XBLA: XNA Community Games - What You'll Be Playing On Day 1, Part 3
Here we are, the final selection of games that will be available to you from day one. This time we've got a little more than 10 titles, pushing it past 30 seperate titles on day one. That is an awful lot of choice.
Titles can go up at any time, so it's difficult to keep track. We'll continue keeping you informed with every new game that comes available, hopefully with a little commentary to give you a bit of an idea of what each game is like.
This completes our list. But which ones are the best of the lot? Which ones stand out? Check out GamerBytes later today for our top 5 launch titles for XNA Community Games.
Alien Ambush
Creator: Star Gaming Network
Genre: Classics
Price: 200 Points
Trial Play: A Space Invaders / Galaga clone. It's also not very good from what I could see from the trial. Enemies follow very simple patterns and overall just seems a little boring. Sorry, Star Gaming Network.
Loot, Steal 'n Destroy
Creator: reallyjoel
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: A game about looting gold from the source and from your enemies. The game is multiplayer only, but looks like it could be some fun. A hearty opening theme too.
Blow
Creator: David Flook
Genre: Other
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: One of the best games on the service right now, Blow is a entrancing puzzle game where you set up fans in order to blow bubbles through checkpoints and on to the exit. The game relies on you setting the speed of the fans, and whether they can make bubbles hot (and rise) or cold (and fall faster). Sporting 70 man made levels and infinite procedurally generated levels for endless variety, it is absolutely worth your 400 Points.
Colosseum
Creator: Shortfuse Games
Genre: Fighting
Price: 800 Points
Trial Play: Here we have one of most expensive XNA Community Games, Colosseum. It's a 4 player brawler which uses the second analog stick for combat. While it looks nice, the single player experience appears to be pretty mundane. It will probably be at its best in the local multiplayer modes.
Totem
Creator: Fervent Interactive
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: Totem is a single player puzzle game involving a variety of totem pieces. Each stage is about surviving through whatever the computer throws at you.You then stack up several totem pieces of one color, and when the next comes crashing down, the matching ones break. It's simple and a bit of fun, and has some nice artwork too. Reminds me a bit of the GameBoy Mario & Yoshi title with a dash of XBLA's TiQal.
Artoon
Creator: Oscar K
Genre: Platformer
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: Bounce your buddy Art through tens of levels as you rack up a multiplier by jumping on new squares in the level. It looks nice - Oscar K has his head around some very neat shader effects, it has some decent techno music, and it includes a split screen challenge level too. The first few levels are very simple, but do the later ones offer any challenge?
Galax-e-mail
Creator: BogTurtleCarl
Genre: Shooter
Price: 200 Points
Despite the crazy premise, this game is actually quite fun. The graphics, while simple, are consistent and very clean looking - it "knows" what it is. I'm not really sure just how the game does work in terms of levels (does the game simply generate a level based on difficulty) but for 200 Points it looks like it may be worth your money.
In the Pit
Creator: luvcraft
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: Now here is something that can only be done on XNA - In The Pit is not your normal game. In fact, the game has no graphics whatsoever. It is an audio-game. You play a blind monster in a cave, and new prey is dropped into your cave. Using only sounds, you must find these people and eat them. You hear them breathing, running away, all through your surround sound system. The controller vibrated to their heart beat too. It's certainly something you've never played before.
SMASHELL
Creator: Antab
Genre: Platformer
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: Plug yourself into an arena and begin to jump on top of enemy heads. This is one of the better looking XNA games on the marketplace, but I don't know how long it will last. You appear to be able to upgrade and see many different kinds of enemies, but you don't see a lot of that in the trial space.
BIOLOGY BATTLE
Creator: Novaleaf Software
Genre:Action & Adventure
Price: 800 Points
Trial Play: The most XBLA-like game on the service. Biology Battle pits you inside of a giant cell, battling the oncoming hordes of bacteria coming to kill you. It's got a whole lot of modes, and online leader boards through some tricky measures.
Funky Punch XL
Creator: SolusG
Genre: Fighting
Price: 400 Points
Trial Play: A 3D fighting game played on a 2D plane. You play as very simple characters, ranging from fireball throwing karate masters to cheerleaders. The game does support online play, which is great for such a game. It might be some fun for kids, but I can't see many people getting into it unfortunately.
Comments
In response to the Funky Punch XL commentary, it's a bit difficult to make an assessment of any game based on the trial mode alone. Personally, I found this game to be really good but that's probably because I PURCHASED it and played it for more than 2 minutes. Maybe this site should spend a little cash to actually play games before writing about them. Novel idea, I know!
Posted by: Tim | November 20, 2008 9:22 PM
Tim wouldn't happen to be a developer on Funky Punch XL, would he? :)
Posted by: Chris | November 21, 2008 3:12 AM
As the review says Blow is one of the best games on the service right now. I would highly recommend it. I'm not sure the trial does it justice, the game takes what you learn in the first levels and ads new twists all the time.
Posted by: JamesH | November 21, 2008 6:01 PM
Tim: Considering the number of ComGame titles (whoo new term), it would take a wealthy man with a lot of time on his hands to be able to review every title. :)
These impressions give a me a decent idea of what the game is about, and from there I'll try the demos of games that appeal to me. I really like how there are usually clips of the game available here as well. Frankly, I can't think of any other site with this level of info on ComGames.
If it's difficult to make any accessment based on the trial modes, then I think MS should reconsider the timed trial. "In the Pit" times out before the tutorial is over (the dev has a good workaround), so I can see potential issues here. Perhaps the solution is to turn that 2 minutes into 7 minutes, and also for the developer to limit features in the trial to limit the experience enough so that the user is enticed to buy the game.
If a developer had time, they could make a little 1-2 min skippable video that is like a trailer or overview that plays right off the bat, so if a user watched it, they get a good grasp of all that's offered. If the timed demo expires right after the vid, the user could restart the game and skip the vid to actually play it.
Posted by: nrXic | November 21, 2008 7:20 PM
I'm the environmental artist for Colosseum, and i have to agree with the trial discussion.
in our case, people have gotten 30 seconds to 1 minute of gameplay before getting thrown out, mostly because of all o them gui screens to customize, select level, game modes and so on.
The result of this is often that gameplay seems shallow, a big problem for yours truly.
in a perfect world i would rather have the trial more like on XBLA, where you can stage and direct the demo version for the player.
this of course would take precious time from development.
All of these titles for community games are made by people for the love of games, and rarely get paid for it before the actual game comes out to market. this means that time is nothing these developers have a lot of, once the game is finished it's a hassle to make movies, make special scenarios or try to tailor the experience.
Posted by: larsolino | November 25, 2008 4:26 PM
Good points larsolino. I suppose perhaps the best thing to do is to simply extend the time limit.
I played some more Community Games last night, ones that I've tried before, but skipped all that I could so that I could get maximum gametime with the game, and sometimes when I just started to have fun and enjoy the title or the first moment some game simply started to "click" with me, it kicked me out. IMO that's a bit too soon.
I'm sure this is a learning process for all parties, but I hope Community Games division at MS is getting feedback from users at this point. I think the timelimit was a good solution, as the dev doesn't have to make a specific demo for each title, and it allows users to try the title. I just think the implementation is a bit off. I think if they extended it to 7-10 minutes (or let the dev decide within certain limits), the problem would be solved.
Posted by: nrXic | November 26, 2008 6:20 PM