A quick intro in to the land of Game Development with MonoGame, starting with 2D drawing, audio and input

1. Getting Started with
MonoGame using 2D
DARKSIDE OF MONOGAME
SIMON JACKSON
AUTHOR AND MICROSOFT MVP
@SIMONDARKSIDEJ

2. What this tutorial covers
• Basic Concepts
• Game Loop
• Content
• Your First 2D project
• Build Content Project
• Create Project
• Add code and assets
• The Bigger Picture
• Project Structure
• State Management
• Tips ‘N’Tricks
*Doesn’t include instructions on HOW to code :D
Check the original 2D starter course I did for that
http://bit.ly/2mT2pQd
Or check out Rob Miles’s “LittleYellow Book”
http://www.csharpcourse.com/
Update
Loop
Content
&
Drawing
Handling
Input
Audio

3. Basic 2D / Game Development
concepts
WHAT MAKES A GAME?

4. Simple Concepts
• Game - XNA Game definition
• Graphics Device - The Graphics card definition
• Sprite Batch - 2D Batch drawing call
• Content Manager - The Content Pipeline
• Vectors / Rectangles /Textures - MonoGame structures
• Game Loop - The loop the game
• Initialize (while running) goes through to deliver
• Update your game
• Draw

5. The Game Loop
• Set Initial State
• Load Content
Initialize
• Handle Input
• Apply Physics
• Set Position
Update • Draw
Background
• Draw Foreground
• Apply Shaders
Draw

6. 2D Drawing
JUST GETTING SOME STUFF ON THE SCREEN

7. Drawing in 2D – Order is important
When drawing a 2D game (or any other type tbh), the order in which
you draw them is very important:
• Drawing is done from back to the front
• Things drawn first begin at the back
• Additional calls draw on top of each other
• Same as if you were drawing with paint on a canvas

8. Coordinates
When drawing in 2D, the top-left of the screen is the start of the screen.
Or inVector terms –Vector2(0,0)
Values then increase:
• Across to the right for X
• Downwards forY
Any object drawn to the screen
follows the same pattern
X Positive ->
YPositive->
Position
Vector2(10,10)

9. Effects
It is also possible to apply effects to images / text as they are drawn, either:
• Individually
• A group of images
• To the entire screen
This can allow you to:
• Blend colors together
• Overwrite portions
• Anything else your mind has to dream

10. Input & Animation
MAKING STUFF MOVE

11. Input
Input is handled as a “state” between each game update loop.
MonoGame checks what the new position is for each type of input, you have
to decide what to do with that information.
In most games, you preserve the previous state of input, to determine if the
player has:
• Just pressed an input
• Just released an input
• Is holding an input
Once you know the player has done something, you decide what to do with
that information.

12. Animation
Animation, like the movies, is just a way to fool humans that an image
is actually moving. This is achieved in games by either:
• Moving the image across the screen between frames
• Replacing the image with a slightly different image
• A combination of both of these
MonoGame can support both:
• Individual images for animation
• Multiple images combined on a single image with multiple “frames”
of animation. Also known as Spritesheets.

13. Animation
SINGLE TEXTURE
SPRITE SHEET
MULTIPLE IMAGES
Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 3

14. Audio
ADDING SOME SOUND

15. Audio
Audio comes in two forms within the MonoGame Framework:
• Sound – Fire and forget, just play and go
• Sound Instance – More control, used for music and deeper effects
• Song – Music and looping audio
Audio is loaded from the Content Manger like any other asset
Then you can either:
• Just play is as required, e.g. Fire a bullet
• Create an instance and play, loop, increase/decrease pitch, etc

16. Enough talk
SHOW ME THE CODE

17. Going further
MANAGING THE STATE OF YOUR GAME

18. Game State Management
Games are more than just the gameplay, to be complete you will also
need:
• Menus
• Configuration / Settings screens
• Help / info pages
• More levels?
As you only have ONE game loop, you need to enable your game to
understand the different “states” your game will be in.
This is referred to as Game State Management

19. Game State Management
sample
MANAGING THE STATE OF YOUR GAME EXAMPLE

20. Further Reading
WHERE CAN YOU LEARN MORE

21. More information
Many sources exist to detail more about basic 2D drawing:
• http://www.monogame.rocks/documentation
A good start but docs still aWIP
• http://www.monogame.rocks/documentation/?page=Tutorials
A selection of other MonoGame tutorials, some old but still relevant
• https://github.com/DDReaper/XNAGameStudio
Archived Microsoft XNA samples. A great “how to” selection.
Most are being converted over to MonoGame direct, like the
GameStateManagement sample
• The Darkside of MonoGame
http://www.youtube.com/c/TheDarksideofMonoGame
Either where you are watching this from or where you should go next!

22. Thanks for watching
DARKSIDE OF MONOGAME
SIMON JACKSON
AUTHOR AND MICROSOFT MVP
@SIMONDARKSIDEJ