Steam Heroes - Xbox 360 game available soon

[dmpdesign]

Available now (finally)

If anyone wants to check it out the trial game is available free on the xbox indie marketplace.

let me know what you think.

https://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Produ...02585506b6

[Holy_Diver]

Congratulations. Getting a game published is impressive in and of itself I think. I'm assuming just anything doesn't make it onto Live.

Did you have to deal with MS personally? Or was it more of your partners problem??


Do you have to buy the game before you can rate it, like with PSN? It's good to see you have images at least on the Xbox website. The US PSN store doesn't even have images for its games!! I had to login to PSN Japan just to see what a game being billed at a "PS one import" (from Japan) looked like

Anyway I feel bad for people with indie games on PSN. It's hard enough to sell a game, much less without any screenshots or anything ‎ 

PS: I've been spending a lot less time with Som and stuff in general the last number of weeks for finally picking up "Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne MANIAX (Chronicle Edition)". I think I have around 60hrs logged so far. Games don't play themselves

EDITED: I hope someone doesn't think that people buy more games without screenshots. Speaking of which most commercial game commercials don't even include in game footage. Good thing its so easy to gauge how stupid they are by the CGI alone

[dmpdesign]

The process for indie production is really retarded actually, you are approved by members of the XNA club, so you are at their mercy/stupidity. ‎  If they don't like you they may try to fail you for no reason whatsoever (though they have to claim something legitimate based on the guidelines of microsoft).

To be fairly honest, microsoft is barely involved, even less so now that they are pushing indie game developers into their windows phone apps instead of the xbox.

The only time you have to jump through tons of hoops for microsoft is when you try to release something for xbox live arcade (the professional version of the xbox indie). ‎  At that point you have to shell out 40 grand up front and meet pretty tough requirements to get published.

[Holy_Diver]

40 grand up front heh? That doesn't sound like an indie platform. I think a true indie studio would snub something like that. It sounds more like something for commercial studios trying to get rich off low spec half assed games.

One thing I've noticed on PSN is a ton of cheap sticker price "remakes" of classic games, like Rocket Knight, Eatherworm Jim, now Sonic, etc. They all have a kind of Donkey Kong Country pre-rendered feel, even though they're ostensibly 3D. Anyway even though by the books they're so much more graphically detailed than the originals, they come off feeling very disposable, because basically it seems like artists are just trying to fill in the extra pixels afforded by the HD format. And I dunno, it just doesn't fill right at all / ultimately has the effect of seeming much shoddier than the originals (which don't look that bad with a little filtering for those who like that) ...anyway, long story short, I'm sure maybe young kids used to CGI movies etc would leap right in without giving it a second thought, but to me they just feel about as soulless as most CGI movies presentation wise. In fact the only substantial CGI movies I can think of off the top of my head are not CGI at all, like Coraline for example. The only remake I've seen that was solid/an improvement on the original is RayStorm HD. It doesn't try to fill up every pixel. Just uses the extra definition for cleaner presentation.

I'm pretty skeptical of anything with a big budget I think these days. Sure an army of employees sometimes do produce marvelous feats comparable to the pyramids, however statistically speaking they mostly produce a ton of garbage in cultural terms. And I'm not even convinced the success stories are worth the sum of their parts.


Finally, I'm really up against the wall about "smart phones". The idea of indie outlets being relegated to phones pisses me off. I'm sure PC is still an option to them, but I'm really not a PC gamer, never have been, doubtful ever will be.

I feel like an old person questioning the value of the internet for example. I worry I'm becoming that old person when it comes to phones, and music players. I know everything about information technology and I just don't see the value of a phone that is more than a phone, or a music player that is more than an ipod shuffle; but not. I just "won" a shuffle-like MP3 player on Ebay that was 6$, that you plug a 6$ memory card (micro SD compatible) into, and I don't understand why anyone would want a music player that is more than that. Just make it 50 cents and make it last as long as it can before it can't hold a charge, and hell put a clock on it maybe (never seen a clock on a music player) and I'm good. Same for a phone... what kind of goofball would use a phone to access the internet, or as a keyboard, I just can't fathom.

I've known people that use phones to read/post on message boards, so I try to make my websites phone compatible, but I just can't imagine wanting to use a phone to access the internet. Getting email notifications, sure. Being able to upload images/videos to online storage, sure... but the internet?? It just seems to me like people are misusing technology as fast as corporations can churn out new misuses for technology.

That said if people want to replace their GameBoys with a huge ass phone, I get it. But I've never really thought of portable gaming as very portable (unless you're already carrying a huge purse and shit) or very enjoyable... unless you're into over simplified controls for over sophisticated games and tiny screens. I spend more time plugging my portables into big screens / playing that way. Oddly emulating portable games on a PC is one one of the few PC gaming experiences I can get into.

That said, I don't want playing a game to drain the batteries out of my phone, or my music, etc. If I was going to design such a hybrid device it would have at least three separate batteries (maybe the iPhone works that way, I wouldn't know)

Anyway, it's really stupid to try to make phones the proving grounds of indie games. Why should people have to buy a phone to play indie games? I bought a game platform to play games... that's not fair to the indies or their audience.

PS: Phones with cameras/video are a natural fit I think, and a good example of combining technologies. Of course one day people may have video phones, if it isn't determined the extra bandwidth will make you 100 times more susceptible to brain cancer / infertility etc. Cameras should probably even be mandated. Imagine a school where every kid had a phone/video recorder. I'm not a huge fan of schools, but it would be a much safer place. Personally I'm impressed with the MIT MediaLab project to give all kids in the world a portable computer / place to connect to the internet. The kids that have no access to schools but do have a computer I've little doubt will all grow up to be freaking geniuses within a generation. Still I'd be pissed if using the video recording function depleted my battery for making phone calls. Again I don't know enough about how phones are actually used. I have a cell phone, because owning a landline anymore is like being able to afford a salad, but I never use any of the features, and I'm sure the camera though fun for capturing a background, does not hold a candle to my digital camera.

[Holy_Diver]

members of the XNA club

Does that mean it's basically a democracy? Ie. are you also a "member" ?

[Hguols]

Congratulations Todd!!!