Chapter 2. Drawing 2D Sprites

Some newer independent games make use of only audio or other feedback systems to convey the game state to he player; however, most games still use the tried and true method of showing the game to the user through a graphical representation. To really get started, we need to be able to put something onto the screen for the player. In this chapter we will do just that. We'll look at how to load the images from files on disk, and then display them on the screen, in 2D through a 3D API.

One of the best things you can do to make your life easier when writing code is rely on the efforts of others before you. Many thousands of people have written 2D rendering algorithms before this book was even written, and their learnings and efforts should not be wasted by scrapping all of that information and starting from scratch. Microsoft provides an open source library that tries to collect this information and give you a head start in developing your game. ...