Been procrastinating a bit, finally went through chapter one.
Ended up with a little game, the chapter went through it step by step, explained the whole thing very well. The number of lines to write the game is surprisingly small. So far so good.

Starting on XNA

I have recently ordered a book "XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide"

For a while I wanted to start on game development, but approached it by trying things in java and C++. However this time my approach will be to take advice from a book dedicated to game development, and apply my knowledge of programming to what I learn.

The book seems to be mostly a 2D book. For my first project of a real game, that is good. It will let me work out on 'game' aspects, and leave the worrying of how to do 3D game for the next phase.

Ultimately I'd like to finish a 2D game based on this book, and follow it up by learning 3D game-programming techniques.