MonoGame

MonoGame
Developer(s) MonoGame Team
Initial release September 2, 2009 (2009-09-02)
Stable release 3.4[1] / April 29, 2015 (2015-04-29)
Written in C#
Platform iOS, OS X, PlayStation Mobile, Android, Linux, BSD, Ouya, Windows Phone 8, Windows Store, Windows Desktop
Type Application framework
License Microsoft Public License[2]
Website www.monogame.net

MonoGame is free software used by game developers to make their Windows and Windows Phone games run on other systems. It currently supports OS X, Linux, iOS, Android, PlayStation Mobile, and the OUYA console. It implements the Microsoft XNA 4 Application programming interface.[3] It has been used for several bestselling games, including Bastion and Fez.

History

MonoGame is the evolution of XNA Touch (September 2009) started by Jose Antonio Farias[4] and Silver Sprite by Bill Reiss. The first official release of MonoGame was version 2.0 with a downloadable version 0.7 that was available from CodePlex. These early versions only supported 2D sprite based games. The last official 2D only version was released as 2.5.1 in June 2012.

Since mid-2013, the framework has begun to be extended beyond XNA4 with the addition of new features like RenderTarget3D,[5] support for multiple GameWindows,[6] and a new cross-platform command line content building tool.[7]

Architecture

MonoGame attempts to fully implement the XNA 4 API.[8] It accomplishes this across Microsoft platforms using SharpDX and DirectX.[9] When targeting non-Microsoft platforms, platform specific capabilities are utilized by way of the OpenTK library. When targeting OS X, iOS, and/or Android, the Xamarin platform runtime is necessary. This runtime provides a tuned OpenTK implementation that allows the MonoGame team to focus on the core graphics tuning of the platform.

The graphics capabilities of MonoGame come from either OpenGL, OpenGL ES, or DirectX. Since MonoGame version 3, OpenGL 2 has been the focus for capabilities. The earlier releases of MonoGame (2.5) used OpenGL 1.x for graphics rendering. Utilizing OpenGL 2 allowed for MonoGame to support shaders to make more advanced rendering capabilities in the platform.

Content management and distribution continues to follow the XNA 4 ContentManager model. The MonoGame team has created a new content building capability that can integrate with Microsoft Visual Studio to deliver the same content building capabilities to Windows 8 Desktop that Windows 7 users had used in Microsoft XNA.

Games

While there is no exhaustive list of games that use MonoGame, the following table is a list of noteworthy games using MonoGame to reach multiple platforms.

Game Year Platform(s) Developer Publisher
ARMED![10] 2011 Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS Sickhead Games Sickhead Games
Axiom Verge[11] 2015 PlayStation 4, PS Vita, Microsoft Windows Thomas Happ Games LLC Thomas Happ Games LLC
Bastion[12] 2011 Windows, OS X, Xbox 360, Chrome, iOS, Linux Supergiant Games Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Draw a Stickman: Epic[13] 2012 Windows Store, iOS, Android Hitcents.com Hitcents.com
Escape Goat[14] 2011 Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox 360 MagicalTimeBean MagicalTimeBean
Fez[15] 2013 Xbox 360, Windows, OS X, Linux Polytron Corporation Trapdoor, Microsoft Studios
Infinite Flight[16] 2011 iOS, Windows Phone, Android Flying Development Studio Flying Development Studio
Mercenary Kings 2013 Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4 Tribute Games Tribute Games
Vision The Game 2014 Windows Phone, iOS, Android InnerVision Software InnerVision Software
Skulls of the Shogun[17] 2013 Windows Store, Windows Phone, Xbox 360, OS X, Linux,iOS, Android 17-BIT Microsoft Studios
Tiny Dice Dungeon 2014 Android, iOS Springloaded Kongregate
TowerFall 2013 OUYA, Windows, PlayStation 4 Matt Thorson Matt Thorson
Transistor 2014 Windows, PlayStation 4, Linux, OS X, iOS Supergiant Games Supergiant Games
Wizorb[18][19] 2011 iOS, Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox 360, PS Minis Tribute Games Tribute Games

See also

References

  1. ↑ "MonoGame downloads". Retrieved 2015-05-10.
  2. ↑ "FAQ: Licensing – MonoGame". Retrieved 2009-09-02.
  3. ↑ "Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame". MSDN. 2012-08-01. MonoGame is an Open Source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework. The goal is to allow XNA developers on Windows & Windows Phone to port their games to the iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Linux with both PlayStation Suite and Windows 8 support currently under development.
  4. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/jalfbr
  5. ↑ RenderTarget3D for DirectX by tomspilman · Pull Request #1549 · mono/MonoGame · GitHub
  6. ↑ Multiple GameWindow support for Windows/DirectX by jamesford42 · Pull Request #1465 · mono/MonoGame · GitHub
  7. ↑ MonoGame Content Builder · mono/MonoGame Wiki · GitHub
  8. ↑ Windows 8 App Projects - XAML and C# Edition - Nico Vermeir - Google Boeken
  9. ↑ Monogame at Build 2012 | Channel 9 Live at BUILD 2012 | Channel 9
  10. ↑ http://themetrodevelopershow.com/2012/07/episode-074-armed-in-texas/
  11. ↑ http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/39830/dan-adelman-explains-why-axiom-verge-is-not-coming-to-wii-u
  12. ↑ Supergiant Games | Bastion’s Open Source Branch for MonoGame
  13. ↑ Draw a Stickman: EPIC, a MonoGame Adventure - Hitcents Blog
  14. ↑
  15. ↑ Twitter / Euden: @renaudbedard I'd like to ask:
  16. ↑ MonoGame and Xamarin make shipping Infinite Flight a reality on the Hanselminutes Technology Podcast: Fresh Air for Developers
  17. ↑ Skulls of the Shogun – Developer Interview | WMPoweruser
  18. ↑ Wizorb
  19. ↑ Wizorb coming to Mac and Linux December 19th! | Tribute Games

External links

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