Information on building a game

Question

I am looking for quality tutorials, examples, and any other source of information on game design or game development. I have already found http://cheezeworld.com/game-structure/ and I want to find more. Some specific examples that I'm looking for would be making requirements for games, testing game code, what design patterns are more/less useful and why, as well as sources for free media (sounds, graphics).

I will most likely be making the game using XNA, which implies I'll be coding in C#. However, I want my information to not be language specific when possible .

Resources: Gamasutra Ziggyware Cheezeworld GameDev Learning Game Programming XNA CreatorsClub MSDN XNA DevMaster

Answer 1

http://www.gamedev.net is a good resource.

Answer 2

I've made very good experiences with Gamasutra, where very comprehensive and professional articles can be found. For your work with XNA i can recommend Ziggyware which holds loads of tutorials including downloadable source code.

Answer 3

This guy is in the same boat. He just got started and is using XNA.

http://learning-game-programming.com/

Answer 4

Ziggyware and the CreatorsClub are two good places for XNA programming stuff. It is where I started.

Answer 5

Generic: GameDev, DevMaster

XNA-specific: XNA Creators Club, MSDN XNA Developer Center

Answer 6

I second Gamasutra as an excellent source of information/news on game development. Besides the resource already mentionned, I'd had this link collection and the game programming wiki which contains far less information than it could, but still can be an interesting resource.

Answer 7

Blogs:

• Lost Garden great article collection about game design
• Blobs in Games My favorite one.
• Wolfire Games Blog
• Yuan Works Development about building a platform game
• Elder Game blog about MMO game development
• The Chronicles of Doryen Development blog of a roguelike. This guy sometimes writes useful articles, like Comparative study of field of view algorithms for 2D grid based worlds. HE got few more blogs/pages where you can find nice articles about procedural world generation, etc.

If anyone knows more blogs worth following, please, post them too.

Sites:

• Amit's Game Programming Information, big library of algorithms and stuff. A must see website.
• Roguebasin
• Three Hundred Mechanics, author was trying to create one game idea per day. He failed, but he's still updating his collection.

Usenet:

• rec.games.roguelike.development. I know. Group is mostly about developing roguelike games, but you can also find here useful general ideas too.

Answer 8

This site has quite a few quality XNA tutorials. Check out 3D Buzz:

• http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php

I am also a fan of Digital Tutors XNA - DVD tutorials collection:

• http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/home.php?cat=94