Built a game for wp7 which will run on wp8 and w8? [closed]

Question

I am planing to build a game for windows phone 7.5 and was wondering what technologies I used so that when windows phone 8 is release I can easily convert my game to windows phone 8 and windows 8 UI game. Can I build a c++ native app?

Answer 1

C++ is not available for Windows Phone 7.5. You are limited to managed .Net (C# VB.Net). For games you can use pure Silverlight or XNA. If you want this game to easily go to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 you can use either platform. If using Silverlight, stick to the basic Silverlight controls, do not use any Toolkit controls. If you already know Silverlight this is an excelent choice.

If you would like to learn something new, I would recommend using XNA. XNA is not available for direct Windows [Phone] 8 apps, but there are tools that make it so your app will compile and work on Windows [Phone] 8. Here is an article from Channel9 that talks about those tools.

I can also say that a friend of mine got a complicated XNA game running on Windows 8 in less than two hours.

Answer 2

I quote you can write an app using XNA that will run on Windows Phone 8 because Windows Phone 7.X apps will be able to run on Windows Phone 8. But you cannot write a Windows Phone 8-specific app using XNA from here . All the best :)

Answer 3

You can code your Windows Phone 7 game only in XNA. However, if you want to port it to Windows Phone 8 and to Windows 8 you could use MonoGame . Note that this will also enable you to port your game to a variety of platforms. Since there is no SDK yet, MonoGame does not support Windows Phone 8 but it does support Windows 8.

It is also possible to use XNA and Unity which will give you even more portability and a very nice tool chain. But this is purely experimental for now.

If you want to target WP7, go for XNA and port it later. XNA games will run on WP8, but you cannot target WP8 which means that some WP8 specific features, like in app purchasing, will not be available to you.