Hi
Unfortunately XNA framework is being discontinued
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/02/01/report-xna-is-dead.aspx
Pfff. That's sad news; I really liked that piece of software. No reason to stop writing games with it, though, it's not that "discontinue-ing" makes it unusable. But seriously, Microsoft, you have a nice stable framework, lots of people are using it, it makes both YOU and your XBox a breeding ground for small creative teams, and then you abandon it? What goes?
New Xbox, new framework that doesn't suck.
XNA didn't suck. I have used it extensively and my new game is made in XNA.
XNA is rad.
Wasn't acquainted with this library, but looking at the notable games list made with it, such as Magicka, Terraria, Gnomoria... :-\
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 04/02/2013 07:29:21
...such as Magicka, Terraria, Gnomoria... :-\
All these games end with an "a"! As in "abandoned"! Holy cow!!!
But seriously, I think XNA did a good job. Pretty easy to get things done with, and for me it was the reason to learn C#, which is either a sin or a virtue, depending on who you ask. I'm still tinkering around with it. And I think Lemmy&Binky had an XNA platformer in the making that looked, to echo Calin, absolutely RAD*.
__
* The one with the badger.
I currently use libGDX as my framework of choice. It has some downsides in relation to XNA, including:
- Java instead of C# (lets face it, C# > Java most times)
- Not as featured in some areas, specifically in the 3d department
- Y-up coordinate system, however it's really easy to fix
- Of course, does not run on Xbox
However, it comes with several upsides:
- TRULY cross-platform: runs on Android, Windows, MacOS, HTML5, iOS and Linux with exactly the same code and same calls. You only need like 5 extra lines of code for each platform. Comes with a setup utility which sets up Eclipse projects automatically: Creates a project for the game which practically contains everything, and one project (that you won't need to change in most cases) for each platform, which simply calls the main project.
- Open-source, 100% free
- Is under constant development and improvement
- Good helper classes like a superior AssetManager (granted, I dislike some of the helper classes so I had to create my own)
- Other benefits I haven't explored yet, like a physics wrapper
XNA dying saddens me as well, as I did use it for the development of two games. But libGDX might be good news to some of you, particularly if you don't care about the more advanced 3D features of XNA. No, I don't work for libGDX nor have I any affilations with it :P
http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/
Quote from: Paper Carnival on Mon 04/02/2013 20:34:31
I currently use libGDX as my framework of choice.
I was using it for quite a bit. The limitations for me were the low documentation on some of the things that I needed (I'm still learning and all). Overall it was pretty easy to use. I had the basics of a game up and running in only a few hours. XNA was pretty cool too.
But I'm starting to enjoy the comfort and ease of an engine so I've been playing around with Unity 3D, which is also pretty sweet.
Does anyone know what the next-gen Xbox will be using?
Some sort of XAML / Metro thing no doubt. They most likely won't scrap c# ( that would be really silly). Most likely another framework similar to xna.
We won't truly know until Microsoft announce it but that would be my bet. Xna has been dead for a while ( not much in terms of updates) so there's a good chance they've been working on something behind the scenes
Good news
MonoGame is a great alternative for XNA.This work with XNA4.0 and there is very more useful abilities.Overall i think XNA is live again.
Quote
MonoGame is an open source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4.x Framework.
Our goal is to make it easy for XNA developers to create cross-platform games with extremely high code reuse. We currently support iOS, Android, Windows (both OpenGL and DirectX), Mac OS X, Linux, Windows 8 Store, Windows Phone 8, PlayStation Mobile, and the OUYA console.
http://www.monogame.net/
Sad news. Even though I didn't like it much, many great games were made with it (and many AGSers fiddled with it! I still remember this C#/XNA frenzy thread (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=37567.msg493864#msg493864)).
I am much excited to see a FOSS implementation of XNA (more in general, consider choosing a FOSS library/framework for your game dev! It usually protects you from such "I-am-discontinuing-it" people).