Contents -- Introduction -- PART I: BUILDING BLOCKS -- Chapter 1 Overview of XNA -- What Is XNA Game Studio Express? -- What Is Visual C# Express 2005? -- A Brief History of DirectX -- What Is Managed Code? -- What Is the Role of XNA? -- What Is C#? -- What Role Does Managed Code Play in Games Today? -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 2 Setting Up Your Development PC -- Minimum Hardware Requirements -- Installing the Software -- Optional Software -- Verifying the Install -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 3 Using Visual C# 2005 Express -- The Visual C# 2005 Express IDE -- Nickel Tour of the Visual C# 2005 Express IDE -- Building Games -- Debugging Games -- Sharing Your Creations -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 4 Using XNA Graphics for Basic 2D -- Terminology -- Files on the Disk to Textures in Your Game -- The Heartbeat of an XNA Game -- The SpriteBatch Class -- The Background -- Tinting Sprites -- Transparent Sprites -- Animated Sprites -- Scaling Sprites -- Rotating Sprites -- Sprite Depth -- A Tangent on Radians -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 5 Using XNA Graphics for More Advanced 2D -- The Main Animation -- Capturing the Screen -- The Warp Grid -- Drawing the Warped Grid (Standard Method) -- Drawing the Warped Grid (Custom Method) -- Implementation Differences -- Full-Screen Mode -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 6 Using XNA Graphics for Basic 3D -- 3D Basics -- Digging a Little Deeper -- Vectors -- Matrices -- The Example -- High Level Shader Language (HLSL) -- Lighting -- Texture Mapping -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 7 Using XNA Input for Controllers -- GamePad Overview -- The Example -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 8 Using XNA Input for Keyboards -- Keyboard Overview -- The Example.

Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 9 Using XNA Input for Mice -- Overview -- The Example -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 10 Using XNA Audio -- The XACT UI -- The XACT Auditioning Utility -- Playing Sounds in Your XNA Game -- Walk Through -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Special Thanks -- Chapter 11 Using XNA Storage -- StorageDevice -- StorageContainer -- The Example -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 12 Xbox 360 Considerations -- Developing Xbox 360 Games -- Joining the XNA Content Creators Club -- Configuring Your PC and Xbox 360 -- Deploying Xbox 360 Games -- Running Existing Games -- Performance Tuning -- Naming Your Games -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- PART II: GENRE STUDIES -- Chapter 13 Arcade -- Design -- Architecture -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 14 Brick Breaker -- The Design -- The Game -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 15 Puzzle Games -- The Design -- The Architecture -- Putting It All Together -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 16 Top-Down Scroller -- The Design -- The Architecture -- Player Input -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 17 Card Games-Solitaire -- Game Rules -- Card Images -- The Architecture -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 18 Board Games -- The Design -- The Architecture -- The User Interface -- Artificial Intelligence -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- PART III: COMPONENTS, LIBRARIES, AND TOOLS -- Chapter 19 Keyboard-Aware Game Pad -- Caveats and Pitfalls -- Wish List -- Getting Started -- The KeyMap Class -- The KeyMapHelper Class -- The Example Game -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 20 Game Font Maker Utility -- What Is Unicode? -- Using Unicode in Games -- Limitations, Caveats, and Notes.

Getting Started -- The User Interface -- Image Generation -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 21 Game Font Library -- GameFont Class -- GameFontException Class -- The Example -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 22 Particle System -- The Architecture -- The Example Game -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 23 Virtual Keyboard -- The Design -- The Example Game -- The VirtualKeyboard Class -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 24 Brick Breaker Level Editor -- The Design -- Designing the Editor -- Coding the EditorForm -- Coding the EditorControl -- Source Code -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- PART IV: TASTY BITS -- Chapter 25 Threading in XNA -- Overview of Threaded Code -- Locks and Shared Resources -- Other Concurrency Strategies -- Thread Pools -- A Quick Note on Threading on the Xbox 360 Game Console -- Why Bother with Threading at All? -- Design for Multithreading -- Waiting for Threads to Complete -- The New Update Method -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 26 Content Pipeline Extensions -- Content Pipeline Stages -- GameFont in the Content Pipeline -- Changes to Existing Code -- The Importer -- The Processor -- The Writer -- Using the New Importer -- Debugging Importers -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 27 Embedded Resources and Localization -- Reasons for Using Embedded Resources -- The Design -- Implementation Details -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 28 Pixel-Perfect Collision Detection -- Opacity Data -- The PixelPerfectHelper Class -- PixelPerfectHelper in Action -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 29 Optimization -- To Perf or Not to Perf -- JIT Compiler (Freebies) -- General Best Practices -- .NET Framework Best Practices -- .NET Compact Framework Best Practices -- Tools.

Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 30 Team Development -- Communication -- Source Control, Sharing, and Backups -- Building and Testing -- Programming Standards -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Exercises -- Chapter 31 XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh -- Compatibility with Windows Vista -- Building and Deploying -- Xbox 360 Goodies -- XNA Launcher -- 3D Audio -- Math APIs and Common Structures -- 3D APIs -- The Content Pipeline -- Font Support -- Documentation Updates -- Summary -- Review Questions -- Appendix: What's on the CD? -- Autorun Application (Welcome.exe) -- Source Directory -- Media Directory -- 3rd Party Directory -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.