12 years ago
PAX East: DuckTales Remastered: The sound of nostalgia
If PAX East 2013 is remembered for anything, it will undoubtedly be the contagion that swept the showroom floor. It wasn’t some handshake-induced strain that whipped through attendees and across the vast reaches of the internet. It was something far more potent: the long-dreamed resurrection of DuckTales and its infectious tune, spreading with airborne hums and whistles. By day’s end nowhere was safe, and among the eager mobs huddled around Capcom’s display booth hoping to catch a glimpse of their childhoods, it was ground zero.
When sounds of the infectious DuckTales Remastered theme song caught the ear of XBLAFans, we naturally investigated. We were intent on finding the culprit, daring to believe rumors of the nostalgic possibilities at the end of the line. What we found was Capcom Senior Product Marketing Manager Matt Dahlgren manning an arcade machine surrounded by toe-tapping onlookers and a flurry of questions.
“The whole game has been built from the ground up. They did start with the 8-bit version but everything’s been layered on top of it,” said Dahlgren, speaking of developer WayForward Technologies. “It has hand-drawn and animated sprites – the game looks like the cartoon.”
12 years ago
Indies need someone they can trust for usability and QA testing — How about The Behemoth?
Somewhere in San Diego there exists a couple of buildings. They’re buildings with glass windows and a soft feeling, or so I’ve been told. They’re buildings that are “not too intimidating” when compared to other species in their particular building genus. At least, that’s how The Behemoth President John Baez described them to me at the tail end of a roughly 32-minute interview that took place in Boston last weekend during PAX East. Baez and Level Designer Ryan Horn shared their thoughts on several topics: BattleBlock Theater, what the studio would like to see from the next-gen version of Xbox Live Arcade and the developer’s thoughts on working with Microsoft.
Yes, we managed to cover a lot of ground. This despite the fact that we were sitting comfortably in folding chairs set up in a largely unoccupied space behind the booth over which hung a large arrow bearing a single word: “Behold.” What precisely the attention of PAX attendees was being called to may not have been initially palpable to the first-timers among them, but then again, nor was it to the XBLAFans crew when Horn and Baez — the latter fielding an increasing percentage of the questions we asked the two men — began talking about video game prototypes.
Our attention, as it turned out, was being directed towards those two buildings. Or rather, what goes on inside their walls.
They’re not buildings in which the developer makes games, mind you. They are buildings in which the developer tests games to see if they work. Interestingly, one of the games that has been analyzed there isn’t property of The Behemoth — it’s property of fellow successful indie studio Supergiant Games. And at some point this summer, the iOS version of Bastion will lose the distinction of being the only game from another developer to be put through its paces by The Behemoth. The studio will begin using its pair of non-development buildings to investigate whether or not all manner of foreign games work in the manner that their designers intended them to, and whether or not that’s the way they should work.
The Behemoth will task those working inside the friendlier-than-most-of-their-kind buildings with providing quality assurance (QA) and usability lab services to fellow independent game developers. One indie should help another indie. This type of help, however, will come with a price tag — and not a discounted one.
12 years ago
Sanctum 2: beauty and the beasts
“To take what everybody loved about Sanctum and elevate it,” Reverb Publishing’s Ted Lange says, speaking to the motivation behind Coffee Stain Studios’ upcoming sequel. Lange is leaning comfortably in his chair, discussing Sanctum 2 with XBLAFans in a small white room on the second floor of a San Francisco gallery. As point man for the game, you would expect a flurry of information and glossy rhetoric about the many wonderful things that are in store. But Lange exhibits a calm enthusiasm, content to let the game speak for itself — which says quite a bit.
The original Sanctum released exclusively for PC and Mac markets, garnering praise for its innovative concoction of methodical tower defense and furious FPS elements and selling notably well for an independent venture. Though there were criticisms. Sanctum shipped with only three maps and a similarly restricted number of weapons. There were no connecting threads between each of the maps or explanations for these vibrantly glowing aliens in the first place. Who was this spunky redhead with an arsenal of future-tech? Why must she single-handedly stem the onslaught?
12 years ago
Why Monday Night Combat developer Uber Entertainment ditched XBLA
Monday Night Combat was a favorite amongst the XBLA Fans team. From the summer of 2010 up until some time in 2012 we’d often take a few nights a month to get our game on. But as time went on promises made by MNC developer Uber Entertainment weren’t being fulfilled. Fans didn’t know why. Uber brought the game to the PC, where it received several updates, including a new map, Uncle Tully’s Funland (seen below). Rumors even floated around about the possibility to let players create their own maps using the Unreal Development Kit (UDK).
So why the move? As we reported in June 2011, the Xbox 360 version had more players than the PC version, so why wouldn’t it make sense to continue supporting it? Things got even more confusing three months later when Uber announced that it was dropping support for the game all together in favor of its sequel, Super Monday Night Combat, which was to be a free-to-play PC exclusive. Fans were split on the matter, many supported the struggling developer, while others were outraged.
12 years ago
Serious Sam’s Nathan Fouts loves ‘crazy-ass guns’
We’ve just seen the release of Serious Sam Double D XXL, a game we recommended for its classic shooting action rebuilt into two dimensions. Behind all its artistic style, crazy weapons and even more crazy enemies is one man: Nathan Fouts, owner of indie development studio Mommy’s Best Games. We caught up with him to ask about how he put together Serious Sam Double D XXL, starting from its inception on PC to its massive expansion on Xbox Live Arcade. When we asked how it feels to have the game out and finished, he joked, “I think I’m still ready to go back to sleep!”
Serious Sam’s jump to 2D
Serious Sam is a beloved franchise known for its old-school Doom-esque shooting that relies heavily on strafing and jumping while making players fight off swarms of aliens, monsters and headless kamikaze bombers. Leveraging his PC popularity, Serious Sam has gone on to make numerous cameos on Xbox Live Arcade in both new and classic games. However, they have all been 3-dimensional first-person shooters. How did Fouts score a gig that involved smashing it into two dimensions? As it turns out, “Devolver came to us and said that they were interested in this prospect and that it involved Croteam [the creators] and the Serious Sam franchise,” he explained. “I just about flipped my lid. I couldn’t believe it. [They told me] they liked our stuff and they’d like us to do this indie version.”
XBLA Fans is looking for additional team members
With quarter four and its associated deluge of AAA retail games behind us, XBLA Fans is looking to come out of hibernation. There are a lot of amazing things happening very soon …
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12 years ago
Japanese developer cites Microsoft currency policy as barrier to XBLA development
Much has been made over the last seven years about the high cost of publishing, promoting and patching on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade platform. Last week, G.Rev president Hiroyuki Maruyama (Strania: The Stellar Machine, Under Defeat HD) shared his own thoughts on the platform.
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— ???? ???? (@hiro_maruyama) January 18, 2013
“A strong yen and a weak dollar is very damaging to us because XBLA and DLC are ‘export products.’ That’s why Japanese developers avoid making games for Xbox 360. When we released Strania on XBLA, the rate was 80 yen per dollar. (wry smile) If Japanese people buy our game in MSP, we receive in dollars!”
The dollar has strengthened since then, but the yen still has it beat, with the exchange rate currently sitting at 88.62 yen per dollar. Put in Xbox LIVE terms, 1600MSP ($19.99 US) retails at a rate of ¥2,240 ($24.94 when converted). When the percentage of the sales owed to content creators on a 1600 msp game is disbursed, Microsoft calculates based on $19.99 per copy (the US cost of the points), regardless of how much a consumer paid for the 1600MSP that enabled the purchase.
12 years ago
XBLAFans’ most anticipated 2013 XBLA games: Staff picks
We spent last week ringing off 40 of the year’s biggest upcoming XBLA games. It was a collaborative process that saw the whole XBLAFans team put together a varied list of many of the top titles headed to Microsoft’s downloadable platform in 2013. Today we’re capping off our look forward with our staff members’ picks for the game each of them is aching to play most in the months ahead. You don’t have to agree with any of us, of course, so make sure you jump into the comments and let us know the game you think should be at the top of everyone’s list.
12 years ago
XBLAFans’ most anticipated 2013 XBLA games: Part V
Here we are once again at the start of what’s sure to be another fantastic year of XBLA releases. Each day this week XBLAFans will be rolling out a list of eight of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of 2013. While we can’t possibly cover every single XBLA game planned for this year, we’ll be giving you a varied list of 40 of the most promising titles we expect to release on XBLA in 2013. Once it’s all done, be sure to check back in next Monday when each staff member makes his/her picks for the game he/she is most looking forward to.
Special Forces: Team X
Developer: Zombie Studios
No stranger to downloadable shooters, Zombie Studios’ upcoming Special Forces: Team X capitalizes on its expertise honed crafting Blacklight: Tango Down and Black: Retribution. Don’t be fooled by the colorful cel-shaded visuals; Special Forces targets frenetic third-person team-centric combat with brutal executions and an arsenal of real world weapons. Its dynamic map tile system puts players in control of generating the environment in a pre-round vote, with over a hundred possible combinations of individual tiles to choose. All this coupled with a healthy rank progression and customization system means Special Forces: Team X stands to deliver quite the bang for your buck when it hits XBLA on February 6 for 1200 MSP.