Indie Gaming | Indie Gamer Chick

Mount Your Friends

June 9, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 13 Comments

Update: Mount Your Friends received a Second Chance with the Chick. Click here for my updated thoughts. Consider this review to be for the XBLIG version and the Second Chance to be for the Steam version.

Okay, so the name is as absurd and juvenile as a title can possibly get. But, we are talking about a game by Daniel Steger here. His previous hits include a game called Baby Maker Extreme (the ninth all-time selling XBLIG), This is Hard, and Blow Me Up. But the really weird part is, his games tend to be pretty decent. Blow Me Up and Lots of Guns both are Chick Approved and ranked on my Leaderboard. And now we have this, a game about building a human pyramid. In keeping with Steg’s tendency towards gratuitousness, it features Team Ninja-like jiggle physics.. for penises. This is a game tailor-made to generate scorn and ridicule from the XBLIG scene.

It’s also Daniel Steger’s best game by far.

Schwing!

This is exactly the type of weird, experimental game that I had in mind when I started Indie Gamer Chick. Okay, maybe I didn’t picture those games having dicks that behave like bobbleheads. But I figured I would play a lot of games unlike anything I’ve seen before. Mount Your Friends does that. It’s like a video game version of the popular Catalonian pastime known as Castell. In other words, people climbing on each other to build the tallest human-building they can make. Only here, there’s no worries about the laws of physics or structural integrity.

The way you go about moving at first seemed like it would be overly complicated. Each limb is controlled by a separate button. You move one limb at a time, with limbs automatically clinging to the bodies already placed. Each turn, you must climb higher than the highest body on the stack. Once you’ve above the line, you can press start to end the turn and start from the bottom with a new body. In the normal mode, you have 60 seconds to get above the line. It sounds dull, but it can be exhilarating. Especially when time is running short. There were multiple situations where the timer was nearing zero and I just barely got my hand over the line. This always resulted in hooting and hollering. Well, just from me, while my friends told me to sit down and shut up. But hey, I was excited!

Simpsons already did it!

Where Mount Your Friends really shines is in the multiplayer mode. Here, each player takes a turn trying to cross the bar at the highest point in the stack. Play continues until one player can’t make it to the top in the time limit. I’m shocked to say this, but this is one of the best multiplayer experiences to ever hit XBLIG. It even has online play that went off without a hitch. My biggest overall complaints relate to the movement physics. Flinging yourself instead of moving one hand at a time feels loose in terms of gravity and imprecise. I also had issues keeping limbs I didn’t want to use from going limp and getting stuck to one of the guys on the stack. I mean, wait, probably shouldn’t use the term limp in relation to this game. I mean they had trouble staying stiff. NO, erect. NO! God damn, this is tough to write about.

Okay, so the Mount Your Friends might be embarrassing to pull out to show friends and.. FUCK!! See what I mean?

Stegs, I fucking hate you. You make this really awesome game that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen or played before, but it’s almost impossible to describe without receiving an awkward stare. You know what? I don’t care. Mount Your Friends is fun, plain and simple. It’s not very deep. The best concepts rarely are. But you simply have to try it, because there’s nothing else like it. I’m not the most athletic person in the world, and I’m afraid of heights, so this is probably the closest I can come to climbing a rock wall. Well actually, this is probably more like one of those walls where you hold a peg in each hand.

Don’t do that Cathy. Just don’t give him any more ideas. He’s incorrigible enough as is.

When I first saw the cover art and heard the name, I figured it was going to be a professional wrestling game.

Mount Your Friends was developed by Stegersaurus Games
Point of Sale: Xbox Live Indie Games – Steam

$1 (Steam version $3.99) asked if you heard the one about three guys laying in the same bed? They wake up in the morning and the guy on the left says “I had the best dream! I dreamed I was getting a wonderful handjob!” The guy on the right says “that’s weird, *I* dreamed *I* was getting a wonderful handjob!” The guy in the middle goes “I dreamed I was skiing!” in the making of this review.

Mount Your Friends is Chick Approved and mounted on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

A review copy of Mount Your Friends was provided to Indie Gamer Chick to test online functions. The copy purchased by Cathy was paid for by her with her own money. The review copy was given to a friend to test out online components. The person receiving it had no feedback in this review. For more on this policy, consult the Indie Gamer Chick FAQ.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Mount Your Friends, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indie Games, Xbox Indies, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, Yes XBLIG's mind is in the gutter

Hop Til You Drop (Second Chance with the Chick)

June 7, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick Leave a comment

I wasn’t very nice to Hop Til You Drop when I briefly covered it a couple of weeks ago. It’s a twitchy single-screen punisher that involves dodging random hazards the game spits at you. I immediately grasped what the game’s schtick would be and thought “this could be addictive.” But then I died and found out that replaying the game meant going through a seemingly endless series of menus. After just a couple more plays, I decided my time would better be spent brow beating the developer for being such a dummy. My hopes were that he would fix his game. He did. Good thing too, because SWAT was closing in on my house. I admit, taking his family hostage might have been going too far, but at Indie Gamer Chick, we like to take that extra step towards improving the game industry.

None of these screens will make sense. Just look at Aaron the Splazer’s video at the end of this review.

A lot of developers seem to take my advice on aspects of game design, which I have to say is more fucking cool than you can imagine. But a lot of the advice I give them is stuff that they should have come up with on their own. In that spirit, I’m going to offer makers of punishers the biggest no-brainer advice you’ll ever get.

Make your game addictive.

Sure, addictive gameplay varies from person to person. But there are steps you can take to maximum the potency of a game’s addictive potential. It all boils down to the speed and downtime. If you’re making a game where players will die a lot, keep the time between death and rebirth at a minimum. Look at some of the most successful punishers in recent years. In Super Meat Boy, when you die, BAM, you’re back to life. It’s a game that could offer a lot of frustration, but because the game skips theatrics and bullshit in favor of gameplay, you don’t notice it. Who has time to be frustrated when that giant saw you’ve been trying to jump over for the last ten minutes is right fucking there? Spelunky did this too. When you die in it, restarting the game is done with a single button press. The lack of downtime is what gives those games their hypnotic “just one more try” quality.

Now imagine if Super Meat Boy’s failures resulted in theatrical death animations followed by a menu. It would have been relegated to gaming purgatory. Nobody would remember it today. Super Meat Boy is famous for many things. It’s art style, historical gaming references, and challenge. But its success probably hinged on how accessible it was. It’s a game that wanted to be played, and so it cut the bullshit out. Gameplay was continuous with minimal interruptions. This is something all punishers should have. And yet it’s among the most common things bad punishers have wrong with them. I know you guys have all played these games. So how do you miss such an obvious thing? It’s not about the insane challenge. It never was. Those games succeeded because they were addictive. When a person can lose time to a game and not realize it, that’s a game that is more likely to spread by word-of-mouth.

In a way, it sucks that I won’t have Hop Til You Drop to point to as the poster child for that particular problem. But I’m happy this simple problem was fixed. Now, the game is genuinely fun. Controls might be a bit too loose, and sometimes the random traps are just plain not fair. The biggest problem by far with Hop Til You Drop is that it’s on the wrong platform. It’s the perfect micro-session game, suited more for playing on Vita via PlayStation Mobile. Because it requires precision movement, I wouldn’t want to play it on a touch device like iPhone. But on Vita? This would be the perfect game to bust out on a break. It doesn’t lend itself well to extended play sessions, which is what a platform like XBLIG is better suited for.

But fun is fun, and Hop Til You Drop is fun. There’s even a couple nifty new additions like bullet-time effects that kick in when you have a close call with an enemy. Or a moderately amusing time attack mode. So I do recommend Hop Til You Drop. It won’t have a lasting effect on you. Without online leaderboards, there won’t be a lot to keep you coming back. But it’s a worthy waste of a dollar and probably fifteen to thirty minutes on your Xbox. Congratulations go out to Chris Outen for saving his game. By the way, your mother’s pinky finger should arrive by Fed-Ex tomorrow.

Hop Til You Drop was developed by Chris Outen

80 Microsoft Points said this game was one “S” away from being a video game version of a gameshow I watched as a kid in the making of this review. Though I usually only watched it because I was too lazy to change the channel after Supermarket Sweep.

Hop Til You Drop is Chick Approved and Ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard. On July 1, the Leaderboard will go multi-platform to include indies from all consoles and handhelds.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, Hop Til You Drop, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Video Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indie Games, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

CastleStorm

June 4, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 12 Comments

I’m always skeptical of a game that tries to mix multiple genres. I picture they’re the product of a development meeting full of passive-aggressive types with no alpha-male to make the final decision. “Let’s do a RTS!” “No, a brawler!” “No, shooter!” “Tower defense!” And then whoever is in charge just sheepishly says “whatever, just do them all.” Often, those games turn out to be fairly mediocre. Jack of all trades, master of jack shit, or something like that. And thus with CastleStorm skepticism bells were ringing in my ears like someone had strapped me to a gong and smacked it with a wrecking ball.

Can you blame me? It’s part tower defense, but you simultaneously call people to defend your castle while actively shooting the opposing enemies and their castle with a ballista, thus turning it into a gallery shooter. But, sometimes you’ll have to take on enemy troops directly by calling your hero into play in a pseudo platformer-brawler. Huh. Plus, with the whole “knock over the enemy’s castle by flinging shit at it” angle, there’s a hint of Angry Birds in it as well. And all this from a studio whose claim to fame is a few video pinball games? I mean, I fucking adore pinball like you can’t imagine. But pinball is about as relevant to gaming today as bloodletting is to modern medicine. Not only that, but I had people on Twitter telling me they had played the demo and came away about as unimpressed from it as anyone could possibly be. Thus I mentally prepared myself for a weekend of boredom.

Which happened. When I watched Cloud Atlas.

Not when I played CastleStorm. It was very fun.

Full disclosure: early Saturday morning, I suffered a moderately severe seizure that pretty much put me out of commission for the entire day. It almost certainly had some influence on the rotten time I had playing CastleStorm online, which I’ll be getting to later. But the seizure also means I “lost” about two full hours worth of play time that I simply can’t remember. I am told I was having a good time during it though.

We downloaded our copies of CastleStorm on Friday night. The first thing that impressed me was how a game with so many play styles could actually tie everything together in a quick-to-learn package. It never feels like there’s too much to juggle. That’s the most common problem with these smörgåsbord games. So without falling into that trap, it should be clear sailing, right?

Well, not quiet. But the single player game is hugely satisfying with a wide variety of objectives and really snappy writing. There’s also a huge assortment of weapons, spells, and bonus rooms for your customizable castle that can be upgraded. Oh, did you say upgrade system? You mean that thing I’m known to abuse? Did I abuse it? You bet your sweet ass I did. One level involves “a frenzy” in which weapons don’t have a cool down time. Here, I set the difficulty to hard, upgraded my Sheep (which acts like the yellow bird in Angry Birds) to its max level, and ended up clearing out the level in six-seconds a turn. I just replayed it doing this for about an hour. By time I was done, every weapon, spell, soldier, and room was fully upgraded. Yea for abuse! I then steamrolled the remaining game. Well, until it forced me to switch over from knights to vikings.

D’oh.

In retrospect I probably should have seen that coming.

It doesn’t matter. I still had a great time. I haven’t actually finished the Vikings section yet. I got my $10 worth just from the first half of the game. Oh, I will totally finish the Vikings stuff at some point. But I plan on saving it for a time when I have nothing to do and I need an activity I know I’ll have fun with. That would be CastleStorm.

Graphically, the game looks pretty good, but I do have some complaints. The backgrounds are pretty noisy, with lots of stuff to distract you. Mind you, the game is beautiful, but I found this stuff to sometimes annoy. Now, that pesky epilepsy thing normally means I can’t touch stuff in 3D, but I figured those noisy backgrounds were so noisy because of the 3D stuff. Things that look like they could be in the foreground probably look further back if you play in 3D mode. But that’s not something I should risk. So I enlisted Bryce (who received the review code so that he could help me test online stuff) and Brian (who mostly just sat and gave Bryce advice, even when he was playing *me*. What an asshole, am I right?) to throw on the 3D glasses. They were both immediately blown away, declaring it the best use of 3D they had seen ever, movies or games. They raved about it so much that I threw the glasses on myself for a quick gander. They were right. It was absolutely stunning. More so than, say, Life of Pi or Avatar on 3D Blu-ray. Granted, because of my condition, I haven’t been privileged to experiment too much with my fancy-schmancy 3D television. I only had the glasses on for about two minutes and I wish I could have done more.

It looks a little Angry Birdsish, but the structures in CastleStorm take more than a couple shots to take down.

Onto the multiplayer stuff. This is where the seizure bit comes in. We didn’t play too much of the single-player stuff before we got into the multiplayer. Bryce and I played a few rounds against each-other and had a swell time. Your stats and upgrades from single player don’t carry over to online play. You get a starting budget that you can use to immediately upgrade some of your stuff. It probably wasn’t a good idea to spend that budget before I knew what I was doing, because once you spend it, as best as I can tell there’s no option to start over from square one. So I was committed to using shitty upgrades that can’t possibly help me beat people. That mistake was on me, but the horrible online setup is entirely on the developer.

And then the seizure happened. Completely unrelated to CastleStorm or any other game. I just have them every few days or so. This was a particularly nasty one that put me out of commission for basically the rest of the day. By the time I was able to play again, Bryce had put upwards of 15 hours into CastleStorm and I couldn’t hope to be competitive with him again. But finding online matches against people of my experience level wasn’t smooth either. I was a level one. The game mostly saw fit to pair me against someone who was a level 155. That’s not a typo. I’m not even sure how he got up that high. The game just came out on Wednesday for fuck’s sake. As it turns out, many people who were attempting to play on Live (including Bryce) would get stuck with this guy all weekend long. It felt like that World of Warcraft episode of South Park. The dude absolutely demolished me in, on average, 20 seconds or less. Fun? No. Annoying? Oh yea. Even worse, I never had a chance to make a single coin during these battles, which meant I couldn’t upgrade my stats. And even when it wasn’t pairing me up with Jenkins, I was way more likely to get paired up against guys thirty or more ranks higher than me than someone on my level. That meant quick losses and little if any earned coins to upgrade my stuff. It’s a terrible online system. Borderline broken.

There’s also a cooperative survival mode, which is a little more promising. The problem here is one person gets to have all the fun by being in control of the ballista. The other person assumes the role of the hero. In the main game and during the online battles, the hero is a spell you can cast that puts you directly onto the battlefield to hack and slash enemies for thirty seconds or so. It’s fun. For thirty seconds. But Survival mode lasts longer than that, and the hero has a limited moveset. He can swing his sword. He can jump. He can use a bow and arrow, though it’s slow to use and tough to aim with. Or, if you want to be fancy, he has a charge move. That’s it. It’s simply not a play style that lends itself well to extended sessions. Of course, Bryce was having a good time. Of course he was. He got to shoot things. And trust me, no matter what mode you’re playing with, the ballista is hugely entertaining to use, and scoring headshots with it is extremely satisfying. So he had all the fun while I got his sloppy seconds.

The game zooms in when you play as the hero. For what its worth, the controls of this mode are solid. It’s just not very fun past the usual thirty seconds you normally use it.

I wish CastleStorm had some kind of casual online mode where two people can have the same attribute points. Just have every weapon, character, room, and spell set to level 5 (out of 10). I would play the shit out of that. When the playing field is level, CastleStorm can be a great competitive game. The problem is it’s next to impossible to find someone who isn’t going to throttle you in seconds. As a result, games play out like a highlight reel of the Harlem Globetrotters versus Washington Generals, and you’re the Generals.

Regardless, CastleStorm is one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had at Indie Gamer Chick in a while. It doesn’t really do any one thing exceptionally well, but the sum of all parts is undeniably engrossing. The online stuff isn’t so hot, but it wouldn’t take too much tinkering to get that right. But really, the reason to own CastleStorm is the single player stuff. It’s a fun quest, with a robust upgrade system. If you’re into building things, the castle customization stuff is apparently well done and easy to handle. I’m not into that kind of shit myself, but Brian took over for it and said it was intuitive and enjoyable. I don’t know if I would have had more fun if I hadn’t lost my entire Saturday and thus my preferred playing partner, but I still highly recommend CastleStorm. I went into it with my expectations set to “cautiously optimistic” and came away knowing that Zen Studios will never be known as just those pinball guys again.

Although I should probably mention that I absolutely LOATHED this level. See that big, mushroom-shaped mountain-thing? Yea. It actually blocks your shots. At first, I couldn’t even tell it was in the foreground. I constantly vomited curse words that my father didn’t even know I knew when stuck here, which is where most multiplayer matches seemed to be set in.

Oh, and one last thing: CastleStorm? Really? That’s the best you guys could come up with? CastleStorm sounds like something a sitcom writer would come up with on five seconds notice when they need the name of a fictional video game for the characters to be shopping for during the holiday episode. The actual game is oozing personality, but the name screams generic and forgettable. If it bombs in sales, it will be because of the name. Then again, the studio is called Zen Studios. Given how the frustrations of being paired with a guy 154 ranks higher than me induced a state of being in me that was anything but Zen like, I’m guessing their name is purely ironic.

CastleStorm was developed by Zen Studios

800 Microsoft Points thought all the banter in the game actually sounded very pinball-like in the making of this review.

CastleStorm is Chick-Approved. In the near future, all indie games on all platforms I review will be ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard. If you must know, CastleStorm would fall somewhere in the 20s.

A review copy of CastleStorm was provided to Indie Gamer Chick to test online features. The copy played by Cathy was paid for with her own money. The review copy was given to a friend who had minimal feedback in this review. For more on this policy, read this site’s FAQ.

Filed under Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with CastleStorm, CastleStorm arcade review, CastleStorm review, CastleStorm Xbox Live Arcade review, CastleStorm Xbox Review, Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Video Games, XBLA, XBLA Review, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, Zen Studios

Avatar and the Deadly Tomb

June 1, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 8 Comments

From the studio that brought you the O o z i games comes an utterly generic, avatar-based punisher with bad level design. Can’t get enough of those. This is also one of those annoying auto-scrollers. Hate those in general. Especially hate them when they’re done vertically. I probably should have researched my game selection better, because there was almost no way I would have enjoyed Deadly Tomb from the get-go. Yea, it was a bit of a dick move for me to pick it. And if you’re expecting some Planet of the Apes style “it was a good game all along!” twist, think again. I played Avatar and the Deadly Tomb on the easy difficulty, because I’m shamefully bad at punishers and blunt in my admission of this. Even then, I found it to be beyond frustrating.

So boring I can’t even muster the humor to make a funny caption.

But, I think I must stress the difference between a fair challenge and an unfair challenge. I feel a fair challenge means you have a realistic (if far-fetched) shot at getting past an obstacle on your first attempt, using nothing but your reflexes and gaming acumen. When a player of any skill level has no remote shot of clearing some spots on their first try, that’s when a game crosses the line for me. It’s the difference between “smart-difficult” and “asshole-difficult.” Auto-scrolling punishers almost always fall into the asshole-difficult category, and Tomb is no exception. Things like timed-trap platforms combined with vertical auto-scrolling are just cruel, since your vertical field of vision isn’t as large as your horizontal vision. Not only that, but some sections of the game require you to clear timed sections, then drop down to a lower platform before climbing up. This is while a column of fire continuously rises. Unless you are 90% flawless in your run (which you probably won’t be), you have no reasonable chance of clearing these sections on your first attempt. By time you drop to those lower levels, the fire is probably already there and you’re doing your best impression of Frollo.

I’ve had this review sit unfinished for nearly a week now. I’ve made several attempts to finish it, but as of yet have been unsuccessful. Part of that has to do with the utterly generic theme. Whether or not I thought the Oozi games were ambitious, at least they aspired to look good. Avatar and the Deadly Tomb features a bland theme and boring graphics. It doesn’t exactly control that well either. The biggest problem is the wall-jump is handled the same way as the ledge-cling. Sometimes for those timed puzzles you’ll need to cling from a ledge. But most of the time you’ll just want to do wall jumps, but the clinging will get in the way of that. Screw it. I give up. There’s no way to describe my experience with Avatar and the Deadly Tomb in a stimulating way. The game was dull as a book on cooking with tofu, although I would recommend reading that over playing Deadly Tomb. At least you’ll get something to eat out of it.

Avatar and the Deadly Tomb was developed by Awesome Games Studio

80 Microsoft Points noted their avatar would never actually have the guts to explore a deadly tomb so the game made no sense from a story perspective either in the making of this review. Then again, my avatar wouldn’t snowboard, do parkour, or run across the top of a moving train either. It’s kind of a coward.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Avatar and the Deadly Tomb, Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Games, Xbox Indies, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox360, XNA

H.i.v.e.

May 30, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 5 Comments

H.i.v.e. is a digital version of a moderately popular, award-winning tabletop game. It’s also one of those rare Xbox Live Indie Games that is officially licensed. You can think of H.i… you know what, fuck it, I’m not using the periods. Think of Hive as a cross between chess and dominoes. You’re given a collection of hexagonal tiles, each with its own movement properties. One of the tiles is a queen bee. You have to place the queen on the board within your first four turns. Gameplay continues until one queen bee has been completely surrounded on all sides, whether the titles belong to you or your opponent. In addition to the bee, there’s also ants, grasshoppers, spiders, and beetles. Ants can move to any free space as long as there is a path to get to it. Spiders must move three spaces at a time. Beetles can walk over and cover other tiles. And grasshoppers can only move by jumping over pieces. If you want to read the full rules, you can click here. You probably should too. Our first game didn’t involve any rule reading, because Bryce thinks rules are for squares. We didn’t know fuck all what we were doing, which explains why I lost to.. sorry Bryce.. a FUCKING MORON!

Of course, that doesn’t explain why I lost eight straight games to Brian immediately following that, but you shouldn’t dwell on that. I certainly haven’t. Sniffle.

Because there is no board, the camera sometimes has to pull pretty far back. But, worry not, because all the tiles are distinctive and easy to recognize.

Because there is no board, the camera sometimes has to pull pretty far back. But, worry not, because all the tiles are easy to see and distinctive from each-other.

H.i.v.e. is a lot of fun. I’ve never played the board game that it’s based on, but the interface created by BlueLine Games is well handled. I’ve always questioned the existence of video-board games that only strive to recreate the exact experience of the corporeal version. But actually, I think in the case of games like H.i.v.e., they serve a purpose of making complex games easier to learn. It lays out for you exactly what moves are legal, what pieces can be moved, where they can be moved, etc. It takes the edge off the learning curve to a huge degree. But, it still is a no-frills video game version of a board game. I firmly believe that the best video board game do things that only can be done in the realm of games, and that doesn’t apply to Hive.

Hive is also not without faults. As of this writing, online play is unstable. In thirty attempts at playing online, only eight games successfully connected. If both players are able to make an opening move, the connection won’t drop, but that barely happens a quarter of the time. The developers are aware of this issue, but I’m actually not grading against it. I preferred playing locally against human opponents sitting right next to me. You can play against the AI, which actually isn’t that bad as far as video game AI from a first-time developer goes. Early on at this site, I played Avatar Chess, which had genius-level AI even on the easiest settings. While the AI in Hive can lean towards the fierce side on medium, the easy setting is a good way to break into the game, but not so dumb that you’re embarrassed to play it. I can’t tell you how good the hard mode is, because I didn’t really try it. I had enough difficulty beating Brian, who isn’t exactly a rocket scientist. Not that I’m obsessed with the fact that I couldn’t beat such a simpleton. I’m not. Really. DAMN YOUR ACCUSING EYES, STOP LOOKING AT ME!!

So let it be said that Hive, a simple adaption of a cult board game, is the game that ended the Leaderboard’s losing streak. Despite having no apparent talent for it, I had a great time playing it. I even played a few rounds against my father, and it was very fun to bond over. I mean, he wiped the floor with me too, but I still had fun in my failure. I liked H.i.v.e. so much that I ordered the actual game off Amazon. So while it doesn’t really need to exist as a video game, I’m happy it does. And by the way, Brian can’t even remotely come close to beating me at chess, so obviously I’m better than him. I think that’s how it works.

H.i.v.e. was developed by BlueLine Game Studios

240 Microsoft Points have a boyfriend who noted that he routinely kicked my ass at Spectrangle too, the cocky fuckwad.

H.i.v.e. is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

A review copy of H.i.v.e. was provided to Indie Gamer Chick by BlueLine Game Studios. The version played by Cathy was paid for by her with her own money. The review copy was provided to a friend just to help test online functions. That person had no feedback in this review. Consult the Indie Gamer Chick FAQ for how this policy works.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, H.i.v.e., Hive Board game, indie game developers, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indies, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

Life in the Dorms

May 26, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 1 Comment

After fumbling around with what might be the worst point-and-click interface I’ve ever encountered, my patience was stretched to the limit during one sequence in Life in the Dorms. While on a scavenger hunt, I accidentally clicked one of the beds in my room. What followed was an interaction system so comically awful that I was convinced that I had broken the game. Upon clicking the bed, the dude you control (named Dack, poor kid) walked over to the door. Then back in front of the bed. Then back to the door. Then back to the bed. Then the door. Bed. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. I couldn’t stop it. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. No interrupt button. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. WHY IS IT DOING THIS? Door. Bed. Door. Bed. Door. Bed. A minute straight of walking back and forth. Door. Bed. Door. Bed.

Finally, Dack sat down on the bed, and sputtered out a one-liner bitching about how hard the mattress was. I turned to my boyfriend and said,

“Brian?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Please turn off my Xbox before I murder it.”

Despite the clunky interface, the puzzles of Life in the Dorms seem about as logical as your average point-and-click game. Such as “Use lightsaber to get toilet paper down from shelf.”

I’m sure the above CPU brain fart was due to a criminally horrible design choice that required the lead character to physically touch every object you point-and-click on. Though for the life of me, I can’t bring myself to the mindset where anyone could believe this was a good idea. Point-and-clickers are slow enough without having to watch your character lock into the appropriate place. The above example with the bed actually happened, and it kept going because the character couldn’t properly line up in the spot that triggered the “sit down” animation. That’s the only explanation I could come up with for why he staggered back and forth like a flash bang had gone off next to his face. But it wasn’t the only time I had problems.

I didn’t make it out of the first chapter of Life in the Dorms before my patience wore thin. I wouldn’t have even bothered going as long as I did if the writing didn’t at least hold the promise of being good. Unfortunately, the awful interface negates whatever potential the dialog had. Like going through a box of DVDs. Instead of being able to collect every DVD, the game plays out like this.

Step one: click on the box. Make sure you click the eye, which means you want to look at the contents of the box.

Step two: wait for the camera to hover over the box.

Step three: select one of the DVDs in the box.

Step four: Slowly pull the DVD out of the box and put it in your inventory.

Step five: Click another DVD in the box.

Step six: Dack will address the camera directly saying how he better put one of the DVDs back.

Step seven: you watch Dack put the DVD back, then the camera pulls back, then zooms in again when Dack grabs the next DVD you selected and puts it in his inventory. The length between steps five and seven is fucking atrocious.

It’s even worse because the dude who addresses the camera (and occasionally has awkward hugs with various NPCs) has no expression on his face except “I will steal your immortal soul.” Shit will haunt my nightmares.

This is one of the most clunky, cumbersome, awful interfaces I’ve ever seen. It’s like Life in the Dorms is overdosing from that slow-motion drug from Dredd. I just want to move the plot forward with as little resistance as possible. Yet every rinky dinky action requires Dack to turn and face the camera to address the situation, in what I can only guess is an attempt to break down the fourth wall. I’m actually embarrassed that I gave up on a game this quickly, even though I was an hour in and had made almost no progress. The only thing I could think about was “this is a point-and-click game. Those typically require lots of insane logical-leaps and guesswork. That means I’ll be seeing a whole lot of wrong guesses where the punishment is more slow movement from Dack as he turns to address the camera. Fuck that.” I think what happened is the developers forgot they had made a story driven game. Imagine if the only way you could watch a DVD was to fumble with the controller and push a random sequence of buttons, then wait for the next portion of the movie to slowly load up. So slowly that you see five minutes worth of story over the course of your first hour in. Nobody would find it unreasonable if you just moved on to something else. With that in mind, I’ll move onto something more exciting. Like sleeping.

Life in the Dorms was developed by Moment Games

80 Microsoft Points said “wouldn’t chain-locking the only exit to the door be considered a major safety hazard?” in the making of this review.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Life in the Dorms, Video Games, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indie Games, Xbox Indies, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

Magnetic By Nature and Sherbet Thieves (Second Chance with the Chick)

May 25, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 6 Comments

Good news: these next two games made the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

Bad news: they were already on it.

Good news: both games moved up the board!

Bad news: Actually, there’s nothing but good news left!

Still not completely sold on Magnetic By Nature’s art-style, but it has gotten critical acclaim elsewhere. Guess I’ll hop on the band wagon and give them a quote for their next crowd-funding effort. Ahem. “Magnetic By Nature is Art-Decoriffic!” I’m such a sell-out.

Last month, I checked out student project Magnetic By Nature and enjoyed it well enough, even though the game had severe frame-rate issues. I just played through it once again, and the skipping is almost completely eliminated. Without it, you get to appreciate this smooth, very well conceived physics-platformer. Sure, I do wish it had more emphasis on physics-based puzzles. And sure, the controls still never become fully intuitive, but that’s the nature of the magnetic-based physics. They’re magnetic-by-nature if you will. Yuk yuk.

Like many twin stick shooters, you can’t tell what’s going on in Sherbet Thieves just from screen shots.

Okay, so Magnetic By Nature didn’t have a whole lot to improve upon. I can’t say the same for Sherbet Thieves, which just broke the record for longest gap between my original review and my Second Chance, at nearly twenty months. In that time, the game’s been overhauled with new levels, better balanced difficulty, smarter stage design, and a well-implemented unlimited mode. So what was already a pretty decent (if not memorable) title is now one of the better twin-stick shooters on the XBLIG platform. If you forgot it before, don’t forget it now. It’s a keeper.

I’m really puzzled as to why more developers don’t take me up on Second Chances with the Chick. Almost every game sees improved standings over their previous review. The best part about being an XBLIG critic is seeing so many developers hone their craft and improve upon the skills they’ve built. Really, there is no better way to witness evolution in action. Well, except by watching nature videos of the mudskipper.

Oh look. Tee hee, there is goes, thumbing its nose at creationists.

Magnetic By Nature was developed by Tripleslash Studios

Sherbet Thieves was developed by Bang Zero Bang

80 Microsoft Points each will be posting a special feature on the five games most in need of a Second Chance with the Chick in the making of this review.

Magnetic By Nature jumped five positions over its previous Leaderboard standing, while Sherbet Thieves jumped an amazing 16 spots. Head over to the board to see where they landed. Both games are Chick-Approved.

Filed under Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Magnetic By Nature, Sherbet Thieves, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indie Games, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

Bug Zapper and Hop Til You Drop

May 23, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 3 Comments

Update: Hop Til You Drop received a Second Chance with the Chick. It is now Chick-Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard. Click here for my continued thoughts on it.

Here are two games that seem like good ideas, but the execution is just a bit off, resulting in the losing streak the Leaderboard has been on continuing. First off is Bug Zapper, which comes from the developer of previous Leaderboard title Zomp 3 (#84 as of this writing). This time, instead of a Lolo-esq puzzler, Chris Skelly went for the good-old-boy pasttime of bug zapping, with the idea being you’re the one insect who is immune to the hypnotic glow of electric death device. Thus, you have to prevent your fellow pests from going towards the light. This is hilariously done by beating them to a bloody pulp. As far as solutions to potential problems go, that’s pretty fucking awesome. It would be like helping a coke head stay sober by breaking his nose.

Bug Zapper gives you a lot to keep up with, and in its present form, it really is too much.

As far as game concepts go, it’s actually pretty good. Bug Zapper also features upgradable stats and a wide variety of bugs to smack down. So what’s the problem? Well, I had two major problems. The first was I couldn’t get the hang of the throw controls. Bug Zapper heavily relies on throwing bugs into each other in order to rack up combos that build your special moves meter, but even with lots of practice, I had just as good a chance of throwing a rescued bug into the zapper as I did into another bug. This is because the swarms of bugs heading for the zapper is utterly relentless and you have to keep moving nonstop to have a chance to prevent them from dying. More control over what directions the bug could be thrown would help, because throwing at angles was imprecise.

A more troubling problem is the fact that the player can completely ruin the ability to throw bugs by picking the wrong upgrades. You can upgrade the strength of your punching and of your throwing. In order to throw a bug, you must weaken their health past a certain point, depending on how many times you’ve upgraded your throw. However, it is possible for you to have a punch so powerful that bugs are knocked out before being weak enough to throw. Since many of the stages later in the game rely on this ability, the result is you have to grind upgrade points to strengthen your throw. It really saps the fun out of it, because grinding doesn’t really fit well with this style of game. There’s a few other smaller issues dealing with the difficulty levels (consider “Medium” to be hard and “Easy” to be medium) and collision detection (it’s too easy to accidentally get zapped by the zapper), but there’s a real game here. It just needs a tiny amount of work to fix the pacing issues.

Screen from Hop Til You Drop. Not a fan of the background changing colors here either, but I didn’t play the game long enough to grow what was certain to be a hatred for it.

Speaking of pacing problems, I didn’t get very far into Hop Til You Drop at all. Why? Well, the concept is decent enough, I guess. You’re a dude who has to hop around a room collecting coins. The hook is, when you hop, the gravity switches and you end up walking on the ceiling, then back on the floor, etc, etc. Meanwhile, the game randomly spawns a huge number of traps that try to kill you. Just get as many coins as you can before dying. Simple enough. Hey, I’m into games based on high scores, even if they tend to suffer without online leaderboards, which I don’t believe Hop Til You Drop has. No, here’s my problem: rounds in Hop Til You Drop can be very, very short. That’s fine, if it’s done right. However, once you die, you have to first view a screen that gives you your stats for this last game. Then you have to go to main menu. Then you have to select your character again. There is no quick-load to start playing again, so you’ll spend as much or more time in menus then you will playing the game. Fuck. That. Jesus Farting Christ, hasn’t the developer ever played a fucking good punisher before? In the good ones, you die and BAM you’re playing again. There is no break. That’s how they become addictive, because they cater to that “just one more try” mentality. Hop Til You Drop openly fights it, and that’s why it sucks. The game itself is probably good enough to make the board, but I would rather give myself a swirly then play it again in its present state.

Bug Zapper was developed by Chris Skelly

Hop Til You Drop was developed by Chris Outen

80 Microsoft Points said guys named Chris must have problems getting proper playtesters in the making of this review. It’s because guys named Chris are too sweet for their own good. Think about it. Do you know a Chris in your life? I bet you can walk all over him.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Bug Zapper, Game Review, Gaming, Hop Til You Drop, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

Dinora

May 17, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 20 Comments

Dinora bears a strong resemblance to Terraria, the sleeper-hit that’s climbing up the charts on XBLA, and of which I reviewed the PSN version. As a reminder of what I felt of Terraria, I was annoyed by its numerous game-killing glitches, then went on to lose 50+ hours to a borderline-addiction to it. So, I guess you can say I’m a fan of it. Oh, I’m done with it. For reals this time. I swear. No really. Stop looking at me like that. Look, Brian and me went to play it a little more and the glitches they patched out were replaced by even worse glitches that made half the world invisible to me. So seriously, I’m over it. It’s out of my system. Had a good time while it lasted, but the thrill is gone.

At least until they patch it some more.

And possibly a reunion if they do DLC for it.

Never did kill that wall of flesh either.

You know, we had just started doing plumbing the last time we played it. There are lots of unexplored uses for that.

NO, STOP CATHY! Remember that 12 step program.

Hey look, it’s a giant disembodied head that attacks you with its two disembodied hands. Just like in Terraria!

Of course, if you can’t get Terraria out of your system, there’s always Dinora on XBLIG for 80 Microsoft Points. It will either curb your Terraria addiction or give you nuclear-level cravings for it. Feast or famine. For me? It really did help to strengthen my resolve to never play Terraria again. Which impressed the hell out of Brian, who has since gone on a quest looking for the Dinora-equivalent of something to help me quit smoking. He’s wasting his time, since that’s probably lung cancer.

When I said Dinora had a resemblance to Terraria, I wasn’t being coy. It looks just like a cheap, unrefined, non-pixel-art version of it. But endearingly so, like when a kindergartener draws a picture of his family. Sure, it’s crude, but hey look, it’s your family! Not sure why the dog looks like a shark, but whatever. And that’s Dinora: looks the part, if the part was left out in the sun too long. And guess what? It plays the part too! Well, kind of. I suppose it’s like if you had a friend who got sucked into a jet engine and his broken body was held together by staples and kept alive using a machine. It’s still your friend, but not really. And that’s Dinora: like Terraria on life support.

Everything bad about Dinora I can explain using something as simple as a door. In Terraria, you have to build a shelter to stay safe at night for when the monsters come out. This involves putting up walls, then covering the back wall, and finally sticking a door to enter through. This is typically the first thing you do when you turn the game on. Dinora does the same thing, only it does it badly. In order to place a door in Dinora, you must have four spaces of clearance, plus solid blocks above and below you. Okay, that door is just way too big, but it gets worse, because you can’t actually reach five blocks above you to place a block to hold the door. Thus you’re required to build a staircase to create enough clearance to have room for the door. Sure, you could just have your house dip slightly underground, but what if I don’t want that? I mean, it’s unsanitary! It’s so badly handled and stinks of careless design that it makes me sad. I really loved Terraria, and I would be totally game to enjoy a clone of it that offers more features. The problem here is that Dinora does everything Terraria does, only it does it worse. So who cares about the new features?

Correction: Apparently you can adjust the building reach in the options menu. I’m not sure why the default is so low, nor would I have thought to check to see if you can adjust reach. I still think Dinora is bad though, for many more reasons.

If I seem like I’m being too harsh on Dinora, I’ll remind you that Terraria was developed by two guys using XNA. Two guys whose brains I assure you are no bigger than yours or mine or the guys who made Dinora. But Dinora looks so much worse than Terraria, in addition to sounding worse, playing worse, and lacking the multiplayer aspect. What makes me shake my head in disappointment is that to make a knock-off that is this close to the original in so many aspects took actual talent, I think. I just wish they had applied that talent to something original. I hope these guys gut it out and make something quirky, weird, and new. Something not done before.

The enemies look lame, and on the default difficulty, they utterly swarm you. Pretty spongy, too. Your character moves too slow, jumps to shallowly, and is pretty much useless. At least as the class I picked: a miner. This multiple-character types function seems like it would work better when playing in a party. When I played Terraria, Brian and I divided responsibilities. He built our shelter and tunneled to hell, while I mined for precious metals and fought bosses. There’s no multiplayer in any form for Dinora, which sucks because that’s the hook that kept me coming back to the original. The enjoyment of playing it with the man that I love. Left on my own, the world was quite boring and I just wished I could play it with Brian.

The controls are much clunkier as well, though this stems from the best of intentions. You can now equip stuff to both hands, with the left and right triggers and bumpers used to scroll through items. Great theory in concept, but it turns an already unwieldy design into a digital form of patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. Even the most staunch fans of Terraria on consoles will probably admit that the controls were anything but intuitive. Could they have been done better? I don’t know. But at least with Dinora, now we can point to something and say “but it could have been a lot worse. See?”

Alan with the Tea said it best to me: they tried to do what Terraria took years to perfect in short order. Or, at the very least, the game gives that perception. For all I know, they’ve been working on Dinora for years. I sure hope not.

Dinora comes from the root of Dinah, a Hebrew name meaning “justified.” That’s ironic, because I honestly can’t justify the existence of Dinora. It’s just one bad issue after another. While it does aim to add complexity to the Terraria formula, adding new minerals to mine and giving you new tasks to keep up with, it ultimately feels like a really bad, hastily made knock-off. Terraria is a game that’s been being developed and refined for years now. I certainly don’t expect the level of sophistication it has in an XBLIG clone. But this doesn’t even come close to offering the satisfaction of that one. Even if I had never played Terraria before, I wouldn’t have liked Dinora. The bad movement parameters that need way more thought put into them, and the overall shoddiness of the control design need way more time in the cooker. Is there a good game buried in here somewhere? Sure, I suppose. If you ignore every single major flaw, of which there are numerous. But, if you strip away all of those, you’re left with a game that is already out and available for this platform. The Minecraft clones on XBLIG came out before the real Minecraft hit the console, which makes their existence mean something. Dinora is a poor-man’s Terraria and simply can’t escape that shadow. So what do you do if you only have $1 and want to experience what all the hype is about? Well, you probably should try to remember how you got that $1 in the first place and just repeat the process fourteen times.

Dinora was developed by Neuron Vexx

80 Microsoft Points appreciate that the guys at Neuron Vexx warned me about the ultra flashy company splash screen in the making of this review. Of course, my attention span is roughly that of a Cocker Spaniel, so I promptly forgot the warning and I nearly had a seizure when I booted it up in the making of this review. Actually, I did that twice. Why? Because I’m a fucking moron. That’s why.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Dinora Review, Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, Terraria, Terraria clone, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indies, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

Tales from the Dev Side: How Xbox Live Indie Games Prepare You for a Career in Game Development

May 16, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 9 Comments

How Xbox Live Indie Games Prepare You for a Career in Game Development

By Roby Atadero

You often hear about professional game developers leaving the industry and choosing to work on indie titles instead. Don’t let that fool you into thinking indie games are only meaningful for people getting out of the commercial industry. You can break into the industry by working on indie games too. Indie titles not only give a creative and relaxing outlet for industry vets but, they can also prepare you for a full-time job at a professional game studio if you have never worked at one. Sure, working on a small mobile game or a web game is great and all, but, it pales in comparison to having worked on an XBLIG when it comes to getting a job as a full-time traditional (console) game developer.

My buddy, Andy, and I started working on our indie game, Spoids, in 2010. At the time, he was finishing up school and I was working as a Java programmer for a small company. After working on this XBLIG (Spoids) for a little over a year, Andy eventually got a job as a Network Administrator / Tools Programmer and I finally got a job as a Gameplay Programmer at a professional development studio.

Now it wasn’t as simple and easy as it sounds. I had applied for game development jobs throughout the years with no success. I had a Computer Science degree and had worked on lots of little PC game demos. However, it wasn’t until I was just about done with Spoids when I was actually able to start getting phone interviews at studios I was applying to. Before then, it always ended in an automated email saying the position was filled without having spoken or hearing from anyone at these companies.

So what made the difference? I had worked on an XBLIG with as high production values as we could muster during our free time. I’m not saying you have to make the next big viral indie game or something super innovative. Just work on something that requires some challenge and do a solid job at it. Make sure to finish it all the way to the end and polish it up as much as possible. The more well done it is, the better chance that professional developers will think you are capable of joining their team. Don’t just get a proof of concept game going and stop halfway. The majority of the game development battle is in that last 20% of completion. You’d be surprised how many people who work on game projects as a hobby never actually finish a game to shippable quality.

How Working on an XBLIG Prepares You as a Co-Worker

You can be the smartest, most talented indie developer out there but, if you can’t connect with your co-workers in their other fields, then it’s going to be a nightmare for both sides when it comes to working on a professional team.

So before we continue, let’s look at a quick overview of the various disciplines involved in game development:

Programmers – Make the game work. Give content developers the tools they need.
Producers – Keep the project scope manageable, decide what everyone works on.
Designers – Make the game fun, place all the content.
Audio – Make the game sound good.
Artists – Make the game look good.
Quality Assurance / Testers – Make sure everything looks and works properly.

There is a lot more to each of these disciplines but, this should give you a rough idea of what each sub-team deals with. So, what does all of this have to deal with how XBLIGs prepare you for a career in game development? Everything.

Usually teams that work on XBLIGs are pretty small (1 to 5 people). That means most of those people have to deal with things that aren’t their forte. Sure, you have your dedicated programmers or your dedicated artists but, chances are everyone had some kind of involvement with designing the game, the layout of the levels, tracking and fixing bugs, dealing with audio, keeping the project moving, balancing, etc. Dabbling in each of these areas lets you see the challenges and issues that arise in those fields when it comes to developing a game. This becomes more helpful than you think when you work on a full professional team.

No, you likely won’t be crossing boundaries much in a professional studio like you do working on an indie game. However, you can level a lot more with the other fields and work together to find solutions since you can see things from their point of view.

For example, if you are a programmer at an industry studio after having worked on an XBLIG, you can likely level with, understand, and communicate better with the designers you work with. Or you are more likely to sympathize with the people who work on audio and be able to develop the right tools they need to more easily get their job done. Why? Because you had to walk in their shoes a little bit while you worked on an XBLIG. You probably didn’t thoroughly enjoy dealing with something on your indie game whether it was design, audio, art, etc. But seeing how those assets are created and the challenges these people face everyday allows you to better understand their issues and work better with them.

People in one discipline can easily start to become jaded towards those in other disciplines. So it doesn’t take much to start to feel a little irritated over time when you are getting work requests that you feel are “stupid” from the workers in the other fields.

So again, getting to walk in their shoes for a little bit can really open your eyes and show you the walls they run into everyday. They have a hard job too. Doing what you can to help make their lives easier will make you more desirable as a co-worker.

How It Helps Getting a Job

Game companies get tons of resumes every day. The more high-profile the company, the more they get. And we’re not talking about two or three every day; we’re talking about tens to hundreds. As much as career guides and counselors preach resume format or getting good grades, the single biggest thing you can have is to show you have actually worked on and finished a game or a mod. And if you have actually released something, then you’re definitely going to get put in the consideration plate over other applicants. Not only that, but showing you have worked on a game for a console will garner even more attention since there are more technical limitations with a console than with computers.

Now, a lot of these points so far can be made for working on any kind of indie game, not just an XBLIG. However, the key aspect to what makes working on XBLIGs compelling is that they are made on one of the major home consoles. This is where you gain a lot of knowledge that you wouldn’t get working simply on PC or mobile indie games.

Technical Challenges That Cross Over

There are a different set of challenges, certifications, and considerations to take into account when it comes to working on console games as opposed to a strictly computer or mobile games. Let’s look at a few:

Memory

Memory is very precious on consoles whereas today’s PCs have oodles of memory to use. Because of this, worrying about too much memory usage on a PC isn’t usually a big problem. But on consoles, that is not the case. You have to be a bit more cautious of your memory usage. This includes XBLIGS. Being able to manage your memory usage is a good skill to have going into a professional studio. It is a constant limitation everyone deals with from the programmers to all the content creators. If you’re not cognizant of how much memory you are using when developing something at a professional studio, many upset faces will follow you. And if you are lucky, they won’t beat you up when you walk down the dark hallway.

Certifications

When a game is released on the PC, it doesn’t have as many rules to adhere to as a console game would. This is because console makers like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo make sure there are certain standards that are adhered to before you can ship a game on their consoles. XBLIGs are no different. Microsoft tells their peer reviewers that Xbox indie games must pass ALL of the certification requirements they have outlined. One example of an everyday console certification requirement is keeping your important game information inside the “safe zone”.

A lot of TV’s actually don’t show the entire image that is projected to the screen. When it comes to 720p/1080i HDTVs or old CRT TVs, a handful of the screen around the edges isn’t actually shown. Thus, important game elements shouldn’t be displayed on the direct edges of the screen space. Otherwise, they might get cut off. Typically, you want to keep a five percent border on each side of your screen free of anything important the gamer would need to see. Thus, the inner 90% of your screen space is called your “safe zone”.

This isn’t only done in games; it is done for TV shows too. For example, ESPN keeps all their text information within the inside 90% of the broadcasted screen space (the safe zone). The image below shows their text information not going to the edge of the screen and keeping a nice five percent border on each side.

Now, PC games don’t have to deal with this. Computer monitors will show the entire screen space. Thus, they can render important parts of the game on the very edge of the screen if they want to. So, if you ever ship an XBLIG, this is an issue you will be dealing with while developing your game.

Now, there are a myriad of other certification requirements to deal with on consoles: minimum font sizes, allowing the primary player to play off of any connected controller, being able to select any storage device, being able to handle a hard drive being pulled out during save/load, using player profile settings for default control schemes, pausing the game when a controller becomes unplugged or their batteries die, maximum load times allowed, etc.

Each of these issues has to be addressed when it comes to professional console games as well as XBLIG titles. So, if you ever finish and ship an XBLIG, you will likely have dealt with all of the above, and thus be better prepared for this in the professional scene. A lot of these can be annoying and frustrating when you first learn that you have to deal with them. You’re better off getting annoyed by these on your own personal projects first and not later at a professional company.

Cross-Platform Development

One of the last big things that you can gain from working on XBLIGs is that you will get better at cross-platform development. Chances are you will have the game working on both Xbox and PC. In fact, you may even do the majority of your testing with your PC build. And since you need the game to run on both systems, you will want your game to be easy to develop and maintain for both systems. Thus, you will need to exercise good programming and abstraction strategies as you go so both builds share as much of the game code as possible. If you have done nothing but PC games and have constantly used the same third-party software, you will likely not be very prepared at writing well abstracted and managed code. Heck, you will probably hate yourself the first time you try to port your game to a different platform once you’ve finished it.

It is not simple to work on a game that needs to work well with an Xbox controller, mouse and keyboard, TV’s, monitors, the Xbox’s specific hardware, any random amount of hardware configurations from a consumer PC , etc. This is not something that comes naturally as you learn the basics of development. You only get better at this from repetition and learning from mistakes. XBLIG’s present a great situation for getting better at and perfecting your cross-platform development abilities. It’s quite an important skill for professional studios, who a good number of them work on games that run on the major consoles as well as PCs.

Just Make An XBLIG Already

In short, working on and finishing an indie game lets you see how each of the major disciplines work together to make a finished product. But working on a console game, like an XBLIG, let’s you see and learn a lot more of what AAA studios have to deal with on a daily basis. These skills will not only make you more appealing to hiring managers at studios, but it will just make you a better developer overall. Is the XBLIG platform fading into the sunset? Yes. Are there easier frameworks to start writing a game on such as Unity? Sure. But, there aren’t really any other cheap and easy ways to ship a game on one of the major consoles besides the Xbox 360. So, go ahead and try making an XBLIG; you’d be surprised where it takes you. Heck, it took me finishing Spoids to have what I needed to finally break into the industry. The same might happen for you.

Roby is currently working on South Park: The Stick of Truth. Make sure to check out Spoids. It’s Chick-Approved.

Filed under Tales from the Dev Side Editorials Tagged with Game Development, Game Review, Gaming, indie game developers, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, XNA

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