Technology Used in the Making of Game

[Lakstoties]

I was curious as to what technologies are being used to create UnderRail.  From what I've gathered, it looks like XNA Game Studio Express.  Hence, C# and a ton of Microsoft libraries at this point.  Didn't know if there were other bits in place, or if that's all that is there at the moment.  Also, I was curious if there'd be a move towards a more general platform in the future, since XNA can be bit confining and bloated at times.  (XNA seems to be aimed toward more demanding 3D games with the design of the libraries and preference towards certain design methodologies.)

[neonesis]

(XNA seems to be aimed toward more demanding 3D games with the design of the libraries and preference towards certain design methodologies.)

As with all making-developing-easier tools and libraries.
I'm sure the technology is C#/XNA, although I don't think it's Visual Studio Express, judging by the installer. My bet is on the Professional version

Not much of anything else, the audio is done by XNA (XACT), the GUI is I guess all self-made.

That being said, I can't really see a switch to some other technology later. Actually, I don't really see a reason for it.

[Styg]

XNA works just fine and C# is amazingly productive language that is well suited for programming complex systems such as RPG games. I have no intentions of changing the technology I use in the foreseeable future.

The only downside of using .NET/XNA is that it's not portable to other systems. I haven't had a chance to experiment with Mono yet, though.

[nockeer]

Why change technology who works fine? It's not important which tools we use, while final product is excellent

[neonesis]

XNA works just fine and C# is amazingly productive language that is well suited for programming complex systems such as RPG games. I have no intentions of changing the technology I use in the foreseeable future.

The only downside of using .NET/XNA is that it's not portable to other systems. I haven't had a chance to experiment with Mono yet, though.

As far as I know, Mono doesn't support XNA. It's pretty much bare C# libraries, plus Windows Forms (no WPF).

[Lakstoties]

C# is a great language and well worth using.  I was mostly curious if there would be a move from XNA to using a more direct C#/DirectX combination as the game matures to gain more control, efficiency, and simplicity.  Such a move would make the game more portable and reduce the system requirements greatly.

[neonesis]

C# is a great language and well worth using.  I was mostly curious if there would be a move from XNA to using a more direct C#/DirectX combination as the game matures to gain more control, efficiency, and simplicity.  Such a move would make the game more portable and reduce the system requirements greatly.

I don't think there would be enough gain when it comes to performance and requirements, when compared to the loss of "easiness" XNA provides. And there is a lot that XNA does for you, and/or makes easier to code/manage.

I mean, it's not like UR is in some way heavy on CPU or GPU. I'm running it on netbook, in 1920x1080. It's pretty much all I can ever ask for.

About compability - using direct DirectX would probably allow you to run UR on Linux, under Wine. And... as far as I know, that's about it?

[Lakstoties]

I don't think there would be enough gain when it comes to performance and requirements, when compared to the loss of "easiness" XNA provides. And there is a lot that XNA does for you, and/or makes easier to code/manage.

Very true.  Played around with XNA in its earlier incarnations and compared it to just using C# and DirectX straight.  There's a lot nice features XNA provides at the higher end, but sometimes it can be a bit heavy handed.  Making a simple 3D cube using XNA framework in comparison to straight DirectX is one such situation.  Getting a pure 2D display to work in is another bit that XNA can make difficult.  Most 2D games in XNA typically are 2D via 3D.

I mean, it's not like UR is in some way heavy on CPU or GPU. I'm running it on netbook, in 1920x1080. It's pretty much all I can ever ask for.

Of course.  But there are more technical requirements that XNA can put forth.  Such as requiring a graphics card with a particular version of shader support, etc.  Not too much of a an issue for your average Windows gamer, but might be annoying some.  There's a lot of graphics card features that UnderRail won't use, but XNA will turn on or demand by default.

About compability - using direct DirectX would probably allow you to run UR on Linux, under Wine. And... as far as I know, that's about it?

XNA is basically a framework of frontend libraries that encapsulates a bunch of DirectX API calls.  Not having to involve the XNA libraries would give Linux and Wine a fair chance.  You could then make a leaned down display initialization that'd keep the display feature requirements low and optimize the render.  Also later portability would be much easier, since DirectX API structure is similar (not the same by any stretch) to OpenGL's API structure.  Also, it'd help break out of any proprietary formats that XNA likes.

But... I'm not on the front lines of development for this project.  Just more or less curious as to why one developers does it one way or does it another, since I thinking of endeavoring on a project in the future.