Aardvark may be complete...
posted on 05:54 09/15/2009 by planetidiot.com
My first XNA game, Aardvark, may be ready to submit for review. I haven't gotten a ton of feedback on the community games site, so hopefully I didn't miss any major bugs. Unfortunately all this comes smack in the middle of my move, so it's taking longer than I'd like to get everything in order, but I'll have some new screen shots and stuff up before too long. And I certainly won't shut up about it once it's for sale in the Indie Games section of Xbox Live. posted on 05:54 09/15/2009 by planetidiot.com
The Indie Games community has been tricky for me. I was a big part of the Blitz Basic community back in the day and it was a very different scene. It was laid back, people posted their stuff, got feedback, helped test each other's games and chatted about whatever. Xbox obviously has more mainstream appeal and the prospect of dollar signs can cause people to pull no stops at exploiting every avenue available to them. As a result, there's a need for rules and regulations all over the place. It's necessary I admit, but the atmosphere seems less fun as a result. And that of course makes me want to spend more time coding than chatting about coding, which doesn't do me any favors when it comes time to get playtesters.
I'd like to contribute more to the forums, but larger scale means more people, and more people means most of the questions I could answer get answered 5 times before I even see the thread. If I don't think I can add anything to the discussion, I have nothing to post.
On top of this, the larger scale appeal of XNA compared to Blitz Basic means a worse signal to noise ratio with the games. I'm not saying great stuff doesn't get noticed (because it's usually pretty obvious what is crap) but doing something like creating a great Arkanoid clone means you are competing with umpteen crappy Arkanoid clones, Arkanoid clones with "twists", and probably a few decent ones. I don't recall anyone even bothering with an Arkanoid clone in Blitz Basic, because there wasn't any reason to. I made a one-board Breakout clone, was done with it and ready to move on. The dollar signs makes some people want to do something simple and get cash for it, as opposed to putting real effort into coming up with something unique.
Yes, yes, that's not a far cry from what I'm doing (Aarkanoid isn't rocket surgery), but the difference is I really don't care about the sales. I just wanted to pick a project I knew I could complete -- and I mean a polished, playable, complete game here, and did I mention there's a level editor? -- in this new and alien XNA framework. I care more about getting people to playtest it, which is next to impossible when people see a screen shot and say "oh, it's Breakout again". I have no illusions about this game, I imagine I will sell about 10 copies to people I know, and that's what I'd planned going in. This was just about getting familiar with the process. The part of the process I wasn't prepared for was the community aspect.
People test games that they are interested in. To me, and I'm alone here, that's not balanced. It means the interesting games get loads of testing, which means they don't need as much testing. If I see a game not getting any feedback, that's the one I playtest because that's the guy that needs it. It never occurred to me to look for the coolest looking game. What irks me is no one returns the favor. I didn't playtest their game in order to get anything back from it, but the fact that I'm the only one trying to help out the underdog is disappointing. The sad part is I have friends with Xbox 360s who would test my game but they'd have to pay a hundred bucks and join the community to do that. At least with Blitz Basic I could just send friends a zip file if I had trouble getting testers.
So it's this whole other project now: dig around and find threads in the forum I can contribute to that haven't already been answered, even though it feels a bit like raising your hand in class to answer something just so people know who you are. That and come up with something more interesting than an Arkanoid clone for my next project. At least I am prepared for that last bit... I never have a shortage of ideas.
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