This book is meant to be a solid introduction to game development for somebody with basic knowledge of the .NET Framework and C# (or similar technologies). No previous XNA or other game or graphics development experience or knowledge is required.

This book introduces XNA game development concepts while walking the reader through the development of three different XNA games. Although most of the material generally applies to developing games for any of the available platforms, Chapters 16 and 17 focus on developing games for the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7, respectively.

The first portion of the book takes the reader through changes in XNA 4.0 and the development of a 2D game. Here are the chapters that compose this part:

The next part of the book walks the reader through the development of a 3D game for the PC. At the end of this section, the game is tweaked and deployed to the Xbox 360. Here are the chapters in this part:

This next part of the book walks you through creating a new game for Windows Phone 7:

The last part of the book walks you through creating a network game in XNA. This part assumes knowledge of all previous chapters and comprises only one chapter, which concentrates on networking functionality in XNA while stepping through the creation of a new XNA game:

Finally, in the appendix, you’ll find the answers to the quizzes at the end of each chapter.

My goal in writing this book is to help the reader gain a true understanding of and passion for game development in XNA. To that end, I’ll be supporting the book through my blog, which can be found at:

On that website you’ll find the source code for the book, as well as other XNA-related content (and a fair bit of non-XNA-related content as well). Feel free to chime in on the forums with questions, comments, or even answers.

The following typographic conventions are used in this book:

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from this book does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “Learning XNA 4.0, by Aaron Reed. Copyright 2011 Aaron Reed, 978-0-449-39462-2.”

If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given here, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

We have tested and verified the information in this book to the best of our ability, but you might find that features have changed or that we may have made a mistake or two (shocking and hard to believe as that may be). Please let us know about any errors you find, as well as your suggestions for future editions, by writing to:

We have a web page for this book, where we list examples and any plans for future editions. You can access this information at:

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I explained what drove me to this madness in the first place at the beginning of this preface; that is, the book began from a need I had as an instructor to create a more comprehensive and straightforward way of teaching gaming and graphics. What has driven me to put together a second version of that book? In hindsight, I guess it was driven by some form of insanity. More than anybody, thanks go to my beautiful wife and for her never-ending support through all of this. Spending long nights in front of the keyboard and monitor isn’t the best way to keep a marriage going, but my wife puts up with a lot and has always been there for me. I love you so much! Thank you for always being there.

Thank you to my editor (Courtney Nash) and the technical reviewers of the book (Brett Beardall, Ryan Hair, Dan Waters, and others). Without your help, this book would be little more than the misguided ramblings of a boring computer science instructor. Uhh, well…it still might be just that, but either way, your help was invaluable.

Thanks to everybody at Neumont University for allowing me to pursue my two passions: technology and education. And thank you to the hundreds of students who’ve taken my classes over the years. Watching the lights go on inside students’ heads and the smiles on their faces when their graphics come alive on the screen truly is a special experience. It’s why I do what I do and, in the end, is the real reason this book exists.

Thanks to my parents for providing a way for me to fall in love with computers, programming, and technology in general. When I was a young teenager, I took apart our family computer to install a new SoundBlaster card. I wanted to pipe the output audio through our living room stereo and blast it throughout the house. I had never installed any hardware before that day and had no idea what I was doing. To my dread, my parents came home before I could finish hooking it all up and found me on the floor, scratching my head, surrounded by parts of our $2,500 computer. After explaining what I was doing, I was shocked that they didn’t yell at me and make me fix all the mess I had just created. What thrilled me even more was that when I finished putting it all together and hooked up the stereo, my parents were as excited as I was when I played with the talking parrot program and blasted the audio from a Star Wars game throughout the house. Experiences like that fed my interest in computers, helped me put aside any fear of failure, and instilled in me a passion for building things with technology. Parents of teenagers in America could learn a lot from the example of my parents: embrace your children’s interest (in technology or otherwise), funnel it into productive projects (not just playing games), encourage them to stretch themselves, and celebrate their successes.

Finally, thank you to Kyle Whittingham and Chris Hill for making University of Utah football such a success. It has nothing to do with this book, but it does make me smile. (Utah 31, Alabama 17.)