XNA Game Development for Windows Phone

Question

I am trying to get involved in XNA game development (most likely for Windows Phone). I have a decent amount of experience programming and have made quite a few small XNA games for practice.

At this point, before I take on a larger project, I would like to make sure I get the fundamental design and flow concepts down. What are the best resources/books you have used to learn good practices and concepts for game design?

Or, if you have worked on projects in the past or are currently working on projects, what are some of the things you wished you had known or done differently?

Answer 1

I found Learning XNA to be a great book. I've got 3.0, but 4.0 is now available which also has a section on Windows Phone 7. I can't imagine they're much different since it's the same author.

As obvious as it sounds, I find that people often overlook or underestimate the usefulness of the Content Catalog on AppHub. Not only from a technical POV, but they have Starter Kits which are useful to go through when learning how to structure the games.

For general game design, I've heard good things about The Art of Game Design. There may be helpful threads over at GameDev StackExchange.

There are some good resources on MSDN and some sessions at this year's MIX.