April 1st is Dishwasher Day!

The press release went out, so I can finally open my big mouth!

April 1st is Dishwasher Day!  (no joke)

From the release:

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a 2-D stylistic action platformer for Xbox LIVE® Arcade showcasing fast action, deep gameplay, and a unique visual style. An undead samurai dishwasher in a dystopian universe is on a quest for revenge against the evil cyborg army. To dispatch hordes of zombies, cyborgs, and robots, the Dishwasher has at his fingertips a devastating array of attacks using ancient blades, disturbing machinery, and screen-obliterating Dish Magic. Compete with the rest of the world in a variety of speed run and high score challenges to become the most formidable Dishwasher yet!

• Fresh take on gameplay: Gameplay in The Dishwasher is a fresh take on popular stylistic action combat, taking combo- and timing-intensive combat into a 2-D, blood-soaked environment emphasizing speed, vertical movement, and maneuverability, and player-driven pacing to create a truly unique, fluid and visceral experience, with an appealingly psychotic art style.
• New game modes with guitar peripheral: The Dishwasher has arcade co-op, drop-in solo campaign co-op, and drop-in solo phantom guitar co-op using the guitar peripheral. Phantom guitar players can unload electric death by playing wicked solos, perform basic movement, and use the guitar’s motion control to rip through enemies with a razor-sharp headstock.
• The power of XNA: The Dishwasher is a testament to the power of XNA. The game was created by one guy with no professional game development experience (and a self-described lousy programmer) in about a year and a half.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai releases for the Xbox LIVE Arcade on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 for 800 MS Points. Check out the video trailer by clicking here

Discounted Alien Hominid too!  Not a bad week…

Update: xbox.joystiq.com put in a kind word.  Love you guys!

ZP2K9! Dishwasher!

ZP2K9 1.0.1 is live!  If you still have the old version, delete it and redownload (it’s free!).  It’s currently 4th on Major Nelson’s list.

Seems like I’m competing with myself a bit… but… well… anyone remember The Dishwasher?  Remember it now, for the era of the psycho dishwasher genre is upon us!  It’s going up as part of the Days of Arcade promo.  I can’t say when.  But when I can, I will.  Oh yes.  I will.

Also, I’m working a super-dumb street brawler for XBCG called Charlie Murder.  Expect some media soonish.

Top Ten Again!

Just saw the updated xbox.com popular Xbox Community Games list, and we hit the top ten again!  ZP2K9 is #5!

That’s right, we just barely beat those two awful massage games.

A new version with bug fixes is up for peer review now; hopefully it will settle a lot of the 1.0 silliness.

Particularly notable fixes will include:

• Shows what gamer is talking
• Show gamer names under players
• Numerous CTF bug fixes
• On-the-fly server bot count + game type changes
• Team DM spawns random (like vanilla DM)
• 3 second respawn invulnerability
• Bat ceiling hang bonuses switched to invisibility
• Renamed/reskinned Cheetah Suit to Cyborg Suit

Unfortunately, XBCG games don’t force you to update, so it’s a good idea to check the XBCG New Arrivals queue for updates.  When ZP2K9 1.0.1 arrives, it’ll be up there.  And once most everyone has moved over to 1.0.1, I can start adding more content (maps, suits, etc).  Also, from version 1.0.1 and up, ZP2K9 will be a bit smart about notifying you about updates.  Workarounds, FTW!

Thanks to everyone who helped make ZP2K9 a sudden success!

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:

ZP2K9 on XBCG!

Well, when it rains, it pours.  While waiting for The Dishwasher to pass cert, I finished up this happy-go-deathmatchy platformer called ZP2K9 and submitted it for Xbox Community Games.  It went up Saturday or so, and just about every time I’ve checked there have been a couple of games going on on Live.  Also, it’s only 200 points, so you’ve got pretty much no excuse not to play it!

Here are some screenies:

We passed!

We did it!  We passed cert!

Here’s some random (rough) statistics:

• Total development time: 2+ years
• Active bugs closed: 500+
• Builds submitted: 50
• Pre-cert milestone builds passed: 5
• Pre-cert milestone builds failed: Probably 5!
• Cups of coffee consumed: 2200
• Times thought project was doomed: 81020
• Times decided to have faith project would succeed against terrible odds: 81020
• Dev kits red ringed: 1

Amazing!

I don’t know when it will go live (and thanks for asking, all!) and when I do I’ll still have to keep mum, but now that we’re officially through certification, I’m sure your guess will be as good as mine.

Dishwasher goes into cert!

Well, I know it’s been a tad quiet on this front for awhile, but we’re here!  We just entered cert, so I can finally relax, play a few rounds of COD4, and hope that everyone hasn’t forgotten about this little operation!

Of course, the game now has to pass cert, so I’ll be doing a bit of praying over the next few weeks.

And if we hit any snags, well, it’s not the end of the world.  I’d rather have a clean, delayed final product than a buggy, rushed production (who’s with me on this?)

I’m on Twitter!

Minor update here, as we barrel toward cert:

I’m on twitter!  Follow me and my XNA-tastic adventures! I know, kind of late to the party, but better late than never!

So far I’ve only got the obligatory “GEE WOW IT WORKS” tweets, but I’ll probably update with more Dishwasher-relevant stuff, especially if I’m stuck somewhere with a cell and nothing to do.

First Dishwasher review in, game still nowhere to be found!

Well, I’m still working out the kinks in The Dishwasher, but that didn’t stop OXM from reviewing the prerelease build for it’s February 2009 issue, at least if NeoGAF is to be believed.

What’d they give it?

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai – 8.0
+Feels good, controls well, looks lovely.
+ Substantial number of modes and options
-You’re too easily lost amid the onscreen chaos.
? Will there be a Dishwasher: Dead Again Samurai? Hope so!

Freaking awesome.

The being lost amid onscreen chaos point was a concern we looked at, ultimately deciding that the onscreen chaos was an integral bit of what makes The Dishwasher awesome.  It’s like Ninja Gaiden 2’s crappy camera: you hate it, but if we gave you God of War’s super-friendly, super-detached camera, the overall badassery of the game would be reduced to about 5-10% (I did the math).

Not to say I’m complaining.  Especially considering what I wanted to give the game…

Now if I can just fix this one last super obnoxious, cert crippling bug…

Awesome: ZSX4 is #5!

According to Major Nelson, ZSX4: Guitarpocalypse is now #5 on Xbox  Community Games!  I have no idea what this means in terms of sales (after all, Swords and Monsters is #10), but I’m still pretty excited!  (Check it out if you haven’t yet)

In Dishwasher news, we’re in the final stretch before cert.  Thanks to all of you who keep asking about the release date, it’s great to know that The Dishwasher’s got fans!  Hang tight, peoples, we’ll get there, and, as I keep saying, I don’t think anyone’s more anxious for the game’s release than I am.