XBLIG prices can be changed every 7 days starting May 23


Big news from Microsoft today, as they announced via the App Hub, the official MS forums where XBLIG developers Read more

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 Review: Rolling in the Right Direction


A new Sonic game always brings a level of uncertainty with it. Sega’s mascot has seen more highs and Read more

One Million Fans Take a Stroll with The Walking Dead Episode 1


Comic books, television, and now video games: is there any form of media that The Walking Dead can't conquer? Read more

Kittens Spit Fire When Serious Sam Double D XXL Assaults XBLA This Fall


Take a long, hard look at you what is on your screen right now. Yes, that’s a kitten, spitting Read more

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Philippe da Silva Spills the Beans on Ace on Steroids and the IndieFreaks XNA framework

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Dave Voyles in Interviews, News, PC News, XBLIG News | 1 Comment

This week I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Paris, France native Philippe Da Silva of IndieFreaks.com. We spoke about his upcoming game Ace on Steroids, in addition to the IndieFreaks Game Framework, which is freely available to all XNA developers.

Ace on Steroids: What’s in the name?

Well, nothing really special. I was working on an Asteroids Redux with some enhanced 3D visuals, some good rock music and realistic 3D physics, so I was looking for a name that would remind somehow the original Atari classics name while showing this was a slightly improved version.

You made the decision to freely share all of your source code with individuals who purchase your game. What sparked this decision? Can you think of any other titles which adhere to this model?

It all came down while I was working on my generic game framework for XNA and realized that I couldn’t spend as much time as I’d like to write documentation, tutorials, and samples so other developers could easily get started with it. Read more

Microsoft Outlines Its Unified Metro Vision Sans XNA

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, PC, PC News, XBLA, XBLA News, xblig, XBLIG News | 4 Comments

On Thursday morning at GDC, Chase Boyd, who works in the Windows Graphics Division at Microsoft, presented a speech titled “Creating a Great Metro Style Game,” where he divulged details about this new process. Throughout the talk, XNA was nowhere to be found, but I questioned him about transferring a current XNA project over to Metro, and he assured me that Microsoft “is currently working on the white paper to streamline that process,” and that the updates in Visual Studio 2011 will further simplify that process.

“When we implemented this new sample framework and set up the samples, we modeled it as close as we could with XNA. In fact, with a lot of the new syntax improvements which have been incorporated in Visual Studio [2011], the code can be pretty easily pasted over. We’ve also structured those example code bases to work the way an XNA person would expect the way they would want.” While they haven’t published any papers yet detailing precisely how to port a game over, he assured me that it is currently in the works.

One concept new to many developers coming from XNA, however, is the fact that “Windows 8 is a touch-first device,” meaning that it is largely geared toward inputs from a user’s fingers, as opposed to an external piece of hardware such as a controller. Fortunately, the APIs for a number of joysticks and controllers are included, so there is no need to fret just yet.

Read more

Registration for Dream.Build.Play 2012 is Now Open, WP7 Included Too!

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, PC News, xblig, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

Registration for Microsoft’s Dream.Build.Play Challenge is now open for all developers through May 15. The annual competition looks to highlight the best games developed using Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio, and this year the competition has expanded to include WP7 games. It’s free to enter, so you really don’t have any excuse to not sign up. Hey, it might even light a fire beneath you to get that project you’ve been sitting on completed and out the door. You’ll have from May 15 – June 12 to actually submit your game for consideration, so you’ve got a bit more time.

How will they be judging your masterpiece? Easy.

  • Fun factor (40%) – A key indicator will be the desire to keep playing.
  • Innovation (30%) – How creative and technically unique is your game?
  • Production quality (30%) – Make your game world as polished as possible!

The top 20 teams will be announced in August and have the opportunity to win $112,500 in cash, including $40,000 for the Xbox 360 Grand Prize winner and $20,000 for the WP7 winner. They will receive the chance at a WP7 or XBLA publishing deal, and also win a Windows Phone. This year, the allotted file size has increased to 500MB for Xbox games, so this should allow for some interesting entries as well.

Don’t have the tools to build your own game? It’s cool, they’ve provided them for you. The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 includes XNA Game Studio 4.0, along with the Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) emulator. From there you’ll be able to deploy your titles to both on Windows Phone 7, XBLIG, and the PC.

Take a gander at their official site to learn more, or visit the Facebook page to stay up to date with everyday occurrences.

Source: Microsoft 

Guncraft Kickstarter Campaign Will Immortalize You with Voxels

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, PC, PC News, xblig, XBLIG News | 5 Comments


The sentiment among many people who follow Xbox Live Indie Games is that they’ve grown tired with the over saturation of Minecraft-type games. Fortunately, Exato Games has listened to your complaints and put their own twist on the genre in the form of Guncraft. Self described as a “first person shooter utilizing voxel (cube-based) based levels and graphics as well as construction elements,” Guncraft is looking to blend “the best features of a voxel, Minecraft-style engine,” with the “a mainstream first person shooter experience.”

You can voice your opinion on the matter with the power of your dollar, as they’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign of their own. For the right price, you can live forever in digital form as one of the game’s characters! The project currently has 67 backers for a total of $2,053 of its $16,000 goal with 27 days to go.

One of the main selling points is the fact that their engine is not only fully destructible, but allows for complete environment construction as well by utilizing the numerous blocks included with the game. Not to be outdone by Call of Duty, kill-streak rewards are included too, including those which  ”allow you to build turrets, SAM sites, tanks, helicopters, drones, and much, much more.”

So when can you expect to get your hands on this voxel spin of the fps genre? Exato Games is expecting a launch no later than June for the PC, but a beta is expected to begin in March. Although it is made in XNA, the XBLIG version is still up in the air at the moment, but we can keep our fingers crossed.

Source: Kickstarter

OnekSoft’s XNA Basic Starter Kit Provides Free Tools For Indie Developers

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, XBLIG News | 2 Comments


OnekSoft Labs, previously responsible for the XBLIG Sales Data Analyzer that makes tracking your sales figures and comparing them with other developers more of a fun event rather than a full time job, is at it again. This time, it’s made the experience for novice XNA developers even easier with its XNA Basic Starter Kit.

What is it exactly? “A mashup of many basic features of an Xbox Live Indie Game,” the developer states. The kit includes a number of items designed to make your first time experience smooth, including Easy Storage, safe-area display for debugging, and basic sprite animations.

What are your thoughts? Do tools and utilities like this make your experience any easier or make you want to finally hop into game development?

Source: OnekSoft Labs 

Contest: Win Two XNA Development Books

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Dave Voyles in Contests, xblig | 3 Comments

So you’ve started using XNA to put together a game of your own with hopes of launching it on the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7, but you’ve come across some hangups along the way. Good thing you were taught the value of reading a a young age, because Packt Publishing has offered us two books from their catalog to get you through this mess. XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example: Beginner’s Guide – Visual Basic Edition  and Windows Phone 7 XNA Cookbook are up for grab by not one, but TWO  lucky winners!

There are two ways to win, and you are encouraged to enter both ways! Two random winners will be picked Wednesday, Feb 29 at 6 PM EST.

1)  Visit the book pages to have a look at the features, then return to the contest page and post one feature about the books you like the most.

2) Follow @armlessoctopus on Twitter and tweet the following:

RT+follow & visit @armlessoctopus for a chance to win two not one, but two #XNA cookbooks. #xblig http://bit.ly/xZHBA2

Can’t wait for the contest to end? Buy the Windows Phone 7 version now, or pick up the XNA 4.0 Game Dev book.

*The books come in Ebook form.

Xbox Live Indie Games’ File Sizes Increase, Minimum Prices Decrease

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, XBLIG News | 4 Comments

It’s a Festivus miracle! Xbox Live Indie Game developers and fans have received a nice bit of news from Microsoft, which has announced higher maximum game sizes, a new size limit for 80 point games, and more titles per developer. The news was posted on the Official XNA Game Studio Team Blog (thanks, Nick Gravelyn!). Previously, XBLIG titles were limited to a 150 MB cap for total file size – this limit has now been vastly increased to 500 MB. Additionally, any title that was over 50 MB was required to charge a price of 240 ($3) or 400 ($5) MS points. That threshold has been increased to 150 MB, allowing for larger, cheaper games.

The final change of more titles per developer may not be the highest priority on most of our lists, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Previously there was an allowance of 10 titles per developer account (up from an original 8),  but this has no grown to twice the size, and devs can now create up to 20 games.

What are your thoughts on the changes? Do you believe it will revitalize the XBLIG marketplace? How about those increased file size allowances - they sure could pave the way for more aesthetically pleasing titles on XBLIG, in addition to larger games and environments. Finally, what are your thoughts on the price change? Will we see a sudden flood of games at the 80 MS point price range, which has proven itself to be the sweet spot for most developers? Leave your thoughts below.

Source: XNA Game Studio Team Blog

Via: @NickGravelyn

Dream.Build.Play 2012 Challenge Includes Windows Phone Games

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Mike Wall in News, PC News, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

So apparently those Angry Birds aren’t just a passing fad. We heard they made like at least $100 last year, so it’s fitting that Microsoft has decided to embrace mobile gaming and is expanding its annual Dream.Build.Play competition to include Windows Phone games.

Details around the Dream.Build.Play 2012 Challenge are a little sparse, but we do know that XNA developers will be competing for more than $100,000 in cash prizes and that the finalists will once again be on display at PAX Prime in Seattle. It’s not yet clear if mobile developers will be competing for the grand prize against Xbox/PC developers, or if they have their own tiers for prizes, but we’ve contacted Microsoft for more details. We’ve confirmed that the Windows Phone games will be in a separate category.

You can visit the official webpage to sign up to receive more details when they’re available, or you can just keep your eyes glued to Armless Octopus and that way you’ll get your info and we won’t become destitute. No pressure or anything.

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