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Xbox LIVE Indie Games - The November 2010 Thread

F

floatstarpx

Member
SUPER JANITOROID
xboxboxart.jpg

'ello - we managed to get SUPER JANITOROID out.. I hope some of you enjoy it!
It's only 80 points - it's kinda a spin off from Excruciating Guitar Voyage, but it's more of an action-platformer (not a puzzle/adventure game like EGV was)... it's got bosses, traps, etc..etc... hardcore mode for replayability, too.
I think it's good fun, and it was nice to be able to take one of the characters from EGV in a completely different gameplay direction.
INFO PAGE

Here's a code for whoever manages to read this thread first:
MV2HG-Y2P3X-XVTXQ-3VJ34-YFRCW

screen4.jpg
 
S

Santiako

Member
floatstarpx said:
SUPER JANITOROID
xboxboxart.jpg

'ello - we managed to get SUPER JANITOROID out.. I hope some of you enjoy it!
It's only 80 points - it's kinda a spin off from Excruciating Guitar Voyage, but it's more of an action-platformer (not a puzzle/adventure game like EGV was)... it's got bosses, traps, etc..etc... hardcore mode for replayability, too.
I think it's good fun, and it was nice to be able to take one of the characters from EGV in a completely different gameplay direction.
INFO PAGE

Here's a code for whoever manages to read this thread first:
MV2HG-Y2P3X-XVTXQ-3VJ34-YFRCW

screen4.jpg
Click to expand...

Thank you, I grabbed it! Will post impressions in a while.
 
S

Santiako

Member
floatstarpx said:
SUPER JANITOROID
xboxboxart.jpg


INFO PAGE
Click to expand...

Ok, played and beaten. (Only on normal, there is also hardcore mode which i have yet to play).

+Super weird monsters and enemies, loved them.
+Awesome bosses.
+Great presentation.
-A bit short.
-Some framerate issues.

I Reccomend it to everyone that likes action-platformers, especially at 80MSP.

Good job.
 
T

toythatkills

Member
I've been away from this thread for ages. The internet at home has been down all week and I've been a bit worried I wouldn't be able to play half the games this month and make a thread. Luckily, today it returned. Less luckily, it turns out that everything has been crap. What the hell?

I wanted The Deep Cave to be good because it's got awesome music, it looks great, and it's quite charming. Unfortunately, it doesn't control very nicely. Pi, your guy, is too slippery and doesn't jump quick enough so there's constant falling off the edge of platforms. Annoying. It's got quite a nice Super Meat Boy vibe to it, but as I say, the controls aren't nearly refined enough for the game to work.

Dogfight SKETCH! is multiplayer only, it seems. Couldn't try it.

Neutrino Wars is the same.

Monsters Elect should tell you how to fucking play. You're faced with 20 enemies in level one that are quicker than you, and you can't attack. This is just complete shit. There's a tutorial but the controls it teaches you apparently don't transfer into the campaign where the attack button does NOTHING. Also, I'm really sick of selecting "exit game" in the pause menu and then actually exiting the game. Which sounds stupid, but I expect to be sent back to the title screen.

Space Police on SuperHighway 9 is from Haiku Interactive who I've liked in the past, with Avaglide. This is lame though. It's a top down driving game where you go north trying to ram enemies, it feels like it's going to go on forever as nothing does your health any damage at all, and then in seconds it's gone and you lose. It's just not fun to play at all, it's so slow.

Table Soccer X looks like Table Soccer, plays like shit. It captures none of the speed or fun of actual table soccer, and is a total mess of rubbish physics and AI that just sits there doing nothing unless the ball is in a certain place. This added to the fact that the controls (which appear to be good) are almost unusable does not a good game make.

Jetpack Man. JetPAC-MAN. Get it? It's PAC-MAN but rubbish. The exit screen promises fish themed bible quotes. I'm not even making that up.

A Game you can't BEAT!! Oh, look, another rubbish clone of The Impossible Game. It's well over a year later and still nothing has bettered it. Give up trying.

Valet Parking Inc. is pathetic. You have to park cars that are practically impossible to control into some random place on a car lot, then drive them to the exit at the right time. I can't even do justice to how bad this game looks and how much it plays even worse than that.

I didn't like Super Janitoroid much (sorry.) The camera is really twitchy and it makes it really awkward to play. The collision detection feels entirely off as well, enemies hit me when they're not touching me, and I fell into some lava even though I landed on a thing. Also can't stand how locked doors look the same as unlocked doors, that's just irritating. Game made me smile, but that's not really enough.

Sketchy Tower Defense is Tower Defense with a doodle theme. It's plain and unexciting.

Okay, I saw the title. Spring Break in Zombie USA. I instantly thought "this is going to be shit." Well, I'm some kind of prophet. It's the worst kind of twin stick. It's slow, there are invisible walls, there's Comic Sans, it's ugly, it's not responsive, it's not fun, it's not worth anyone's time.

Avatar Snowball Fight. When I saw that I thought "I bet this is by the guys that did Avatar Laser Tag and that Halloween game that was exactly the same, and I bet this is exactly the same again just with more white." I was wrong, but it might as well have been. Another avatar FPS with little to recommend it. There's no single player game, it's just one level of multiplayer FPS. Just play Call of Duty instead, everyone else is.

Blokz Rokz is like Breakout, except you're in the middle of the screen rotating in a circle, and instead of taking into account the laws of physics, the ball just bounces around at random making it impossible to judge shots. This is not a good idea for a game.




And that leaves Outbreak on Uranus, with an exclusive scene from the upcoming movie about Silver Dollar Games.

INT. BOARDROOM - DAY.

Four men and a woman sit around a table. There's a flipchart in the corner with a picture of a man farting on it, in place of a cliché green gas cloud, there are dollar signs.

DAVE: Okay, guys, you know Uranus, right?
STELLA: What, the planet?
JEFF: Seventh away from the Sun, yeah, we know it, where is this going? It's been two days since we released our last QTE game and I'm not handling the withdrawal well. Last night I, I, I nearly loaded Shenmue.
DAVE: Calm down, Jeff. We've got another one releasing tomorrow. This one's about sniping hot girls while they're farting. It's got million seller written all over it. Literally, because once the player buys it it just flashes up "million seller" and it's not even a game. But Uranus, right. Don't you think that sounds like "YOUR ANUS?"
STELLA: Oh shit.
JIM: HOLY FUCK.

JEFF falls from his chair, such is the power of his laughter.

DAVE: I'm pretty sure that literally nobody in the history of the world has noticed this, and therefore the idea could be worth millions.
STELLA: Should we trademark it?
DAVE: No, I've got a better idea. Let's release a crap shooting game about it that's ugly as fuck and controls like shit. A game that's fucking terrible, even for us. Someone get Jeff some water.
 
D

Dark Octave

Banned
Santiako said:
Ok, played and beaten. (Only on normal, there is also hardcore mode which i have yet to play).

+Super weird monsters and enemies, loved them.
+Awesome bosses.
+Great presentation.
-A bit short.
-Some framerate issues.

I Reccomend it to everyone that likes action-platformers, especially at 80MSP.

Good job.
Click to expand...
About how long did it take you to finish?
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Huh.. all these developers are planning to release a bunch of good games in the first week of December. It looks like another bunch of devs have been releasing nothing but bad games for the last week of November.
 
T

toythatkills

Member
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Huh.. all these developers are planning to release a bunch of good games in the first week of December. It looks like another bunch of devs have been releasing nothing but bad games for the last week of November.
Click to expand...
Good God it's true :(

A Snowman's Survival is The Helicopter Game. I do like the Christmas theme and there are some pretty effects and music, it really puts you in the mood. The Christmas countdown at the top is a nice touch, too. Unfortunately, where The Helicopter Game gets the physics perfect, here the snowman you control is far, far too heavy, and it breaks the game.

Arrow Storm II is all kinds of shit. It's almost a horizontal shmup, I guess. Except your hitbox is about eight times bigger than your sprite is and you have no idea where it is. This is enough to destroy the game, but then it's slow and dull looking alongside it. There's potential in its upgrade system but there is no way you'll be playing it long enough to get anything out of it. No way at all.

Avatar Quizcall - Xmas Edition takes the number of Quizcall games on the marketplace up to 79. It's as needless as the rest. It's slow, it's boring, the questions aren't fun, the sound is poor, the controls don't always respond. And it still annoys me that the answers aren't laid out in the same way the face buttons are, which just slows you down for no need.
 
T

toythatkills

Member
Not entirely sure yet. It's literally so new that it's not on the marketplace yet! It's just two new levels and tunes, it looks like, which is ace for 80pts. Probably the extra content that's in the iPhone game, but I haven't got that so can't confirm.

EDIT: It appeared while I was typing :lol

Trying now. Bought without trialling.

EDIT 2: Yeah, it's ace of course. There are two new levels. The first isn't as good, I didn't really get the music as much, like, it didn't seem quite as linked to the gameplay as the other one. The second one is great, though and you'd be able to play it with your eyes closed, almost. Absolutely no reason not to get this if you liked the first game.
 
T

the_dannobot

Member
omg Rainbow Ball Into Adventure is in playtest, and it's BRILLIANT. It's like Katamari Damacy or We Love Katamari, and like perfectly nails the crazy vibe of those games. I even had to double check that it wasnt actually made by that katamari weirdo Takahashi, it's so spot on.

Notice I didn't say it was like Me & My Katamari or Beautiful Katamari, which were shitty katamari clones. Anyway, keep an eye out for this one because it's awesome
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
With Crossfire 2 on track to submit this Friday as part of the Indie Game Uprising (first games in the Uprising will be out tomorrow), I’m now starting to look ahead to Inferno 2 and beyond. Inferno continues to be a consistent seller and has the highest ratings (average and in the US) of all my games, so Inferno 2 has a lot to live up to. As I’ve started to plan Inferno 2, the limited timeframe I’ve given myself to complete it in has become something of a hindrance.

So I’m going to delay Inferno 2 until next year, probably February, so that I can make it the game I really want it to be. It will be the first game I sell for $5, and likely the first I release without Radiangames in the name. While I’ve been more seriously considering moving to other platforms (and porting Crossfire 1/2 as my first multi-platform game), I also want to put something on XBLIG that’s really special and will either serve as a lasting legacy for Radiangames or be the start of a new series of even better games. There are some other subtle reasons I want to make Inferno 2 my first “premium” XBLIG release, but mostly it just feels like the right thing to do for the game.

Rest assured, Crossfire 2 will be awesome and only $1, and I might still release a different arcade-style game before Christmas to fill that Radiangames void and make the most of what I’ve learned from my other games.
Click to expand...

http://radiangames.com/?p=440
 
T

toythatkills

Member
In Werewolf Hallow you run around a small circular area with about 5m of visibility and kill randomly spawned werewolves. I am the worst FPS player in the world, but even I lasted ages and had to stop due to boredom long before I was even close to dead. There's far too little happening. It looks alright, but it's hardly a game in the end.

A peculiar beast is AXBY. I was expecting some QTE thing. Not so. You're a ship and you have to go around a screen bursting coloured orbs by changing the colour of your ship with AXBY. Collect enough, and you can exit to the next stage. I think it would work better if there was some way that you could realistically lose the game. There's a timer, but you've got ages. There are enemies but they don't damage you, and nor does flying into a blue orb with a red ship, for example. It feels like it should though. So it's another game that doesn't really feel like there's a game in there, it's just something to experience, and it's not really exciting enough to be much of that.

Toy Invasion has a turret on the left and one on the right, and you control them with an analogue stick each. You have to shoot things that drop from the top. You very quickly notice that just shooting across each other covers the entire screen and makes it near impossible to lose.
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
Rlan said:
Lots of great games in the trailer, alas it also shows one of Xbox Live Indies main weakness -- the space shooter, because there are so fucking many of them, even if they all excel in something unique.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's kinda funny, you have Hypership and Asteroids, then you have Break Limit which looks like both of them combined. In a video where they mention fighting against clones.
 
T

toythatkills

Member
HadesGigas said:
Yeah it's kinda funny, you have Hypership and Asteroids, then you have Break Limit which looks like both of them combined. In a video where they mention fighting against clones.
Click to expand...
Break Limit is openly inspired by Hypership.

Kafel said:
I still don't get why an update for Hypership is in this operation but oh well.
Click to expand...
Because

a) Hypership is fucking awesome and
b) It's adding reverse waves and new music, which doubles the content of the game.
 
D

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Hey, would anybody be able to point me to some good books/tutorials on creating a branching dialog system for a game? I'm trying to overlay it with the GameStateManagement example, and having some trouble. XNA development has been pretty frustrating so far for me :p
 
Trumpets

Trumpets

Member
Sound to me like you just need a load of nested IF statements:

if (NPC_scared == true)
{
if (NPC_gullability > 5)
{
Dialog = "Look over there, a three-headed monkey!"
}
else
{
Dialog = "Give me the key card or I'll shoot your stupid face off."
}
}

etc...

you can easily build up very complex dialog trees like this.
 
N

nli10

Member
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=24659864&postcount=245

Pharoah said:
Hey guys,

Long time no talk.
Sorry for having been silent so long.

Well, we've been quite busy not being dead, lately :D
But we won a badge in the process. It's a rare one.

I'll make a short post soon on where we are heading, but wanted to take the opportunity to give you guys as promised a little feedback on our Arkedo Series.

Was it worth do do them?
Are we happy with them?

Hopefully it will give other game devs (and gamers) a better understanding of it.

So, lets start with the basic numbers.

Costs
Well, that was quite allright, thanks to XNA being an awesome platform. Each Series would take approximately 1 month, for a team of 2 (great) guys (or girl, for 02-SWAP!). Well, a little more: let's say 6 weeks :) So depending on where you are located, cost of labor and massages, etc. it can vary quite a lot, but let's say that here in France, where massages are cheap, it was something around 10 K€ in wages and taxes per Arkedo Series. A little more for 03-PIXEL!, but you get the idea.

Revenue
Here are the raw numbers.

01-JUMP, (launched 09/09, take that, Dreamcast 2!)
* Trials: 42 974
* Purchases: 4 990
* Purchase/Trial Ratio: 11.61 %

02-SWAP, (launched 10/09)
* Trials: 20 278
* Purchases: 4 369
* Purchase/Trial Ratio: 21.55 %

03-PIXEL, (launched 11/09)
* Trials: 62 636
* Purchases: 11 432
* Purchase/Trial Ratio: 18.25 %

04-SLASH (nah, kidding ^^).

How much money did you guys make?
The Arkedo Series are priced 240 MS moints, which are approx $3, same in Euros (haha).
Microsoft takes around 30% off the 240 MS Points for their own massages, which makes sense. 2 Eurodollars left, yay!

Wait.

If you are a non-US studio and your country has a tax treaty with the US, there is an additional minigame for you if you want: try and not pay taxes twice (once in the US, once in your own country).

If you don't do this, another 30% is deducted from your royalties, so you have got a pretty good incentive to use the proposed workaround. It looks quite horrible (I... have to fill all these forms, call the IRS and enroll on something and maybe be wrong and then get US Tax Ninja fly to my home?) but in the end it's a simple form, and the IRS is pretty friendly after all, at least when you call from abroad with a horrible French accent and you have blatantly no idea what you are talking about.

Arkedo made between 1.5 and 2€ per Arkedo Series.
Approx 20.000 Arkedo Series were sold on the Indie Games.

So we made between 30K€ and 40K€.
That is approx. 40K$ to 50K$.
...

Profit!

Next post : how much we really made.
Click to expand...


Thought it was worth highlighting here - prob best to respond in the original thread.


So much goodness coming tomorrow and onwards - and some official MS twitter feeds have already pimped the trailer!
 
T

toythatkills

Member
Yeah, saw AceyBongos mention it.

Last games of the month, and a pretty pointless post this because Decay - Part 3 is just Decay and you're either following the series at this point or you're not, and Epic Dungeon is amazing, not a roguelike, and I'm going to write a lot more about it for a December thread that'll be up in half an hour or so, so check that instead for all your ED needs! But do buy it.

NEW THREAD LINK INCOMING

Go post there now :D
 
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