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Update: Following the publication of the original story below, Pocketwatch Games’ Andy Schatz responded to XBLA Fans’ requests for comment about working with Microsoft again. As he originally stated, Schatz hasn’t made any final platform decisions for Armada just yet.

“The deciding factor will be based on ho[w] closely we can interact with our fans and whether the platforms enable iterative development,” Schatz wrote in an email to XBLA Fans.

“We’ve been able to much better serve fans and interact with our community with the extremely easy process of rolling out updates through Steam,” he elucidated. “That’s not something I’ll be willing to give up for a game that may require constant balance changes and content additions!”

Gamers may remember that Microsoft was repeatedly lambasted by many in the independent game development community over the past few years due to its bug fix and game update policies. Those developers who complained were upset with issues surrounding costs, update sizes and certification processes and lead times. Some developers, like Uber Entertainment, went as far as to release subsequent games on platforms other than XBLA after feeling burned by Microsoft their first time releasing a digital game on Xbox 360.

Original Story: The next project from Pocketwatch Games, the two-man team behind 2013’s co-op heist title Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine, is a real-time strategy game codenamed Armada. Pocketwatch’s Andy Schatz stated in a blog post that the success of Monaco, which sold more than 750,000 copies total despite only selling about 36,000 on XBLA as of last month, has put the studio in a position to create whatever it wants. What it wants is an RTS optimized for gamepad controls.

“With apologies to those devs who have tried, no one has ever made an RTS that played well on a dual analog gamepad. We’re gonna be the first to do it right,” Schatz promised. That does not, however, mean the game will be restricted to only a gamepad. Schatz goes on to write that playing Armada should be as enjoyable with dual analog as it is with a keyboard and mouse.

And there’s more to the game designer’s desire to create an RTS than just showing predecessors how it’s done with a controller. There’s his passion. Schatz has a love/hate relationship with the RTS genre and wants to put his own spin on it, which means designing a game in which “strategy is creative and complex and the micro is accessible and fun.”

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Microsoft has apparently been listening to the chorus of press and gamer voices denouncing the current state of digital downloads on its next-gen Xbox One console. Xbox Community Manager Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb yesterday revealed in a Reddit thread discussing Titanfall digital download release times that his company plans to improve the situation — eventually.

“A better digital experience is on the roadmap.” wrote Hryb. “Preloads, unlock by time zone etc. are all things we want to roll out for Xbox One. Those features are simply not available yet.”

Some Xbox One owners residing in timezones running ahead of Pacific Standard Time have expressed their dismay at having to wait until the clock strikes midnight on the West Coast prior to being able to download Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall onto their consoles. The game will not be available digitally until the wee hours of the morning for many, while it can be purchased at brick and mortar retail stores at 12:01 am local time at participating midnight release stores throughout North America.

In addition, the Xbox One does not provide gamers with the option to pre-purchase and pre-download games to their consoles over Xbox Live, a feature that’s been made available for games on rival digital distribution platforms such as Steam, Origin and the PlayStation Network. Microsoft temporarily displayed a message on Titanfall‘s Xbox Games Store stating that the ability to pre-download would be made available for the game, but it removed the message shortly after and stated that it was posted in error.

Hryb stated in yesterday’s Reddit thread that there is currently no time frame available for when the Xbox One’s digital experience will be upgraded to include pre-downloading and other heavily requested features. He said that the public will learn more about the new digital experience “as soon as [Microsoft has] the proper story to tell.”

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This isn’t a new argument; it’s been made before. Chances are high that you’ve made it yourself once or twice. Recent events, however, warrant revisiting it. Microsoft teased us all last week with a feature that the Xbox One should have had at launch. It told us that we’d all have the ability to do on Xbox One what we’ve enjoyed doing on digital distribution platforms like Steam and Origin for years: pre-purchase and pre-download a game prior to its release. Then, in a move that felt like some sort of cruel joke, Microsoft took it all back.

Just kidding, you guys

“Whoops, our bad. Sorry if you got excited, but we’re not actually going to let you do that thing we said we’d let you do that we know you want us to let you do,” Microsoft said in a statement after removing the pre-download option for first-person shooter Titanfall.

OK, no, it didn’t actually say that — but it might as well have. Here’s what Microsoft actually told told Polygon of its blunder: “The pre-purchase offer page was posted in error. We apologize for any confusion.”

The Xbox.com page for Titanfall, which releases on March 11, temporarily had the digital pre-download option that has been so conspicuously absent from digital Xbox purchase pages to date. It was quickly removed, and now Microsoft is apologizing for dangling that carrot out there before yanking it back and locking it away. Polygon captured the official explanation for how pre-downloading on Xbox would work before Microsoft “fixed the glitch.”

Pre-purchase: You will be charged the full price immediately for this pre-purchase. Xbox One game expected to release on March 11th, 2014. You may download the game from Xbox Live before then, but it will not be playable until after 12:01 AM PST on the release date in your country.

For a brief time, at least, it looked like gaming digitally on Xbox was now going to be a little bit more like gaming digitally on PC. It looked like it was going to have something that has become so commonplace in PC gaming that it’s no longer a value-added feature; it’s an expected part of the service that is taken for granted. Unfortunately, unlike those freewheeling distributors of digital PC games, Microsoft has interests other than its own to consider.

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Puzzle platformer Constant C will arrive on Xbox Live Arcade on March 12 for $9.99, according to an update on the game’s official Japanese website. Regular XBLA Fans reader …
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There was a time when playing a single-player game meant playing alone and playing a multiplayer game meant mandatory exposure to the (often annoying or offensive) thoughts of random players on the other end of Xbox Live. That time ended during the last console generation thanks to an Xbox Live feature that caused many to pick Xbox 360 over PlayStation 3 as their choice system for multiplatform games: party chat.

Fixing the problem

The introduction of party chat to the Xbox Live equation was a game changer. No longer did the desire to play an online multiplayer game mean that players would — almost without fail — be subjected to nonstop barrages of insults streaming into their ears from other players. No longer was getting into a game with friends and communicating with them while playing a hassle. No longer was it necessary to remember to inform friends how cool that single-player game you were playing was and why it was so cool after you played it. Up to seven of your friends were now right there with you in a party, and nobody else was getting in the door without you first putting their name on the guest list. You now had your own private party, and damn if it wasn’t fun.

So improved is the party chat experience over the only option that preceded it (chatting with random individuals) that I now refuse to play online multiplayer games without first entering into a private party. Even when no one on my friends list is available to play I still start my own private party, just to keep the cacophony of the internet’s worst amateur comedians and trash talkers out of my ears. The multiplayer experience is exponentially improved thanks to Xbox Live party chat, and, until very recently, no other home console has been able to compete with it.

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Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine has been purchased more than half a million times, developer Pocketwatch Games revealed on Twitter earlier today. Unfortunately for Microsoft and fans of indie games on Xbox platforms, a paltry 36,000 of those sales took place on Xbox Live Arcade, with the remainder coming from the PC, Mac and Linux versions of Monaco.

The multiplayer stealth-action title was first released on PC in April of last year; an Xbox 360 release followed in May after a delay resulting from a bug that popped up during the Microsoft certification process pushed back the console version. The game’s PC, Mac and Linux versions were able to achieve sales to date of approximately 484,000 at least in part do to its inclusion in various Steam sales and its recent appearance as the bonus game in the Humble Indie Bundle 11.

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Last week, you may have caught our five-part feature looking ahead at as many XBLA games and their Xbox One brethren as we could possibly cram into one week’s worth of articles. If you missed it, go ahead and check it out right now. Start here.

All done with that? Great. Now you know what’s coming. What you may not know, however, is which of those games you should be looking forward to the most. Don’t worry — XBLA Fans has you covered. Read on to find out what upcoming XBLA and Xbox One games select members of our team are most looking forward to getting their hands on. Once you’re done, let us know which ones you’re most excited for in the comments section. We’re asking you to read through our many thoughts on the big releases ahead, so we figure the least we can do in return is to read yours as well.

Strider

Ryan Thompson, Contributor — When Capcom first announced that it was releasing a modern Strider title, my first thought was to listen to a track by game composer Jake Kaufman entitled “Dracula Man X2 Alpha Turbo.” Kaufman was clearly having fun when he created the track, giving one potential answer to what the Castlevania franchise’s music would sound like if Capcom had developed it instead of Konami. With the imminent release of Strider on the 18th of February, Capcom is poised to give something of an official answer to the same question Kaufman must have asked himself — what would Castlevania be like if Capcom released it instead?

First of all, it would have the same level of polish as the best of Capcom’s 2D games, with controls that never fail, leaving players without excuses for failure in the tradition of both the original Strider for NES and the more famous Mega Man games. Second, it appears that, judging by the trailer, there would be more emphasis on combat and slightly less on exploration, though that might be just the frantic flow of activity in a short video speaking. Finally, as Kaufman hints in his tribute, this game would come with a soundtrack worthy of the rest of Capcom’s 2D oeuvre.

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We’re late, and it seems that’s become somewhat of a trend for us lately. Our Game of the Year awards weren’t doled out until January, and now our look forward at the XBLA and Xbox One XBLA-type games of 2014 is just making its way to you now in February. You were on your own when it came to planning out January’s releases, but now it’s time for our annual look ahead at the top downloadable games likely to arrive on an Xbox platform during the (remainder of) the year ahead. Read on to find out what you can expect out of Xbox over the next (not quite) 365.

Developer: RedLynx

First announced by Ubisoft at E3 2013 and heading to Xbox One and XBLA at an unannounced future date, Trials Fusion is the next game in RedLynx’s physics-based motorcycle racing series that found no small measure of success on Xbox Live Arcade. The first XBLA take on the series, Trials HD was extremely popular due to the fierce competition it inspired among players to hit the best runs on each of its 50 courses. That was nothing. RedLynx followed it up with Trials Evolution, which added an in-depth track editor and turned the franchise into a true obsession for its many fans.

With Trials Fusion‘s announcement trailer showing off player failure, it’s evident that RedLynx once again intends to scratch the competitive itch inside gamers as vehemently as motorcycle tires scratching the dirt of a Trials course.

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When developer 17-Bit’s Skulls of the Shogun released in early 2013, it did so with a light, humorous script that mixed pop culture references with a near-constant string of jokes of the developer’s own creation. According to a recent interview of studio CEO Jake Kazdal by Pocket Gamer, however, the original plan was for the game to have a very different tone. The plan called for more austerity and less clowning.

That all changed when original scribe Ben Vance — who also served as the game’s programmer and designer — penned a joke-filled draft that clashed with 17-Bit’s more restrained vision of the game. Vance’s approach resonated with other members of the team, and everyone began slipping even more humor into his script during the game’s protracted development cycle.

“Since the game was in development for so long, everyone involved kept throwing in jokes and massaging the script,” Kazdal told Pocket Gamer. “And then we got a complete editing pass from localisation company, 8-4, where script doctors Mark MacDonald and Alan Averill just nailed it.

“We originally were going to have a much more stoic, serious script, but people responded so well to the goofy offbeat humor we had stubbed in we just decided to run with it. We wanted to entertain players, while reinforcing our stereotypes, and just rolled with it.”

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The year 2013 has come and gone, and you know what that means: XBLA Fans dropped the ball on getting our Game of the Year awards out during the same calendar year the games released. Apologies for our tardiness, but we’re here today to make it up to you with our awards for the very best XBLA games to release in 2013.

After eight long and (mostly) wonderful years on the market, the Xbox 360 saw the beginning of its end in 2013 when its successor, the Xbox One, launched in November. Of course, Microsoft’s last-gen console and Xbox Live Arcade platform weren’t about to go quietly into that good night. No, major releases continued throughout the year for Xbox 360 XBLA, and that trend looks to continue well into 2014 and possibly even beyond. That meant that picking out the best of the best XBLA games released last year was every bit as difficult for us as it’s been any other year. Games like Charlie Murder and Skulls of the Shogun were strong competitors that just missed landing on our list of 2013’s best.

But enough about the games that didn’t make the cut. Let’s get down to what you came here for: the best XBLA games of 2013. Read on for XBLA Fans’ picks and let us know what your favorites were and which 2014 game you think will be worthy of being named Game of the Year at the end of next December.

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