We are going to need a few tools to do this with.
To reach all platforms we will eventually have to compile in both the Windows and the OSX environments. For Hardware I am using a MacBook with OSX 10.8.4. I have Parallels 8 installed on this machine and Windows 8 32bit in parallels as a Virtual Machine. (Note that 32 Bit is important because, even though the Macbook is a 64 bit processor, I have been unable to get parallels to successfully Windows 8 or 8.1 in 64 bit versions.)
I am going to start the development in the Windows environment because it contains two of the most limited platforms: Windows Phone 8 and Windows Store 8. Once we have our code running in those, it will only take a few hours to move it to any other platform.
On Windows, Monogame development is done in Visual Studio. While you can do limited development in the Express versions of Visual Studio that means you need a different IDE for each target environment. It also causes some other compatibility issues. I use Visual Studio 2012 pro and its what I strongly recommend.
If you are a college student or professor you can get it free. To get it for free go to Dreamspark:
https://www.dreamspark.com
You will have to go through a registration process to prove you really are a student or professor. (If your school subscribes to DreamSpark there are further downloads available that are well worth looking at.)
Otherwise, you can download a trial version to use for a bit here:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads
Eventually though you will have to pay for it in order to continue to use it.
Once you have visual studio installed, you will want to download the Monogame for Visual Studio installer from here:
http://monogame.net/downloads
The last thing you will need if you want to access my game code as I go is SourceTree. TortiseHG, or another Mercurial client as I will be posting it to the following open bitbucket project:
https://bitbucket.org/ProfessorK/bunnyhuntersonline
There will be other software needed later on, but thats enough to get started.
Next Blog: The Content Project
Great. I'm using Xamarin as a test, it is lightweight. I have VS 2012 Ultimate installed (and really like it), licensed via Dreamspark, but is kinda sluggish.
ReplyDeleteI assume you are a student if you are using a DreamSpark license. If so then, if you decide you want to deploy to IOS or Android, Xamarin's Academic price is only $99 per platform. I have the name of a contact there if you need one!
ReplyDelete