GLOBAL – This time next year, you could be a millionaire game developer – with the right idea and a little help from a man called Aaron Reed.

The software engineer –  from at Neumont University near Salt Lake City, Utah –
has written a book on developing games for Windows Phones and he reckons the whole process is pretty easy.

To build games for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone, you need to learn Microsoft’s XNA 4.0 development framework. And this book claims you can achieve that—even if you have no experience of developing games. There’s also plenty of help from Microsoft at the Xbox developer site (above).

Says Aaron: “For the first time in history, developers can write games for PC, a next generation console like the Xbox 360 and a next generation smartphone like Windows Phone all with the same code base.

“The gaming industry is booming and continues to grow. With hardware advances being made daily and the push toward mobile devices becoming more powerful and interactive, the industry is as exciting as ever.”

Beginners will find several XNA key concepts hard to grasp but the book, called  Learning XNA 4.0 (O’Reilly Media), walks you through each step.

Each chapter takes the form of a lesson, complete with diagrams, examples and exercises. There are also tests to check that you get each stage of the program.

You can learn development from 2D animation to 3D cameras and effects, have a look at high-level shader language (HLSL) and build three games using 2D, 3D, and multiplayer techniques.

OK, it might not make you a millionaire, but it could help you get a new job.