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Xbox LIVE Indie Games - The January 2012 Thread where we await 12/21/12

wwm0nkey

Member
So Exatogames, the guys who made that Progenitor game and entered it in the Summer Uprising but went back to the drawing board with it announced their new game. GunCraft. They admit the style is inspired by Minecraft, the game allows for destruction AND building it also makes a few fun plays on Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Trailer (Call of Duty like)
Logo:
jZQarWiCZjbhM.png


They have a few screen shots on the main page too
 

Gaspode_T

Member
The CheapAssGamer forums are totally outdoing NeoGAF with their new XBLIG thread...

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312899

17 pages in only a few days...wow

Maybe people on NeoGAF literally don't own Xbox 360, who knows! I felt the same way when I was a Dreamcast fan and people talked about nothing but Metal Gear Solid 2 here :p I'm just kidding, but literally there is some sort of huge effect on just taking people by the shoulders, shaking them and saying "No dude, look at it again! XBLIG doesn't suck!"
 
Yeah I saw that. The CAG forum had Armless Octopus linked to in the OP, and we've been generating a ton of traffic from there since. I go on occasionally, bu Mike (our EIC) is a regular there. I enjoy both forums, but still gravitate towards GAF because there are only a handful of names to have to remember in the XBLIG threads :p
 

OnPoint

Member
Was only a matter of time before something like Guncraft showed up. Bets on it selling amazingly?

Yeah I saw that. The CAG forum had Armless Octopus linked to in the OP, and we've been generating a ton of traffic from there since. I go on occasionally, bu Mike (our EIC) is a regular there. I enjoy both forums, but still gravitate towards GAF because there are only a handful of names to have to remember in the XBLIG threads :p

Perhaps I should get on that board too and try to get my site into the mix haha It hasn't been our best couple of months traffic wise.
 
It may no sell amazingly, but it is at least offering something a bit more diverse than another "craft" game. I'm not aware of the differences between the craft titles at the moment, but a shooter aspect could be interesting.
 

Phreaker

Member
It may no sell amazingly, but it is at least offering something a bit more diverse than another "craft" game. I'm not aware of the differences between the craft titles at the moment, but a shooter aspect could be interesting.

Fortresscraft Chapter 1 - Just create mode, but you can create your own blocks. You can only have one world per memory device.

Total Miner: Forge - Create as well as Dig Deep Mode. Dig Deep Mode is kind of like Minecraft's single player but with aspects of Miner Dig Deep (blueprints, shops). The world for Dig Deep is well, deep, over 2,000 blocks.

Castleminer Z: Survival Horror-ish shooting game (with Zombies, skeletons and dragons) - you have to craft your weapons, ammo and shelters to survive.

I don't have Castleminer, but my understanding is it's just a create mode, similar to Minecraft's and Fortresscraft's.

I really enjoy Total Miner: Forge. Castleminer Z seems kind of fun too, but I've only recently started playing it.
 

OnPoint

Member
Castleminer is definitely just a creative mode. Castleminer Z is better, but it easily could have just included Castleminer and been sold as a total package. Both are kind of lacking without eachother, though Z is the superior product.
 

Phreaker

Member
Castleminer is definitely just a creative mode. Castleminer Z is better, but it easily could have just included Castleminer and been sold as a total package. Both are kind of lacking without eachother, though Z is the superior product.

I didn't need another "create" mode, so I'm not missing it in Castleminer Z, but I see your point. If someone wants both a game mode and a create mode I think Total Miner: Forge is the only one available. Even it right now only has 1 mob in the game (Dig Deep) mode. TM:F also seems to be the least janky of the three, Fortresscraft having the most jank, IMHO. For some reason it seems every multiplayer game I go into with TM:F or C:Z is full of 10 year olds though.

The CheapAssGamer forums are totally outdoing NeoGAF with their new XBLIG thread...

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312899

17 pages in only a few days...wow

17 pages at 10 posts per page. We have 50 per page. ;)
 
I wanted to put together a trailer for my new game last night but I ran out of time. I'm hoping I can get something and announce something probably late Wednesday night. And likely go into Peer Review right after that. So if all goes as planned, new Fun Infused title next week.
 
Evil Quest is so much Chrystalis.

-Controls for movement/attacking
-The way the character's feet look when they walk
-Some enemies are invulnerable to certain weapons
-The screens that sometimes separate buildings/overworlds
-The overworld

Shame it doesn't have the excellent music.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
I wanted to put together a trailer for my new game last night but I ran out of time. I'm hoping I can get something and announce something probably late Wednesday night. And likely go into Peer Review right after that. So if all goes as planned, new Fun Infused title next week.

Yeaaayuuhhh

I played Eyestorm last night. It's a helicopter game where you main objective seems to be picking up passengers/packages and dropping them off at alternate locations. It's simple at heart, but the helicopter physics are spot on and it has some other entertaining features, like a hurricane which is constantly traversing the map. I'd suggest giving it a try, but it's one of the more "expensive" titles on XBLIG at $3.

If any of you are going to GDC I'd love to catch up with you as well. Yesterday they announced that my Summer Uprising speech will be part of the Business and Marketing track.
 

Ventron

Member
I wanted to put together a trailer for my new game last night but I ran out of time. I'm hoping I can get something and announce something probably late Wednesday night. And likely go into Peer Review right after that. So if all goes as planned, new Fun Infused title next week.

Trivia or Die 2? ;)
 

OnPoint

Member
Evil Quest is so much Chrystalis.

-Controls for movement/attacking
-The way the character's feet look when they walk
-Some enemies are invulnerable to certain weapons
-The screens that sometimes separate buildings/overworlds
-The overworld

Shame it doesn't have the excellent music.

I feel like about half of the music is acceptable-to-good. The other tunes... not so much. I'm liking this game a lot, actually.

Better looking than Ace of Spades too lol

Its a PC and XBLIG project too, will probably get it depending on how the shooting mechanics work because that is the one biggest flaw in most XBLIG FPS games.

Yeah, Ace of Spades "stylized" visuals don't really do it many favors. I know I'll be curious enough to pick Guncraft up when it comes out.
 
Whatever it is can you put my likeness in your next game? Naked pictures available in pm....

I'm thinking about having something like that for big donations on a Kickstart project actually. My "Link to the Past"-like title is going to need a TON of artwork. I didn't make enough from Volchaos to fund it as I had hoped.
 
Would you be able to post a change or upgrade list?

I'll have more details in my eventual press release, but the just of it...

The XBLIG gets the new graphics the iOS and WP7 versions got.

1 brand new wave (it's like the Bees iOS wave).

9 modified waves... they vary in how different they are. In playing through the game, I felt the early waves in the first Hypership weren't as strong as the later ones. Thus Wave 1 is pretty much all new, wave two has several significant changes, wave 9 is pretty close to the original. Ultimately I wanted to make the BEST version of these levels so I didn't change what wasn't broken. Some rarely occurring elements now occur more often.. space bees are more frequent as are the direction change circle enemies (henceforth known as Bastards).

I tweaked the ship speed some (initial level speed and also how fast you can move around the level). I believe it will make the game more accessible.

One new in game song (it's the one you hear in the video) that cycles in while playing. The more I hear it, the more I really dig the new song.

While maybe a downgrade, I killed online high scores (not so much killed as didn't upgrade... Hypership was XNA 3.5, we can only submit XNA 4 games now and updating it would have been significant). Online scores don't work on XBLIG. I'm not putting the effort in developing and testing them when they will likely be unusable in a month. I actually note this in game too... it's my private little soap box. I'll never do online scores again until I have either official leader boards or access to do my own client / server system (which is what I did for the WP7 version).

I think the game plays a little more smoothly than the original Hypership, especially with multiple players.

The in-game UI looks a TON better. It looks almost professional.

Added a bunch of new load screen text. Loading should be faster too (though I haven't compared it).

Particle effects are bigger and more obvious than before.

Ok... so maybe my presser won't be that detailed :)

I still have time for some quick changes so send your ideas my way. I play to put this into peer review by Sunday night at the latest. It's mostly done now, I just want to test some more with 4 players and do a couple more level tweaks (mainly powerup placement).
 

Gaspode_T

Member
Hypership Still Out of Control (Xbox-Only Sexy Edition)...like Sexy Parodius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_Parodius Ahhh, but I guess a problem is having to pay for art changes..you need to find some starving artists that will work for free

...but seriously, having more zany things fly by was my first thought but it didn't seem to help Andromium very much...
 
I've been hesitant to pander to the "hot chicks" crowd thus far with my games. I guess if I wanted to make money, maybe I should.

I'm not terribly worried about how sales on HSSOOC work out... it's a month worth of work on game changes and the new artwork was already paid for with the iOS version. I'm hoping that it will sell as good as the first Hypership (it's better in most every way) but who knows these days, the market isn't the same as it once was.
 
I'm thinking about having something like that for big donations on a Kickstart project actually. My "Link to the Past"-like title is going to need a TON of artwork. I didn't make enough from Volchaos to fund it as I had hoped.
I would be very interested in hearing more info about this LttP style title.
 

Dave Long

Banned
So I figured out my problem with seeing Indie games. Turns out that if you have the Parental Controls on in the new dashboard, you can't even SEE the titles available save the 57 or so that were visible. There's something they've done that prevents you from accessing the games at all, even ones I already owned were not visible for purchase/download in that list I was getting.

Last night, I turned off Parental Controls altogether and suddenly all of the more than 2000 games were visible again.

Microsoft borked something with that update.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
Fall of Gods dropped from 240 to 80 and I just picked it up, nice music in the title screen, some of the menus are kind of strange (menus! so important to get right! yes presentation means a lot...) but other than that the game does have an Alundra vibe that sends the Working Designs fanboy inside me into convulsions

Bought Miasma as well for a buck, although I'm having a hard time just clearing the first battle I figure the game has enough into it that it's already worth a dollar to see if I can make it farther than that.

I'm loving these $1 games...if you use Bing Rewards it's ridiculously easy to get 100 points here and there because they changed it to only offer 100 points at a time instead of 400. So you can take Microsoft's money and give it to indies if you try hard enough.

Almost don't want games like Magic Racing, Orbitron and Escape Goat to drop to 80, because they really shouldn't need to...maybe they should wait and see if they can convince MS to change the 90 day price change rule for XBLIG games...if the 90 days was made 7 or 10 or something they could do temp price drop.
 
I would be very interested in hearing more info about this LttP style title.

It'll play similar to LttP. Up to date graphics (no retro for me for a change), a compelling storyline, and a LOT of humor.

I've got the outline of a basic and what I feel is interesting storyline that I've been tweaking for the past year or so. I actually can write decently well despite the lack of much story in most of my games. One thing I've always disliked about most games (besides Lunar 1 and 2 really) are that people are so stiff and boring to talk to. People in my game are going to say crazy stuff. You'll want to talk to everyone :)

Development on the game is VERY early. And it won't be my primary focus until I finish up a few other releases and get money gathered up for artwork. I want to get 10+ minutes worth of quality gameplay setup and then I plan to do a Kickstart campaign to try and fund the rest (I had hoped Volchaos would have made me enough that I wouldn't need to do this but that's not the case).

PC is the target from the get go and I'll be trying hard to get onto Steam. I'm going to put a lot of time and energy into this game. I fully expect a year or two of development time on it. My goal isn't just to make a LttP-like, it's to make a game better than LttP. Considering that's one of the best games EVER, it's a very very very tall task. No cutting corners on this game, this is going to be my masterpiece.
 
It'll play similar to LttP. Up to date graphics (no retro for me for a change), a compelling storyline, and a LOT of humor.

I've got the outline of a basic and what I feel is interesting storyline that I've been tweaking for the past year or so. I actually can write decently well despite the lack of much story in most of my games. One thing I've always disliked about most games (besides Lunar 1 and 2 really) are that people are so stiff and boring to talk to. People in my game are going to say crazy stuff. You'll want to talk to everyone :)

Development on the game is VERY early. And it won't be my primary focus until I finish up a few other releases and get money gathered up for artwork. I want to get 10+ minutes worth of quality gameplay setup and then I plan to do a Kickstart campaign to try and fund the rest (I had hoped Volchaos would have made me enough that I wouldn't need to do this but that's not the case).

PC is the target from the get go and I'll be trying hard to get onto Steam. I'm going to put a lot of time and energy into this game. I fully expect a year or two of development time on it. My goal isn't just to make a LttP-like, it's to make a game better than LttP. Considering that's one of the best games EVER, it's a very very very tall task. No cutting corners on this game, this is going to be my masterpiece.
Thanks for that update. LttP is my favorite Zelda of all times. I'm already excited about what it could become and I have faith that with your release history, it will happen.

On art, I already know from working on our game that the top down view is going to be a killer to animate. You have to draw and animate at least 3 sides of almost every character. It's a lot of work.

I can't wait to see the progress and play the final game someday.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
Dead Pixels was updated with some sort of new modes,apparently one of my faves Pixel Blocked is getting an overhaul update soon too
 

qupe1975

Neo Member
I have just played the trial of Octopede and I want to know how come games are using text that I can not read? It's so bleeding small I have to go close to the screen.

Put's me right off. Also it said diagonal movement was possible, I couldn't do that.


Plugemons is a nice looking game but by christ can it frustrate. Got my 80pts though.
 

Phreaker

Member
I have just played the trial of Octopede and I want to know how come games are using text that I can not read? It's so bleeding small I have to go close to the screen.

Funny, I was playing Castle Miner Z today and was thinking why is the text in many XBLIG so gigantic (and rather ugly)? I'll have to check out Octopede to compare.

Checked out Octopede. Yep, the text is small and I don't think the font or color do it any favors for readability. I had a hell of a time controlling the game. I'd be going down, try to cut left or right and go up and would end up just on top of myself over and over. I too could not move diagonally, at least in the demo. Also, when there were a tons of enemies on screen the "flashing" of them while moving was annoying, to bad the movement wasn't smooth on your snake and the enemies.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
I finally tried Elfsquad7 demo that has been sitting there for a long time...it is not bad but lacks a little punch...maybe the level should have not been as wide and penalty for dropping presents bigger...or like being able to juggle presents for multiplier. Either way I lost on second level and quit to menu to buy and to my surprise there was no buy option from the menu...my first thought was 'well duh that is why this game has low conversion rate' no nag screen on exit either
 
so i just realized that you can only search for an indie game by title on the new dashboard by using the bing search. that's... disappointing.

i'd really like to see them include headers inside of the game marketplace for xbla and xblig titles. set the display up exactly the way the demo's page is set-up with blocks for new releases, most popular, and search by title.

you can't even search JUST xbla games by title. they're lumped in with games on demand. very strange...
 

Gaspode_T

Member
The lack of genre/letter sorting etc has been reported to the marketplace team by about a gazillion different devs/people etc, I hope they do something about it but as you can imagine there are only so many things they can fix with the dash via server side fixes and client side fixes would take a software update to fix. If they don't fix it in a few months I would personally be pretty pissed off myself so I have my fingers crossed.

I saw toythatkills playing Magic Racing GP 2 the other day and I see a very positive review of it at xblig.co : http://xblig.co/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=190

It has 16 player online races? I wonder if there are stats like Take Arms has. I have it downloaded and ready to try later tonight.

In other review land indiegamerchick slammed the new nice looking 2D game Plugemons http://indiegamerchick.com/2012/01/15/plugemons-part-1/

Details on Dead Pixels update:
http://csr-studios.com/2012/01/14/dead-pixels-update-is-out-now/
Last stand mode added.
The Solution mode added.
Some weapons have had stat changes.
Hardest difficulty added.
Melee now does more damage as it’s leveled up.
You now have the ability to move the hud closer to the screen edges in the options.
Some bug fixes here, and there.
The intermission is now turned on by default.

Finally I just saw this comment on CAG forum that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy:

there's nothing a simple little indie title that I can clear in an hour or two to remind me of why I fell in love with gaming in the first place.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
Yeah this Magic Racing GP 2 game is not like Micro Machines or normal mini car games at all, it's more like "overhead Forza" if that makes any sense. The trial mode track is set to 70% speed for some reason, my second race I put it up to 100% and the sense of speed is close to those Micro Machine style games but the handling is more like a real racing game. It takes some time to get used to but could be fun. I agree with other impressions that the menus detract from how awesome the main game looks, other feedback for dev would be that adding even generic rock track would be better than no music (although I guess the people who like car sounds might prefer no music)...also HUD elements could be clearer like an accelerometer that shows when you are pressing RT down or not...pretty standard to have that for a racing game.

Game is pretty awesome anyway, I think the amount of content etc is easily as high as most of the racing games I've played on iOS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cBu9aE3ur0

Edit: Oh I notice there is a speed meter in the bottom right, I guess I'm used to seeing something like a dial
 

Phreaker

Member
Did anyone try Siege King: The Siege of Aurum? It's a gauntlet-type game, but I really can't figure it out. I just die over and over. It seems you cannot attack while defending and when I attack I get mobbed and killed, even while using the cool special and hard attacks.
 

hitoshi

Member
New player in the Minecraft-clone category

Lootfest: Live Design

Enjoy a block building fest with your friends. Make stunning structures in no time with the game's easy to use creation tools. Fight off zombie hoards with your trusty sword. Race your friends using the RC cars. You can do anything you want, as long as it's blocky! *Can be played on a Arcade memory stick. *XBOX Live Gold membership is required for a full experience.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Lootfest-Live-Design/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550a51

screen4.jpg


screen2.jpg


screen1.jpg
 

Gaspode_T

Member
LootFest Live being done by a single person is pretty darn impressive, I have been wanting to hear impressions but I assume you have to buy to play online...
 

Gaspode_T

Member
Snops Attack impressive looking 2D shmup in Shoot 1up vein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VVm-VXHIF4

Flying scary cats...

Interview http://www.pinkbullets.co.uk/blogs/?p=342#!prettyPhoto

Excerpt:

Can you explain a bit more in depth the detail that has gone in to the game, specifically with the coding, was this an engine you built from scratch or did you modify some existing code?

I wanted to do an old-school 2D SHMUP, so I hit the books (and the net). When I started learning XNA/C# for the purpose of making this game, I poured over many (many) tutorials and examples of other games – even games not in this genre. The original code started out as horrid combination of these examples in order to get a working demonstration. The vast majority of the code is built up of custom features I didn’t learn from tutorials, and had to learn it the hard way (trial/error). Since then, the code has been deleted, added, morphed, deleted again untold times, so I consider it built from scratch by me (which is the end result of this long ordeal!).

Fortunately, one thing I’ve learned about programming is to not reinvent the wheel, so I am really grateful for the combined knowledge of the internet and especially to Kenta Cho of ABA Games for making available his bullet library code. I had to do some serious modifications to get it to work with my code, that was fun. In the end, I’m utilizing it for some bullets, while using my own bullet code for the rest.

Now, for the standard programmer quote: When I’m finished and the game is released, I will go back and re-write everything properly based on everything I’ve learned… (right!)
 
I remember seeing Plugemon from DBP, but...I don't recall it being that violent. I think it just feels tired and overdone. The game itself has a unique concept that I think could be improved upon with time, but this game is no puzzler when you start. It plays like a platformer moreso than a puzzler. My biggest annoyance seems to be the "die and return to level start" element, particularly when there are many things that can kill you (and only one hit, mind).

NewsCopter...why?
 

Gaspode_T

Member
That looks pretty good. Almost Xona Games good. Does it have any interesting mechanics to seperate it from other similar games?

Well he states influences in the interview...looks similar to 'stop shooting to collect gold' mechanic...the cats...they scare me
 

Phreaker

Member
The problem I have with those is that they are all clones of Minecraft's Creative Mode. Like they don't realise Minecraft is so much more or that a similar game could do alot of different things. Only the Terraria guys understood that it seems.

Those? Do you mean all of the voxel-based XBLIGs? Total Miner is more than crafting, it has a game. So does Castleminer Z. Both are obviously inspired by Minecraft. Total Miner also lists Miner Dig Deep as an inspiration.
 

Ranger X

Member
Those? Do you mean all of the voxel-based XBLIGs? Total Miner is more than crafting, it has a game. So does Castleminer Z. Both are obviously inspired by Minecraft. Total Miner also lists Miner Dig Deep as an inspiration.

I got Total Miner. It seems pretty good. But hey, most clones aren't much besides Minecraft.
 

Phreaker

Member
I got Total Miner. It seems pretty good. But hey, most clones aren't much besides Minecraft.

Castleminer Z is quite different in that it is a survival horror-style game where you craft your ammo and weapons in addition to your shelter. Still, for $3 who am I to complain. I've gotten a lot of playtime out of both already and they are updated often. I'll probably get that Guncraft game too when it comes out. :) Shoot, I'll probably double-dip on Minecraft once it's out on 360 if any of my XBL friends get it.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
I agree with this article that indiegamerchick.com reviewer is one of the best things to happen to XBLIG...growth comes with pain and suffering and her whip is poisoned with tough love.

I also agree with article that any XBLIG dev that manages to clear the peer review process and release something should be proud of themselves...it's not an easy thing to actually take something to the finish line no matter if it's a pong clone or what.

http://indiegamerchick.com/2012/01/...e-is-the-spawn-of-satan-by-george-clingerman/

Her thrashing of games is sometimes on the harsh side, but sometimes those of us who've been posting in these threads for months are too soft on these games.

-----

Minecraft topic:

Minecraft runs like utter poo on either of my laptops and although I heard survival mode/achievements/etc have been added to it I haven't had the urge to go back into it after I logged into some professional game dev managed servers and then wanted to go cry in a corner for lack of better word...it takes some of the fun out of lego building when you see people building giant replicas of Star Wars vehicles with complex mods/tools.

Total Miner and CastleMiner get a lot of respect from me for adding solid gameplay, FortressCraft too apparently has some unique things to it but I heard the dev is mostly focused on some sort of OnLive version of it.

As far as I can tell LootFest is going for more like the 3D Dot Heroes vibe than it is Minecraft though.
 

qupe1975

Neo Member
I think Indiegamerchick is not bad, I don't always agree with her views, but then again she'd probably be the same with me. People have different tastes.

Personally I don't think Plugemons is a bad game, the controls need tightening. It's a platformer with puzzle elements. We have some very good platformers on the service.

As for Newscopter, it's shite.

Eyestorm is a great looking helicopter game but unfortunately by the time the demo ends you may have only just learnt the controls. I may pick it up when I add more points to my account.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Any particular reason why these are not available in Finland? (Does it have something to do with rating games (indies are not rated IIRC)?)
Really would have liked to try out Orbitron :/
 
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