Team Train Frontier

Train Frontier Express was developed by Team Train Frontier and released on August 30, 2011 and retails for 240 MSP.  A copy was provided by the developer for review purposes.

So many of us have a childhood love of toy trains.  We let our imaginations run wild with our train sets.  As the train moved along the tracks we would make choo choo noises with our voice.  Sometimes we created fictional disasters that would throw the train off track and have it burst into imaginary flames, but hey, it was all good fun.  If you were one of those kids (including the bout of destruction) then boy is there a video game for you!

Train Frontier Express is one of the titles in the Indie Games Summer Uprising promotion and deservedly so.  Although there really is no “game” here or set of definable goals, it is the closest thing you’ll ever have to a model train simulator on the Xbox 360, and the freedom to share your creations with friends on Xbox Live places this into the top tier category of XBLIG.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself/company/team?

Emoks: We’re a duo; Eric has done all the coding and particles effects for the game, and I worked on the art. We’ve both worked on traditional games for the mainstream market, but had always wanted to try making something on our own and out-of-the-norm.

What made you decide to use the XBLIG platform for your game?

Emoks: It’s accessibility to the console market is what’s drawn me to XNA and XBLIG. Throughout the development process having that Xbox controller in my hands has been a good feeling (D-pad aside), knowing that console readiness was already there.

Eric: If you have a small game with less risk, then XBLIG can make sense as a platform and is a great way to get a game on a console quickly. I had reservations with XNA, since it’s limited to Microsoft platforms. It’s proven a blessing and a curse.

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Indie Games Summer Uprising (IGSU) is here and in full swing. These are the eight games chosen out of 70 that entered, 2 of which you the fans selected. IGSU is a annual promotion to show you the abilities of Indie developers and how diverse the games can be. We here at XBLA Fans have always stood by the XBLIG games and believe that some of the best gems for the Xbox 360 can be found here.

It is because of this belief in the Indie developers that we have put together this piece showcasing all the stars of the IGSU so that you can see them for yourself. We have brought everything to you in just one simple article so nothing is more then a click away. You will find game descriptions, developer website links, download links (once released), review links (once completed), trailers and screenshots.

Make sure to check back with us every so often as we update the article with the rest of the download links (saving you the search) and so you can get our final verdicts on each game.
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