Creating fun, sophisticated games for Windows devices large or small has never been easier! With masses of example code and fully working games for you to download and run straight away Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Game Development is your ideal first step into modern games development.

This book gives you everything you need to realize your dreams and produce fantastic games that will run on all Windows 8 devices from desktops to tablets to phones. You can code once and run everywhere. The ubiquity of Windows 8 devices makes this opportunity to good to miss!

The Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 platforms have huge potential for gaming. New form-factors - such as the Surface tablet - coupled with improved processors and higher screen resolutions combine to make Windows 8 the best Windows version yet for independent games development. It's never been easier to create a fantastic game, package it up and deploy it straight to the Windows Store with its audience of millions. This book will show you how.

What you’ll learn

• Develop using the free or full versions of Visual Studio 2012.
• Learn how to share code between the two Windows 8 platforms
• Master high performance 2D and 3D graphics using the MonoGame development environment.
• Discover how to control your games, including using touch screens, keyboards and accelerometers.
• Produce high quality music and sound effects for your games.
• Explore masses of example code and working projects with source code available to download and run straight away.
• Learn how to publish your games through the Windows and Windows Phone Stores for fun or profit

Who this book is for

Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Game Development is aimed at those with an existing background in programming and knowledge of the C# programming language.

No prior knowledge is required of programming for Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8, XNA or MonoGame, or games-programming in general. This book will guide the reader through the steps required to become proficient in all of these areas of development.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started
2. Getting Started with MonoGame
3. Creating a Game Framework
4. User Input
5. Sounding Out with Game Audio
6. Drawing with Vertices and Matrices
7. The World of 3-D Graphics
8. Further 3-D Features and Techniques
9. Enhancing Your Game
10. Application Management
11. Getting Started with XAML
12. XAML Controls and Pages
13. Mixing XAML and MonoGame 
14. Distributing Your Game