Robotron: 2084 in all its glory.

A typically hectic scene from the original Robotron: 2084.

At its time, it was quite innovative and considered an instant classic. It also went on to influence many other games, and even got an XBLA port. These bits, though, are based on the original arcade version:

• The brain-child of Eugene Jarvis, Robotron: 2084was the first action/shooter to feature two joysticks. One was used for moving the player character, and the other for choosing the direction in which he fired.
• There was no scrolling and the game’s background was entirely black, providing a high contrast for the on-screen action.
• Each of the game’s enemies had a unique look and behaviour. Grunts endlessly pursued the player, their speed increasing as they got closer to their prey; green Hulks stalked the remaining human survivors and could not be destroyed — only slowed down — by the player’s shots; Enforcers flew around and peppered the player’s vicinity with harmful projectiles (which, unintuitively, also traveled faster the further they were away from the player); Tanks fired bouncing shells that rebounded off of the screen’s edges; and Brains launched homing missiles and could reprogram humans to turn on the player.
• The Quarks and Spheroids were some of the earliest examples of spawning machines, a prevelent aspect of the eventual Gauntlet.
  

  The game's Xbox Live Arcade port.

• Since many enemies materialized in waves and didn’t continuously fire at the player, they would often end up turning the empty arena into a dynamic maze. Walls composed of grunts would close in on the player, forcing him to avoid the obstacles and blast through the oncoming danger.
• Electrodes were somewhat representative of static but harmful environmental objects. The interesting thing about them, though, was that the player could not only destroy them, but also use them to kill other enemies.
• Adding a bit of a defensive element, Robotron: 2084 allowed the player to shoot down the enemies’ projectiles with his own.
• The game had a rather dystopian vibe with the player attempting to save the last humans from the “robocalypse.” More specifically, he was saving the last human clones, suggesting that it might’ve already been too late.

The XNA community portal.

The Game Studio itself is a suite of tools that can be used to make games for Windows, Xbox 360 and Zune. It’s not quite the same as Xbox Live Arcade, but similar in scope. What really surprised me, though, were the XNA tutorial videos. There’s a whole bunch of them, and some even assume that you know nothing about programming.

So how much can you really get from ‘em? Well, the videos take you step by step through various programming concepts and conventions, but eventually you will need to learn how to program. Or at least get very good at tweaking others’ code.

Still, this is as good a start as any.

When I began to learn programming — always with the intention of making videogames — I was a bit overwhelmed. There were a lot of languages, all with their own libraries, and all dedicated to particular pieces of hardware. Also, they seemed to universally cater towards tasks that had nothing to do with what I wanted to learn.

Eventually, though, I decided not to worry too much about the starting point and just dive in. The semantics of programming languages and their APIs vary, but they carry over, and the concepts are 100% portable.

In general, software tends to resemble a clockwork mechanism; a sprawling contraption of numerous interconnected parts. The logic behind each part is never that difficult to grasp, but the whole picture can be a bit daunting. Tweak and slowly change around the parts, though, and you’ll start learning how the whole thing functions. The XNA tutorial videos encourage this, and even point out places where you might want to experiment and where you should go to learn more. There are also plenty of videogame specific tutorials, and some even include entire “construction kits” (small-scale game engines that contain numerous pieces of functionality).

Microsoft seems to have put in a great deal of effort into the XNA community, and it’s definitely worth checking out. And who knows, if you develop something for it, you might also end up selling it to millions of Xbox 360 owners.