Beginning Game Programming with C#

I earned 100% for this course. I did all optional labs(except the last optional project) I had not much prior programming experience (only in Python from LTP:Fundamentals course). I didn't use the textbook. So I can say - even if you are fully begginer, you can do it. If you will read any C# book - it will help you to begin. I'm not native English speaker, I learnt this course in parallel with another course.
There were a lot of stuck situations. Be ready to spend 5 ours for a lab (it is good result) but 12 hours for lab is possible for some students. So be ready to spend 20 hours a week.
I'm a structural thinker. For me it was a little hard to work without given simple structures of projects on this course.
Fun. Lectures are with real good jokes. Some people say, jokes are annoying, but not for me. In was easy to motivate myself to watch these fun videos.
Fun from doing. Yes, it exists. It is real cool if you can take your favorite gamepad(there only Xbox is supported, but a spent 40 minutes to use another library to do working with any), and set up and process it to move things in the screen and to receive vibration feedback. XNA include excellent program for sound, easy to use and you can play with it.
Dr.T provides materials not only for Windows users (XNA) but also for those who works on another platforms (Monogame).
Feedback of lecturer on forums exist. He answer questions. He responses for problems (like add zoom to video, provide Monogame instructions... )
So I can say, after going through this course you will be able to create your own simple games (and do them more difficult if you want) using C#.
You need much time. Read books (I didn't for this course). Do.

not 5 stars:
- not so much structure (of lectures, projects) as I need !
- a lot of waste time( I think it could be improved to work more effective without wasting time for stuck situations and trying to understand what will at the end of the lab)

I will recommend this course for those, who is not afraid of hardworking with not perfect efficiency but wants to have C# game programming experience. I will not recommend for those, who can give up.
I hope Dr.T will improve this course. I hope a lot of people will have fun and interesting experience from it as I did.

The people who could complete the course like it. Those who couldn't dislike it.
This IS a course for beginners but that doesn't mean that it's easy and that you can learn without efforts.
Obviously, Dr. T's teaching methods and humor don'twork with everyone. It's one of those "you love it" or "you hate it" thing. The best way to get an opinion is to try it. It's free!
You can definitely succeed without buying the book although it's pretty cheap for a CS book.

Here's, in my opinion, what you need to do in order to succeed in this course:
- watch the videos and try the lecture examples yourself (watching is not enough)
- do the optional labs before the required assignments (they help a lot)
- be curious, try stuff. Programming mistakes won't break your computer.
- don't stay stuck on a problem for too long (say 3-4 hours at most). Ask questions on the forums and take a break.
- be open-minded, have fun!

It will be hard and will probably require a lot of time (learning programming takes time) but it can be worth it.

I would have liked to have been able to give this course '0' stars.

First of all, as another reviewer suggests, this was completely unsuitable for beginners and had me confused and feeling out-of-my -depth from the beginning. I felt stupid and that isn't a great feeeling.

The course suggests that you could get by with 5 hours a week of work; that is completely ridiculous - I couldn't cope with 3 times that.

The book thing didn't bother me - it was a few pounds as an ebook download but if you add the time needed to get up to speed with the book to the time dealing with lectures, it just didn't work for me.

Lecture quality was so-so but ultimately, it was the complexity of the challenge that did for me.

Not recommended in its current format.

Starting this class, I had experience with other programming languages, but was new to C#. I was interested mainly for the game programming side of things.

It's important to know going into this that this is an actual university course that Dr. T teaches in person that's been compressed down to 8 weeks. There is no hand-holding. You will be expected to be able to teach yourself to a certain extent. The textbook is dirt cheap and the in-lecture examples and the labs are invaluable. I'd suggest someone new to programming tackle those first before each weekly assignment. The forums are also very helpful.

I enjoyed the way each new game development concept was introduced. It helps to develop good programming habits; starting from something simple, adding in new functionality one thing at a time and testing thoroughly before adding something else.
Dr T was a pleasure to learn from, I loved his geeky sense of humour and I appreciated how active he was ( and still is ) on the forums.