Akujin - Xbox 360 indie shmup

[Square King]

From the shmups Twitter:

Akujin for 360 Indie. vert euroshmup, but interesting weakness based multi-weapon system (kinda ghetto R.Silvergun). $3 http://bit.ly/5soI0c

'Euroshmup' is a bit of a turnoff and ghetto RSG is a turnon, but...anyone try this out yet (besides the Twitter poster, natch)? Did a search and couldn't find anything on it.

[Udderdude]

I haven't played it, but judging from the description (Shields??), rating (2 stars lol) and bleh screenshots (http://download.xbox.com/content/xna/as ... n2_Web.jpg), it's pretty much your bog-standard terrible XBLA indie shmup.

Just a friendly reminder that MS rejected XOP Black from potential XBLA status because "It looked too similar to other shooters on the market".

Edit: Oops, somehow thought that was an XBLA game rather than an XNA indie game.

[Jockel]

loldouchebags.
I know i already said it, but go for an Xbawks Indie release, pretty pleaaaase?
Just think of the headlines... "FINALLY THE FIRST GAME ON XBAWKS LIVE INDIE GAMES WORTH YOUR TIME AND MONEY"

[postman]

I didn't care for Akujin at all, the pixels are very very tiny and the gameplay wasn't good.......

[Square King]

/discussion on Akujin.

I think XOP would do really well on the indie games thing.

[DJ Incompetent]

'Euroshmup' is a bit of a turnoff and ghetto RSG is a turnon, but...anyone try this out yet (besides the Twitter poster, natch)?

I use what little resources I have.

Yeah, the game sucks. But ghegs' sig law always applies.

[TodayIsForgotten]

This game had promise, but sucked. I found it very hard to see the bullets.

[Square King]

I use what little resources I have.

Yeah, the game sucks. But ghegs' sig law always applies.

S'all good man, can't fault you for calling it as you see it.

[Udderdude]

About XOP on XBOX live indie games: I don't really want to put in a ton of time and effort into porting it, just to have it tossed in the pile with a zillion other crap games and ignored. If MS can't even tell the difference between shooters, it doesn't leave me with much hope for the people playing games on there.

Porting it would require converting the entire code base from using C/Allegro to C#/XNA. This is pretty big and not exactly something I could do in an afternoon of screwing around. Lots of learning and testing to say the least. There's also the issue that C#/XNA is slower than C++/DirectX.

Would also require me to re-do some of the artwork at the least. I'm not sure if XNA games require 1280x720, but if they do .. yeah, going to take some work.

Edit: Turns out they want a $60 4-month "subscription fee" to XNA before I can even test games on the 360, let alone submit them. Or a $100 12-month fee. That is pretty much turning my "maybe" into a "hell no" right there :/

[originalz]

Yeah, this game sucks, you can't tell what's going on half the time and the game makes little effort to explain the system. Too bad, since the presentation had a lot of potential.

[Square King]

Downloaded the demo last night.

That was a mistake.

Udderdude: Fuck that subscription fee right in the ear. Incredible.

[TodayIsForgotten]

I haven't played it, but judging from the description (Shields??), rating (2 stars lol) and bleh screenshots (http://download.xbox.com/content/xna/as ... n2_Web.jpg), it's pretty much your bog-standard terrible XBLA indie shmup.

Just a friendly reminder that MS rejected XOP Black from potential XBLA status because "It looked too similar to other shooters on the market".

Edit: Oops, somehow thought that was an XBLA game rather than an XNA indie game.

Seems like they aren't rejecting your game because its too similar. Sounds like they are sugar coated their decisions. While i forgive you for totally quoting me incorrectly in the niche genre forum. I will say that if there is any validity to what they said and they aren't sugar coating. Lets take a look here:

Puzzle Quest ---> Gyromancer. Pretty much same game.
Geometry Wars, Ion Assault, Robotron, SmashTV, 0day - All arena shooters
Defense Grid, Southpark, Crystal Defenders - All Tower Defense with two more coming this year.
Funtown Mahjong and another one coming - Do we really need two mahjohns on xbox?
Uno and the other Uno Game

XBLA is a fucking joke. It's becoming puzzle and PC unreal engine games of late. I really think they are just pulling your leg and saying sorry we don't like your game. Yet, they have a shitload of games that sold under 5,000 units. And others than sold under 3.

[originalz]

Eh, for someone who's interested in game design, the subscription fee is nothing for getting your game on the 360. I'm sure that most devs easily make their money back with a game release.

[Udderdude]

Eh, for someone who's interested in game design, the subscription fee is nothing for getting your game on the 360. I'm sure that most devs easily make their money back with a game release.

You're right. For the priviledge of learing a proprietary MS-only programming language and getting my game onto the sacred Xbox Live Indie games (which is populated by only the best of the best, a veritable collection of timeless classics each perfect flawless and unique), I would pay any amount.

Or not.

[originalz]

Whatever, that's the point of the service. It's for amateurish programmers to have a chance to reach an audience without having to worry about jumping through the hoops of professionally getting published. Hell, even some big publishers and devs are using the service to try out some experimental things that wouldn't normally be worth pursuing through a contract. Sure, there's a lot of crap on the service, but at least people have the opportunity to make the crap, and the good games are very good.

I wouldn't necessarily see it as a way to make big $$$, but as to further a hobby, a way to learn about game development, and a way to get your feet wet in videogame publishing. It's a very impressive service and MS deserves a lot of praise for putting it on their console. Maybe it's not worth it for you to convert your program to XNA, but for someone starting a new game, I've heard a lot of good things about the language. Really, the yearly fee is just so you can sell your games on the service (or put them on to test, but who would do that without putting it on the marketplace), which is tiny compared to what you can make back.

[yyr]

Eh, for someone who's interested in game design, the subscription fee is nothing for getting your game on the 360. I'm sure that most devs easily make their money back with a game release.

You're right. For the priviledge of learing a proprietary MS-only programming language and getting my game onto the sacred Xbox Live Indie games (which is populated by only the best of the best, a veritable collection of timeless classics each perfect flawless and unique), I would pay any amount.

Or not.

Compared with spending thousands of dollars on a dev kit, the subscription fee (which is $50/$100, not $60/$100 btw) is nothing. I'd be surprised if it even begins to cover the amount of work that the XNA team has put in to make our experience better.

Is Indie Games full of great titles? No, but there are indisputably some great titles in there. And, at this point, there ARE gamers looking at Indie Games on a regular basis. The Top Rated chart is a good start... and the top/good games DO make some money. It's not enough to live off of but it's a nice supplement.

And btw, there is barely any learning involved with XNA, provided that you are already familiar with an object-oriented language (C++, Java etc). The methods for drawing, etc. are very easy to use, and you can answer any question that comes up simply by Googling around or asking on the XNA forums.

Also, you don't need to test your game on the 360 to see how it will run with XNA. Grab a PC with a decent video card and develop it on there. If it's not a super top-of-the-line machine or video card, the 360 will likely run it at least as well, or better. All you need to do beforehand is learn a little bit about the limitations of the 360 hardware (like how the RAM works, etc). Also, if you want to be truly cheap, you can build a package for 360 that someone else can run for you, if you'd like (without sharing your source code). While there are some issues that can crop up when going to 360, maybe you'll be lucky enough not to run into those, and it'll work on the first try. And if you decide to go all the way and publish, $49/$99 is really nothing. If you don't plan on publishing anything else, you can let the subscription lapse. You will continue to be paid for the game(s) you've published to that point.

About the resolution requirement: it is generally recommended to run your game in 1280x720 (looks nice, good performance). However, you can tell the 360 to use any supported resolution, and your game will be upscaled/downscaled as necessary depending on the user's resolution choice (filtering will also be added automatically, boo). Or, you can choose to support any resolution natively (but this is more difficult, because you actually have to use effort). Obviously, games that are not upscaled will look better.

If you (or anyone else) have more questions feel free to PM me... I'm now feverishly working on finishing my 3rd and 4th games (a terrible idea, btw. Don't try to work on two projects at once!).

[msm]

Also, you don't need to test your game on the 360 to see how it will run with XNA. Grab a PC with a decent video card and develop it on there. If it's not a super top-of-the-line machine or video card, the 360 will likely run it at least as well, or better. All you need to do beforehand is learn a little bit about the limitations of the 360 hardware (like how the RAM works, etc).

I asked a question about XNA development in the relevent forum, and strangely that answers it very nicely, Thanks

[WarBovine]

Wow, this topic has gone off the rails. I might as well keep it that way.

If you're just interested in trying XNA development, you can always enter the Dream-Build-Play contest, which comes with a 12-month trial subscription to the Creator's Club. If I remember, the only caveat is that you can't submit a final game, but you can still build and run code on the Xbox to try things. Note that this doesn't mean you need to make a submission for the contest, you can just ignore it once you've registered and gotten the trial membership. I think the 2010 registration period ends next week though...