A word about Xbox Live Community Games/Indie Games

I haven’t done much with Xbox Community Games in awhile (this will change soon; I just need a break from Super Secret XNA Project 2.0), but that hasn’t stopped me from reading some fun articles lambasting the service for promising wealth, fame, and Princess-Bride-caliber true love, only to turn around and steal candy from orphans.

The main criticisms, as far as I can tell are:

• Microsoft hasn’t done enough to market XBLCG
• Microsoft has not made Community Games visible enough in the dash
• Stupid apps are taking all of the sales

So put your money where your mouth is.  If XBLCG is such a tragic platform, why not release on Windows?

Here’s why:

How Not to Promote ZP2K9

This is too funny…

So, ZP2K9 is on the Community Games marketplace.  It’s a side scrolling multiplayer online shooter.  It’s 200 points.  It’s fun.  I like it.  Some random people like it.  Some people like it so much, they saw fit to promote it!  Harmless, no?

Well, one of my XBL buddies thought he’d spread the cheer to the folks at some Soldat forum, using a highly inflammatory topic name of “Soldat vs ZP2K9” and naively postulating that ZP2K9 was better!  I guess the Soldat folks are not keen on fighting words!

Here are some gems:

• “Your walking all the time = Ur opponents will face you from the same hight = no aim skills required = Soldat is better.”
• “Whatever it is, that game can’t be compared to Soldat – Soldat is way superior.”
• “Not even close to soldat LOL”
• “seems like they are desperate to get soldat on them, even if its just a crappy copy of it”
• “Just judging from the video I don’t think there’s any contest-soldat blows it out of the water in my opinion.”
• “anyone realized that the thing when he goes up is actually pretty same as the prince of perisa climbing?”

Heh.

(Ahem… for the record, I played Soldat like once years ago and wasn’t blown away.  I loved Abuse though!  And RuneQuake!  Yeah, I’m a dork!  So what!?)

(Also, this is the video that is used to gauge how terrible ZP2K9 is; compared to Soldat, can we say they both look a little bit like crap?)

Anyway, I’ve learned two things from this:

1. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
2. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Is there hope?  Or is this game doomed because it is not like a game that I never intended it to be like?

Well, it’s not all bad!  XNA Roundup liked it a lot, particularly the flamethrower, Chameleon suit sword trick (I might wanna cut this one), and controls.   Video review after the break:

I wrote a book (and some dude hates it)!

I get lots and lots of emails asking how I made The Dishwasher, which is cool, so I wrote a book (with the help of John Sedlak) on pretty much everything I did when making The Dishwasher so that others could benefit from the experience.  The book is pretty straightforward and hopefully a fun read.  It’s available for $26 on Amazon.com.

Some dude already hates it:

I have been developing small footprint games for 9 years and coding for another 11. I wanted a book to get me started on XNA and since I already had the basics I was looking for a practical approach which allowed me to hit the ground running.

Unfortunately this book isn’t it. It provides little substance and leaves a lot of the important details out. I wonder if they just thought of making a quick buck after winning a small gaming award.

Well, you can’t please them all!  My book sets out to explain how to make The Dishwasher, no more, no less.  I probably should have put up a disclaimer somewhere!  Critics…

(For the record, about a year ago APress approached me after I won a small gaming award and asked if I’d like to write a book detailing how I made the game that won the small gaming award, so here we are.)

Anyway, if you want to know how to make The Dishwasher (and use that as a springboard for jumping into all things gaming), buy my book!  If you want a more general overview of all things XNA, don’t buy my book!

On those crazy XBLA price tags…

So, here we are: Braid’s on XBLA for 1200 points, and now Castle Crashers has hit XBLA for another 1200 points.  They’re two excellent games (I unsurprisingly gravitated toward the latter, going as far as to dub yesterday “Castle Crashers Day”) and they both embody much of what the indie games industry can do right.  Also, they’re both taking some of the most ridiculous flak I’ve ever heard over their price.

Such gems include:

“$15 for 5 hours of single player?”

“I could get [insert old game name here] for $5 less at Gamestop!”

“If it were $10, I’d pay, but at $15 it’s just too much.”

Probably my first reaction should be to not listen to anything morons say online.

However, assuming I failed to do the first part, here’s my second reaction:

A warning about signing bonuses

So, as many of you may know, I was gainfully employed for a large defense contracting company for about two months before the whole GameFest fiasco (of the good fiasco variety).  I did Java programming for graphics with OpenGL and enjoyed what I did just enough.

I received a signing bonus at hiring time, with the stipulation that if I were to quit or get fired within one year, I would have to return the money.  This was a fine print thing and I was about 99% positive I would not quit or get fired within a year.

Unfortunately, GameFest outcomes are difficult to ascertain prior to the fact; had I known my future would be drastically changed for the better starting in August I probably (a) wouldn’t have taken the signing bonus and (b) wouldn’t have taken the job in the first place.

Now–here’s the rub: when you get a signing bonus, the government takes exactly 2/5ths of it.  When the large defense contractor wanted their money back, they asked for the full sum.  I guess this is standard business practice–but that seems a bit silly and gratuitous.

If they give me one amount reduced from a full amount by 2/5ths, that doesn’t mean the 2/5ths is gone, it means it’s money they still have that is earmarked for taxes.  When I file my tax return, evidently it will show that I overpaid by the 2/5ths, which by then the large defense contractor will have paid the government and which I will get back.  So what’s the bottom line?  I’m giving a large government contractor a four-figure interest-free loan that I’ve been told will be repaid in roughly half a year.

And that’s why I’m filing this under Jerks.

To be fair: they gave me a slightly larger interest-free loan at signing time, and they did invest some resources in me that they won’t get a return on.  Can we call it even?

Moral of the story?  Don’t accept signing bonuses if you have reason to believe that you’ll win a major international contest for a contract with a software giant within the next year or so.

No more bad comments, man!

Ok–registration is now required to leave a comment.  I tried to leave it open, but got too many in the vein of “____ sucks” and “release game already plz thx.”  If you want me to release the game sooner, leaving mindlessly negative feedback won’t help!

That being said, it won’t be released any time soon.  Be patient!  I quit my day job a week and a half ago and am now 100% behind The Dishwasher!

New Dishwashirt Store!

Ok, this Paypal stuff is ridiculous–evidently it decided to stop working at some point.  Well, I still have an account with Esellerate, so I set up a store there.

Here’s the link: http://store.esellerate.net/s.aspx?s=STR3931639140

Sorry about the trouble!

Disclaimers and apologies

I should probably put up a disclaimer regarding comments:

Disclaimer: Anonymously posted flamebait will be summarily deleted.

Moderation is in effect!

Also, I should clarify my remarks on repetition and the titles I used as examples. I really liked Halo 3 and God of War 2. I just felt that Halo 3 was over too quickly without giving the player enough chances to play with a lot of the toys. Likewise, God of War 2 was an amazing game, but DMC3 was really more my cup of tea–I liked replaying levels over and over until I could take on the harder difficulties. Basically, my argument is that familiarity can be a good thing.

Granted, apologizing for honest criticisms of games is no way to win over the flamebaiters, but I should probably do my best to not come across with too much negativity.