Developing games for Windows is not only fun, it's a great way to really get into Windows programming. Games are a popular type of app and by developing them, you'll not only explore your creative side, you'll learn about all the different ways you can develop multimedia on Windows, from graphics to sound to the many cool ways you and your audience can interact with the platform.
Note (Looking for the June 2010 DirectX SDK for Windows XP? Download it here.)
Now, let's discover and evaluate new and existing Windows game technologies and development platforms. We'll also help you with several common Windows game development tasks.
What you need to know
This section is for anybody that is interested in developing a game or a multimedia app for Windows. You must have basic computer skills and understand programming concepts to get started. If you want to use advanced game development technologies, such as DirectX Graphics and Gaming, you must know Windows and C++ programming, and understand some math (trigonometry, linear algebra) and basic physics.
To develop a good game you must first do some planning. Other graphic apps often have a simple, procedural workflow that can be easily expressed as a user interface. But games often have much more complicated flows and require that you not only understand well the technologies and primitives that you'll use to construct the game, but also the variety of ways they can interact. Here we'll help the new Windows game developer understand these primitives and technologies, and how to use them to assemble a complete game.
Before you begin, you must be familiar with development for Windows 8. For more info, see Getting started with Windows Store app development. Also, check out Building great games.
In this section
- Why develop a game for Windows?
- What can I use to develop a game for Windows?
- Creating a DirectX game
- Creating a Windows Store game using JavaScript
- Game publishing requirements
- Developing Reversi, a Windows Store game in C# and XAML
- Developing Marble Maze, a Windows Store game in C++ and DirectX
Additional game development resources
Here is a collection of Microsoft Powerpoint decks for talks from the Game Developers' Conference 2012 about Windows 8, Kinect, and general Windows game development.
| GDC 2012 talk slide deck |
|---|
| Creating a Great Windows Store game for Windows 8 |
| Developing Windows Store games on the Full Range of Windows 8 Devices |
| Xbox LIVE on Windows Deep Dive |
| Xbox LIVE Services - Entertainment Powered by the Cloud |
| Game Data Anywhere Using Xbox LIVE Cloud Storage |
| Asynchronous Gaming with Xbox LIVE |
| Xbox LIVE Web Games |
| Monetization Strategies for Windows 8 Games |
| Visual Studio 11 for Game Developers |
| Xbox LIVE Multiplayer Gaming on Windows 8 and Other Devices |
| Building Cross-Device Xbox LIVE Games |
| "Xbox, Play" : Harnessing the Power of Speech |
| Kinect Human Tracking - Better, Stronger, Faster |
| Innovative Solutions to Gesture Detection |
Build date: 12/7/2012