Posts By Developer

Occasionally, XBLA Fans likes to take a backseat and allow members of the development community to speak openly and directly to our readers. After all, you came here to read about games, and who better to talk about them than the professionals who create them? With that in mind, please enjoy the following article written by Coffee Stain Studios Game Designer and PR Manager Armin Ibrisagic.

One thing that many of our players from Sanctum 1 requested on the Coffee Stain forums was more playable characters. Everyone loves Skye, of course, but many players felt that they wanted to be introduced to new and cool personalities from the Sanctum universe. That’s why Sanctum 2 now has four different playable character classes. Now these aren’t just different character models with different skins, they’re all actual character classes with their own unique strengths and specializations. Read More

Occasionally, XBLA Fans likes to take a backseat and allow members of the development community to speak openly and directly to our readers. After all, you came here to read about games, and who better to talk about them than the professionals who create them? With that in mind, please enjoy the following article written by Enigma Software CEO Daniel Parente.

In our first Alien Spidy post, we showed how we took the initial concept for our protagonist, Spidy, and made him into the lovable character he is today –- despite being a spider!

In today’s post, we want to do something similar. We’re introducing the remaining cast of characters featured in the game and how we came up with consistent visuals to keep the art direction and, of course, Spidy himself in line with our vision.

Let’s start with the Ladybug, which has its own unique charm.

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The following article was written by Andreas Hackel, art director at Candygun.

Today we at Candygun Games would like to present the process of creating weapons in our upcoming game, Dollar Dash. We have been pouring in countless hours as we finish development, so it has been a thrilling experience tinkering with the in-game weapons to pave way for a competitive, yet entertaining for all ages, multiplayer game.

Creating fun weapons

Weapon system in Dollar Dash

Dollar Dash offers a wide range of fun weapons to slow down opponents and steal their money. There are three different categories of weapons and there is a slot for one each per category. Permitting only one action weapon per category has players weighing their options on what is most useful in each scenario – should they use the long-range snowball in effort to free up a slot for the medium range boxing glove, or should they hold onto the snowball to attack from afar? Choices are tough, but the competitive factor always looms. This may be a bit different to what many are used to from other games, but we found out that this system is the most fun for a fast-paced arcade game.

The three different categories have their advantages in combat and defense:

Offensive weapons can be fired or thrown at an opponent in front of the player. Some of them are short-ranged while others encompass the entire level. Most offensive weapons have multiple charges, so testing the effects of each is essential to for the best strategy.

Defensive Weapons can be dropped to the floor to attack opponents in pursuit. Most of them are traps that trigger when someone runs across them. Defensive weapons are superb when playing Save the Safe mode – players can be on the run from the opposition and lie down oil slicks to have players slide off the level or a portable to have opponents falling to their doom.

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