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The XNA Indie Games Official Thread

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Hey, thanks guys ( and gals ). :D

Gowans007 said:
...well done Eurogamer for giving a XNA game some exposure and a real review/write up from one of the big sites.
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I will tell you all this. They didn't ask for anything from me. Zero, zilch, nada...not even money to purchase the game.

That is very commendable in my eyes, especially considering some of the stuff we read about publishers affecting reviews.
 
SLAM is worth a look. Arkanoid-type game, except the arenas are circular with the bat travelling around the circumference.
Really professional looking as well.
 
PSGames said:
Wow. They wouldn't actually be selling roms though so I don't see why not...
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The way the XNA framework is set up community games can not access memory outside of their sandbox. Unless there is a major hack this software wouldn't work unless roms were imbedded in the distributable.

It probably wouldn't get through peer review anyways

On another note, they fixed the bug where updated games show up on the new release list.

Updated games no longer show up on the new release list.

Also, you can subscribe to Community Game RSS feeds here:

http://public.xna.com/Feeds/AllFeeds.ashx
 
barkers crest said:
On another note, they fixed the bug where updated games show up on the new release list.

Updated games no longer show up on the new release list.
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How can you tell when a game is updated now?
 
barkers crest said:
On another note, they fixed the bug where updated games show up on the new release list.

Updated games no longer show up on the new release list.
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i hope they get it to the point where you are prompted to download an update (or even overwrite with the new version) when you boot up. its confusing the way it is now.
 
barkers crest said:
The answer lies somewhere between "Tiger Woods PGA Tour XX" was already taken and "I don't know".

I tried to get Phil Mickelson to be the face of the game but he never returned my calls...that and his head was too big to photoshop onto the box art.

On a less serious note, it got the name pretty early on in development right on up to release. No one said a thing about it so it stuck. My schedule was so tight I was too busy worrying about shader code and what not so I guess you could say I just never paid any attention to it.

What would you have named it?
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Off the top of my head? Ultra, super, turbo, dynamite, blazing, dynamic, wild swing, or action, followed by "golf".

(I actually like the sound of "Wild Swing Golf") :D

Is the game really easy?

But it's too late now and in the end I think you did the right thing concentrating on the actual game and getting it out. I read an article about how names, almost never have any effect on the outcome of the product, unless it's somehow offensive of course.

I hate the name now (and I may be the only one), but once Easy Golf 2 and Easy Golf 3 come out, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to imagine it by any other name.

And if I upset you in any way, I apologise. I can imagine working really hard on your baby and some fool comes in and is negative towards it or an aspect of it. I've always been brutally honest though. Maybe I just talk too much.

The game looks great and is tight so that's all that really matters.
 
Rlan said:
So Barker, how long until you guys find out how much you're selling?
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The official word is sometime in March, before April 1st. Should be interesting to say the least.

Dr Zhivago said:
How can you tell when a game is updated now?
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Hopefully soon there will be an auto update feature added to community games. Chatter on the creator forums from MS employees give the impression that it isn't something easy to do so who knows if it will ever get done.

Your best bet is to go to the games official forums:

http://forums.xbox.com/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=36

Most developers post in their game forums when they have updates. I highly recommend everyone participate in the forums as Community Games provide a unique opportunity for every day gamers to actively participate in game development.

40% of what Easy Golf is today is the result of people on forums telling me what they wanted in the game.

Dark Octave said:
Off the top of my head? Ultra, super, turbo, dynamite, blazing, dynamic, wild swing, or action, followed by "golf".

(I actually like the sound of "Wild Swing Golf")

Is the game really easy?

But it's too late now and in the end I think you did the right thing concentrating on the actual game and getting it out. I read an article about how names, almost never have any effect on the outcome of the product, unless it's somehow offensive of course.

I hate the name now (and I may be the only one), but once Easy Golf 2 and Easy Golf 3 come out, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to imagine it by any other name.

And if I upset you in any way, I apologise. I can imagine working really hard on your baby and some fool comes in and is negative towards it or an aspect of it. I've always been brutally honest though. Maybe I just talk too much.

The game looks great and is tight so that's all that really matters.
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No need to apologize Octave. All is good here. I asked for your ideas on names in a constructive manner...and I'm glad you replied because I too think Wild Swing Golf would have been an awesome name.

Perhaps in my next game I'll get everyone involved in the naming process. We'll see as I already have a name in mind, and it doesn't have the word Golf in it. :D
 
barkers crest said:
The official word is sometime in March, before April 1st. Should be interesting to say the least.
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hahaha, yeah.

You could have 1000 units, 10000 units, 50000 units, or more. You don't even know the order of magnitude of how much or how little money you're going to make.
 
I'm ashamed to admit I've yet to buy any community games so I was wondering if I could get a quick list of must haves. I'm not interested in puzzle games and don't want to spend over 400 pts on a single game. A decent platformer recommendation would be appreciated as well.

Thanks
 
barkers crest said:
Most developers post in their game forums when they have updates. I highly recommend everyone participate in the forums as Community Games provide a unique opportunity for every day gamers to actively participate in game development.

40% of what Easy Golf is today is the result of people on forums telling me what they wanted in the game.
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Unfortunate there is no dash board menu option to see who is updating what. It takes away a bit of the market pressure to update and reward devs for improving a game that often happens on the iphone.
 
A little disappointing to see the loss of updated games on the new games page... but I know some devs were taking the piss a bit with their updates.

A real shame they didn't think of using the same system xbla uses for updates.
 
Stoney Mason said:
Unfortunate there is no dash board menu option to see who is updating what. It takes away a bit of the market pressure to update and reward devs for improving a game that often happens on the iphone.
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There has been a request for another category called "Updated Games" to go along with "New Arrivals" and "Contest Finalist". Hopefully they do something soon to help notify gamers of updates.

That along with a rating system would help out things a lot.
 
Psychotext said:
A little disappointing to see the loss of updated games on the new games page... but I know some devs were taking the piss a bit with their updates.

A real shame they didn't think of using the same system xbla uses for updates.
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Also the fact that Community games don't show up in your games list on the front page.

As if Community games don't really belong or something.
 
Phil Smail said:
I'll break this down:

DLC - We'd love to get this in too! Unfortunately it's non-trivial to implement on our end and there are are a whole bunch of unknowns (how do we peer review DLC?). This won't be available for Fall

Allowing a Creator to update a game - Thins is currently on the docket and should be allowable

Informing a user of an update - Think of this like today's popup when you're told "This game has an update". Unfortunately this is non-trivial as well and won't be in for Fall
So users will only know about updates if you guys tell them to redownload them
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This was posted in the creator forums on 08-22-2008 by Phil Smail, the Program Manager of the XNA Community Team.
 
Spider_Jerusalem said:
I thought homebrew wasn't possibile on Xbox 360?
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He means this is a developer just having fun programming in the closed system. It isn't meant for distribution to the public. Somebody could make a great Pac Man or Mario game in XNA for example just to test out something or just to do it but it isn't meant to go out to the mass market.
 
Stumpokapow said:
hahaha, yeah.

You could have 1000 units, 10000 units, 50000 units, or more. You don't even know the order of magnitude of how much or how little money you're going to make.
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Tell me about it. This kind of bothers me.

Snake360 was in the "top 10" lists twice. But then again, so was Swords & Monsters...how many people actually bought that? And didn't Fireplace top the list? Those things say that we can't possibly have sold very much.

HOWEVER, on the flip side of the coin we have the supposed "tens of thousands" figure that was announced (I don't recall where) for Community Games as a whole, and I heard that Biology Battle's leaderboard had about 4,000 people on it...yet it never made the top 10 sellers list. So those things say that people are buying.

Sort of unrelated: anyone here see this? It's a post from an iPhone game developer, and after reading it, I don't think I'm going to touch iPhone development...

btw, barkers crest, congrats on the review and positive press =)
 
yyr said:
And didn't Fireplace top the list? Those things say that we can't possibly have sold very much.
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You might be surprised how many units something like fireplace could sell. People are very strange animals. :lol
 
yyr said:
Sort of unrelated: anyone here see this? It's a post from an iPhone game developer, and after reading it, I don't think I'm going to touch iPhone development...

btw, barkers crest, congrats on the review and positive press =)
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Personally I moved my ideas on to the iPhone because Microsoft have yet to show me any sales values, numbers or anything, and it's march.

I'm reading the article you linked too, he says the game cost 32k to make, half of that stuff was un required unless he wanted to license something, i dunno but a match 3 paint game doesn't seem to need 32k spent on it even if it's in free time, and personally I have never heard of the app before until now.

Looks like he had the short straw, a lot of app's go unnoticed and there are a ton of match 3, tower defence and games of those natures on the store so if you don't hold out against the rest it's bye bye.

I still don't understand the 32k part.

To add, advertising is a major important thing for the app store right now due to how rubbish the interface is, if no one discovers your game to push it into the top 100 app's, you won't get anywhere.
 
Dark Octave said:
Also the fact that Community games don't show up in your games list on the front page.

As if Community games don't really belong or something.
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They don't? I start comm games from the recently played list all the time.

Also, I bought Snake360 Lite. Stuff like this is the kind of marketplace artifact I expect to see more of until MS opens up or radically changes the pricing structure to allow devs to change prices at will.
 
Thanks for your support, Zachack! =)

By the way, the capability for developers to change the price of their XNA game was recently added. However, it comes with two restrictions:

1) If a developer changes their price, they can't change it again for 90 days.
2) If a developer wants to charge 200 MS Points (the lowest possible price) for their game, the game must not be over 50 MB in size. This restriction has always been in place, and it still applies. So if the game is over 50 MB, the price cannot be reduced below 400.

Speevy, throughout the thread, several people have agreed on a number of Community Games that are quite good. I admit that I haven't played a vast number of them, but I think that CarneyVale and Biology Battle are excellent in both gameplay and presentation. I hear nothing but good things about Easy Golf and Miner Dig Deep although I haven't yet tried them. I enjoyed Galax-e-mail a lot, and Smashell was definitely fun (and looks great). Classicard is very polished and the games are fun...a very good value.

Try Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp as far as a platformer...I think you'll like it if you like retro-styled games. And of course I can't help but plug my own game, Snake360. Not everyone will like it, and the graphics are certainly nothing to brag about, but if you enjoy arcade-style games and/or snake games, I think you'll get a lot out of it. There's a ton of modes, levels and replay value.

One of these days I think I'm just going to play CG all day, one after another...
 
Speevy said:
So are there any community games that belong among the list of the best XBLA games?
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I can vouch for CarneyVale. It is just as polished as any game out there. It only costs $5 but I feel it is worth more than that.
 
yyr said:
Sort of unrelated: anyone here see this? It's a post from an iPhone game developer, and after reading it, I don't think I'm going to touch iPhone development...

btw, barkers crest, congrats on the review and positive press =)
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The problem is the guy put out a game in the absolutely deepest and most crowded part of the iphone genre. There are literally dozens of really good match 3 games on the iphone and more enter the market every day. The smart devs imo at this point are reaching into the market with software with either a unique hook or under served portions of the market. You really have to have a slightly different strategy when you enter the app store to stand out from the pack.

It will be interesting to see XNA sales once they inevitably start to leak.
 
Speevy said:
So are there any community games that belong among the list of the best XBLA games?
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Ignoring price: Carnyvale, Blow, Weapons of Choice, Zoomaroom, Snake360/lite, Easy Golf, Miner Dig Deep, Biology Battle, Johnny Platform.

After that it gets hazier because there are a lot of similar puzzle games or games that I think wouldn't have as much universal appeal. I probably forgot a few. Also, while I am explicitly ignoring price, that is the reason I haven't bought Biology Battle, even though I can recognize the general quality.

There's also a really good looking breakout/arkanoid clone that just popped up where you play in a circle, but it didn't really grab me at the $10 asking price (+I'm already playing the german breakout game I got during the Steam super-sale). VERY good looking, though.
 
So, I'm working with someone in porting one of my games to the XNA network. It's called ShellBlast HD. Some of the things in this image are temporary:

HDimage_003.png


Anyways, if you're interested you can check out a PC demo here:

http://www.vertigogaming.net/shellblast.php

Please enjoy. :D
 
Here are my latest thoughts from the latest batch of CGs that I've tried. Remember, I've pretty much played 90% of them, so if I don't talk about it, I didn't think it was worth mentioning.

Slam - (800pts) - This is an impressive CG title. The presentation is very good and the gfx and sound are very good for a CG game. It's basically a 360 degree 3D breakout game. You are in a circular playfield. Your "ship" can rotate around the edge of the circle 360 degrees. There are blocks to break in the middle in various patterns. You have a ball that you have to hit against the bricks (or other obstacles) to clear the stage. You also have a magnetism power to "suck" the ball in if you need to correct the angle, but this is limited. Missing the ball takes away some health, but does not "reset" anything. There are other power-ups you can catch as well. The biggest change is that the right stick causes your "paddle" to angle in the direction that you push it. It really works quite well and I was having fun with it. Too bad about that 800 msp price-tag. That kept me from considering a purchase, but I DO recommend trying the demo if you would like a tempest/breakout/pinball hybrid with good visuals.

Mithra: The Calling - Ep. 1 - Ch. 1 - (400 Pts) - Here is another impressive CG game. This is a 3D third-person adventure game where you are an alien tasked with escaping your captors and saving your world. This may be one of the most graphically impressive 3D games on the CG. The gameplay in the demo (which is unfortunately very short) is very much akin to a point-n-click style sierra game (Except there's no pointing). What I mean by that is that you walk around, look at objects in your surroundings, and then pick up those objects and use them to solve puzzles in the environment to progress. There is plenty of voice acting, although it is quite bad. The controls are serviceable but could use a little work to be perfectly smooth. The price is right but the problem is how much are you getting for your 400 pts? The title worryingly says Ep. 1, Ch. 1. The game is only 62MB, so I am instantly concerned about how much gameplay is here considering the visuals and voice acting included. It seems it must be quite short, and a look at other reviews seems to back this up. The developers point the finger at MS' pricing policy for 50+MB games, and they have a point, but in reality the question should also be "if you were going over 50MB anyway, why not just beef up the size and amount of gameplay on offer to match the price?" Regardless, the game is definitely worth a demo-try, but I did not purchase due to length concerns.

ZP2K9 - 200 Pts - I've talked about this before but I just want to make sure that anyone who enjoys a good online deathmatch game does not overlook this. The price is right and the quick playing 2D side-scrolling deathmatches are quite fun. It offers Live support but of course it's not active in the demo. I haven't bought it because I'm just not that big of a multiplayer person, but the demo is certainly worth a shot.
 
yyr said:
2) If a developer wants to charge 200 MS Points (the lowest possible price) for their game, the game must not be over 50 MB in size. This restriction has always been in place, and it still applies. So if the game is over 50 MB, the price cannot be reduced below 400.
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Wow that sucks.

I know for me that 200 ms points is the magic number for impulse purchase for CG.


Also - can anyone figure out what the fuck is going on with ZenHack? Maybe I'm just stupid, or haven't been exposed to enough of whatever the type of game that it is is trying to emulate, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on here.

HexyTrench is pretty cool, btw.
 
Hunahan said:
Also - can anyone figure out what the fuck is going on with ZenHack? Maybe I'm just stupid, or haven't been exposed to enough of whatever the type of game that it is is trying to emulate, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on here.
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Nope. I read the description for it and it talked about RPG elements and stuff. Certainly the character has a lot of stats but her feet seem to be glued to the ground. In fact there appears to be only one thing to do in the demo (some kind of hacking exercise) and I couldn't figure out how that worked either. It didn't look to be fun, even if I could decipher what I was supposed to be doing. Terrible. I hope they submitted the wrong thing by mistake.
 
yyr said:
btw, barkers crest, congrats on the review and positive press =)
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Thanks yyr. It is pretty crazy how some of the creators jumped on you for releasing a lite version over in the creators forums. I shelved the idea of a lite version for the time being but I might just do it now just to spite them. :lol
 
Hunahan said:
Also - can anyone figure out what the fuck is going on with ZenHack?
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The developer really wanted people to figure it out on their own. Problem is, if you're not familiar with the casino game Craps--which, admittedly, can be kind of complex--I don't know how anyone is supposed to do that! But yeah, the hacking minigame is based almost directly off of Craps. That information alone should be enough to get many people started (why it wasn't in the game to begin with, I have no idea).

barkers crest said:
I shelved the idea of a lite version for the time being but I might just do it now just to spite them.
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By all means, go do it. You obviously worked hard on Easy Golf. Why not increase the audience? It's like a bit more return on your investment, for minimal effort. As long as people see that the game is good (which they will), the low price point vastly increases the chance of a sale.
 
yyr said:
The developer really wanted people to figure it out on their own. Problem is, if you're not familiar with the casino game Craps--which, admittedly, can be kind of complex--I don't know how anyone is supposed to do that! But yeah, the hacking minigame is based almost directly off of Craps. That information alone should be enough to get many people started (why it wasn't in the game to begin with, I have no idea).
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Ah I see. Yeah, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was based off of something, but having absolutely zero understanding of the rules of craps, I couldn't make that connection.

A fatal flaw in methodology, imo. Oh well.
 
Solar is really cool.

Definitely one of my favorite XNA games so far.

I still can't get the purple star challenge, though. Do you just keep growing a life-sustaining planet? I had one going for ten minutes or so without a transformation.

The black hole is awesome :lol.....
 
sullytao said:
Melody seems pretty cool. Any impressions from full game?
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I like the general tone and style, but the gameplay itself seemed really boring and repetitive, while the "tragedy" aspect of the story started to feel a bit overbearing by the time she was both dying in a hospital and had an abusive father as well. I suppose the two could end up intertwined, but it just started to feel like it was trying a bit too hard to be sobering to me.....

I do have to admit I'm a bit curious if there is anything else that happens as the game progresses, however...
 
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