GameSpot let me do a little Q & A with them.  I felt the need to say something!

From the article:

Far from a typical retail boxed product, The Dishwasher is a side-scrolling beat-’em-up with a penchant for Kill Bill-style blood geysers, shambling zombies, and maniacal robots. Inspired by equal parts jeet kune do master Bruce Lee, poseur Italian restaurants, and Ryuhei Kitamura’s epic Versus, The Dishwasher in many ways acts as a proof of concept for Microsoft’s ambitious service and gives players the chance to channel their inner butcher while bounding off walls and mashing on buttons in the process.

And then I say cool things like:

GS: In terms of ease of use, does XNA have the potential to be the magic bullet for bringing game design and development to the masses? As in, are we going to see a lot of average joes making quality, fun games?

JS: Game development is still an extremely ambitious venture, so depending on your definition of “the masses,” we may never see this type of magic bullet. Otherwise, a guy like me is probably always going to be the best you can hope for as an average joe. I went to school for computer science while working a series of crappy jobs and have always dreamed of making video games but have no industry experience or special game development education.

Then I checked the GameSpot forum on this, and found some excellent nuggets of InterWeb wisdom; some good ones:

1 of the best Arcade games out

I want to buy it now but that not a option. Dam you Microsoft, Dam you.

The one drawback to this game being so amazing

Is that every Wed. until it releases will be a disappointment no matter what comes out.

…and some not so good ones:

This is the most hot topic game in the world.

It might as well be called Johnny the Homicidal Douchebag.

There are a lot more good ones then there are not so good ones, so I’m really pleased (and I’m getting a little better at accepting criticism).  It seems like people are really hungry for some XBLA content that isn’t classic arcade games or cutesy casual games.  Not like there’s anything terrifically wrong with classic arcade games and cutesy casual games (I like a little Boom Boom Rocket and Metal Slug 3, thankyouverymuch), but I think people are pretty agreed about the desire for interesting new content, even if it is “hot topic.”

And for the record, I prefer Salvation Army for my counterculture wardrobe over Hot Topic.  Think I can afford Hot Topic?  I’m still poor, you know.

I live in a freezing apartment in upstate NY.  Rent is $750 a month.  I buy groceries at Wal-Mart.  I buy clothes at Target.  I drive a 1994 Honda Accord that was a hand-me-down from my sister.  Yet, somehow, this happened:

MTV.com:

“The guy that made this game is nuts.”

Wired.com:

As the sole creator of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game Dishwasher, Silva found himself the poster boy of Microsoft’s efforts to “democratize game development” at the Game Developers Conference. The Utica, NY independent gamemaker shared the stage with game design luminaries like Tomonobu Itagaki and Peter Molyneux at Microsoft’s GDC keynote.

LA Times:

The 26-year-old from Utica, N.Y., paid his way through college by scrubbing dishes at a diner. That job might help him become the Quentin Tarantino of video games: He used it as inspiration for “The Dishwasher,” in which the title character becomes a ninja and slashes his way out of a kitchen overrun by villains.

Ars Technica:

“James has quit his job… it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” James Silva quickly became one of the stars of the GDC this year, and the video Microsoft created to highlight his game and one-man-team ethic showed that it knows how cool James Silva is. Microsoft desperately wants a piece of that cool. 

For the record, Microsoft never quite came across as desperately wanting a piece of my cool, but I thought that quote was too good to leave out.  The XNA team are just about the coolest bunch of geeks I’ve ever met; it was awesome meeting up with them for classy San Francisco dining–I got to meet the team behind the tech that the Dishwasher is based on and they got to meet the guy behind the game that shows off their tech.  There was a lot of mutual gushing.

Short update–here’s a link to the video Microsoft made about me.

Also, a trial of The Dishwasher is available to everyone on XBLA for a very short time, here are instructions on downloading it.

Well, I finally made it back home Friday morning, after two nights in O’Hare.  The Friday morning flight was even delayed twice–which is what happened with the previous two flights before they were canceled.  Nice little scare to end the trip with!

In other news:

The kind folks at xbox360fanboy.com plugged The Dishwasher again.  From the post:

High in potassium and hella’ delicious. We say good job to you Mr. (XNA all-star) Silva, Dead Samurai looks amazing and the extreme amount of blood and blurring effects makes our eyes water with happiness. We say, bring on the dish washing!

Read it!

It turns out I wasn’t the only one who got a kick out of that last video.  It got picked up by some pretty high profile gaming blogs and news sites.

From Destructoid:

I’m excited for The Dishwasher because it represents something different on the XBLA horizon. I, for one, have had enough of the standard XNA fare with its miniature graphics, thrown-together “pew pew pew” gameplay, and disgusting overuse of the same red/green/blue/purple color palate. This game is stylish, it’s fast-paced, and it looks challenging and incredibly fun to play. It shows developers out there that a little creativity with XNA can go a long way.

From Xbox360fanboy.com:

How exactly the guitar sections — in which players match button inputs with corresponding prompts — meld with the game proper we have no idea, and honestly don’t care. All we know is it looks like glorious, violent fun.

From XBLArcade.com:

Along the way we have been granted various glimpses into the world of this dishwashing rampage.  And perhaps those earlier videos left you wanting more?  If so a new trailer has just arrived that features more blood, more insane massive damage combos, and more…guitar?

Thanks as always to these great sources for the coverage.  I keep feeds on these sites, so it’s always a bit of a surprise to see The Dishwasher show up in the wild!

I just thought of another game that could’ve used more repetition: God of War 2.

Granted, it was an amazing game with some crazy cool parts, but like Halo 3, some of the protagonist’s badassery was dampened by the fact that you would be thrust from one completely unfamiliar situation to the next with no common frame of reference. It’s the classic picture of a vengeful hero who has been going in circles in the west wing of the antagonist’s base because he can’t find the right lever or whose quest of revenge comes to a very non-epic end when he doesn’t notice a particular climbable rock wall during an intensely cinematic moment and plunges with the platform he was riding on into the lava for the sixth consecutive time.

I thought Bioshock really nailed the whole repetition thing. Little variety in monsters, recognizable environment hazards (oil slicks, water, security systems), good level layout and a nice checkpoint arrow.

Also, The Dishwasher was in magazine (an Edge magazine, to be exact). Here’s a cell phone screenie:

The article is mostly on XNA, but it’s nice that they put some juicy screens in there.

I made some nice shiny high res wallpapers!

Enjoy!

Rooftops 1280 1024

Rail 1280 1024

JR at i-luv-games.com writes to say that he’s given ZSX3 the indie review treatment! From the review:

If you’re a fan of space combat / space trading games and are open minded enough to stray from the mainstream formula, you’ll probably find yourself enjoying this imaginative, truly unique, and satisfying space rock opera.

Read the full review!

It’s been a fun week since the big news, and I’ve been loving all the notice I’ve gotten from the webs. Here are some good ones:

TeamXbox:

Earning a master’s degree in Computer Science is no small feat, and neither is creating a highly-polished video game han-solo-style in only six months. Yeah, James is one the smart ones, but his humble beginnings as a dish hand inspired the chaotic elements found in his winning entry The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.

Kotaku:

One of the winners of Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play competition, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai will be making its way to an Xbox Live Arcade near you in the coming months. This XNA Game Studio Express hallmark was the fruit of James Silva’s labor, a stylish, two dimensional action shooter with all the right shoot ‘em up standards.

Gamespot:

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a side-scrolling action game featuring over-the-top violence and a main character that uses an array of blades and guns to mow down adversaries.

Check out the buzz!

Also, thanks a ton to Epsicode for the good press!

Looks like The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is headed live!

From Gamespot:

The cowinners of the contest were Blazing Birds by David Flook of Burlington, Ontario, Canada, and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai by James Silva of Marcy, New York. Flook’s Blazing Birds is a futuristic 2D twist on badminton, with robotic spheres hurling power shots at one another across a neon net. The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a side-scrolling action game featuring over-the-top violence and a main character that uses an array of blades and guns to mow down adversaries.

Here’s the keynote; I’m at left, looking humble.