Soulcaster II

When Xbox Live Arcade launched in 2004 on Microsoft’s debut console, six titles well-known for their arcade roots appeared on the service at a fraction of retail cost. After Xbox Live Arcade re-launched on Xbox 360, the “Arcade” titles being released had a meager size limit of 50MB and retained the trend of being quick, shallow experiences. Today, some downloadable titles earn more critical attention than major blockbusters and may even reach Microsoft’s mandated size limit of 2GB.

“Now is an excellent time for high-quality, original, specific, relatively low-priced games, and I think this will continue for the foreseeable future,” said Greg Kasavin, writer and designer at SuperGiant Games. “Though it’s very difficult to make games, it’s never been easier due to the digital platforms and free tools out there these days.”

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Josiah Renaudin from our sister site PSNFans recently had the chance to chat with MagicalTimeBean founder Ian Stocker. Ian is the man behind the hit Xbox Live Indie Games SoulCaster I & II and the recent success story Escape Goat.

Josiah talks to Ian about how he got into making games, how the process of making a game for XBLIG works and what might be in store for MagicalTimeBean in the future. If you want to keep up to date with what Ian is doing you can check out MagicalTimeBean’s website or follow him on twitter @MagicalTimeBean. If you haven’t checked out his games before then why not download the trials, SoulCaster, SoulCaster II and Escape Goat.

Please subscribe, rate and review the podcast on iTunes. We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question. We are also now on Stitcher, so you can stream the show on your smartphone, give it a go!

[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastMagicalTimeBeanInterview.mp3[/podcast]

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You may, or rather should have heard of the Indie Games Winter Uprising by now. But if you haven’t here’s what you need to know. The developers behind the Indie Games on Xbox Live Marketplace decided they wanted an event in the vein of a “Summer of Arcade” and other such promotions. Resigned to the fact Microsoft wasn’t going to make one for them they took it upon themselves to do so. Thus the Winter Uprising was born, originally intended to take place during the first week of December it has now been extended to include the entire month.

We here at XBLAFans are passionate in our feeling that the Indie Games section deserves more recognition than it currently receives. As such we have created this hub for the games that will be included in the Uprising. Here you’ll find a brief description of the games, a link to the developers website, screenshots, trailers, pricing (if available), and for those games already released there will be download links and reviews.

The games are being released pretty irregularly, with several having already been delayed due to last minute bugs so be sure to check back often and see what’s new! Read More