Beginning XNA 3.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional

CHAPTER 1Game Planning and Programming Basics

In this chapter, we present some fundamental concepts of planning and programming games that you should keep in mind when creating games. You'll learn the basic ideas involved in creating a game and discover how XNA makes game development easy for you.

Planning the Game

The effort involved in creating a good game starts long before the coding phase. Somewhat undervalued by nonprofessional game programmers, planning is the most important phase of your game development project. In this phase, you define the guidelines for all the next stages.

Before thinking about which game you'll create, you need to choose your target market. This choice will define the direction for your entire game development ...