoft XNA MVP