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Advice on year project?

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  • 13-11-2008 3:14pm
    #1
    joe123
    Registered Users Posts: 6,521 ✭✭✭


    We have to do a year long project for 3rd year. Myself and another lad have decided to make a game. Its going to be something fairly basic ( a bit like alice greenfingers game). Were using c# and were doing it in WPF.

    Ive googled around looking for similar games using WPF but there hardly is anything so were thinking of using XNA but we were told wpf would be far easier even though theres alot more info using xna out there than wpf. Were nothing weak enough programmers aswell so we dont want to get stuck using xna if it takes a genius to use it....likewise with wpf if theres no info on it out there.

    Can anyone give a bit of advice on which would be the better option in using wpf or xna? Also is there any good sites out there that would be of help such as usefill bits of codes similar ideas etc? Thanks in advance


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    #2
    CreepingDeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,015 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    One of the greatest little home grown game demos I saw in recent times was Crayon Physics.

    Link Here

    2D physics... you draw something with a mouse on the screen and it "falls" and collides with other things.
    They used to have a 5Mb demo of it available to download which was great to play around with.

    Also a similar Microsoft idea here with nice youTube link.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Physics_Illustrator

    I reckon it's a great spin on simple 2D games.


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    #3
    NeverSayDie
    Registered Users Posts: 515 ✭✭✭NeverSayDie


    If you don't have experience with WPF, I'd suggest you stick to the XNA option. It's more suited to this kind of thing (that's what it's designed for, after all), and most importantly - as you've already discovered - you'll find far more beginner-oriented resources out there. You could probably achieve this kind of thing in WPF too if you want to, but that's not its principal purpose, and as such you won't find many resources on doing game dev with it. The fact that it's relatively new also means you won't find so many resources on those kind of alternative uses for it. As a beginner in particular, you'll have an easier time getting up to speed with XNA. WPF is great, but there's a fair bit to it at the beginning - just for the regular GUI stuff it was intended for, before you start trying to make games with it. Best stick to a platform specifically designed for what you're looking to do. Another advantage of XNA is that it's cross-platform to the XBox, so if you develop it properly, it should be entirely possible to have your game running on the console too.

    In terms of useful resources, Google should turn up lots - there's loads of stuff for XNA out there. CodePlex (Microsoft's equivalent of SourceForge, hosts open source projects of various sorts) also has plenty of XNA projects on it. If you're looking for a GUI or physics library for instance, that'd be a place to go.

    It does depend on the type of game though - if it's a pretty static setup with lots of conventional GUI elements, WPF (or WindowsForms for that matter) would be worth a look. For instance, you wouldn't want to make an FPS in WPF, but a stock market game would probably be a deal easier in WPF.


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