Xbox 360 Indie games

[Charlie]

Yeah, they take the piss. The time limit for Biology Battle is about 60 seconds.

[Oscar]

The time limit for Community Game trials is 4 minutes and was set by Microsoft. Alot of developers are angry about this too, as demo'ing a non-trivial game well in 4 minutes is extremely difficult.

There is no limit on amount of times you can re-try each trial however, and Microsoft have stated that the time limit may change as they analyse data and people's reactions!

Thanks again to everyone trying Artoon!

- Oscar

[Womble9]

The time limit for Community Game trials is 4 minutes and was set by Microsoft. Alot of developers are angry about this too, as demo'ing a non-trivial game well in 4 minutes is extremely difficult.

There is no limit on amount of times you can re-try each trial however, and Microsoft have stated that the time limit may change as they analyse data and people's reactions!

Thanks again to everyone trying Artoon!

- Oscar

Hmmm a 4 mins then eh . It really does need changing or to be able to be set by the developer as on some titles it seemed ok but on other's I'd only just read the "how to play" part and started the game only for it to be stopped!! Hopefully Microsoft will act though I'm suprised they set it at that in the 1st place.

[ChrisF]

Well done Oscar! http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=320077

[Persocom]

Wow I was playing that game the other night and loved it so much, I'll soon be splashing down the 400 points.

I don't have many other good things to say about the xna community games though. I think it quite pathetic to ask 400 points for most (yes, around 90&#37 of games available to download sofar.

I remember playing Net yaroze games on my playstation. Almost all of them were fun. This xbox equivalent is like the iphones app store. I seriously hope more games like Oscar's effort begin to appear.

[toythatkills]

Mmm, there is a massive difference in quality between some of the games. Some of them (Artoon included) should be XBLA games, and then at the other end of the spectrum someone, in the year 2008, is trying to charge us for a shameless copy of Pong - how that made it through the peer review I'll never know.

[Paulos G]

There are now over 100 Community Games games available. I'm slowly working my way through all of them.

Just bought my first game last night: Hexothermic. The trial doesn't time out (although it does restart the game once you get to a certain stage). Found myself playing it repeatedly so thought I may as well buy the full thing.

Unsurprisingly, the game is based on a hex layout. There are five different colours of electrons (purple; blue; green; yellow; red) placed around the grid. When you select an electron it moves one up the spectrum (eg: green becomes yellow). When you select a red electron it explodes sending out six new electrons and thereby changes the neighbouring electrons. With some cunning placement at the start you can detonate one red electron and clear the whole screen.

There are four game modes: Marathon (the only one available in the demo); Timed; Survival; Puzzle. Well worth 200 points I reckon.

[ChrisF]

Can I pimp my mates game please? Ultratron... http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/ga...-d80258550152/

[toythatkills]

What's it about and that? I've stopped bothering with the community games because the incredible amount of rubbish makes it too hard to find owt good.

[ChrisF]

Not even tried it myself yet (he told me it was available this morning), but knowing him, it'll be a shooter. Every other game he's ever done is a shooter... http://www.pumpkin-games.net/ (also for Mac and Windows)

Ultraton:

The last human has been slain by evil killer robots. You are the one remaining humanoid battle droid. Your mission is to avenge the human race, and destroy the four bots of the Apocalypse - Ieiunitas, Bellum, Lues and Letum! Power up your droid with ever more powerful weaponry as you blast your way through the levels, avoiding Chasers, Turrets, Spawners, Minelayers, bombs, and bullets!

Doesn't help in the slightest does it?

[Paulos G]

It has a bit of a Robotron vibe to it IIRC.

[PaulCunningham]

Yup, tribute to Robotron - originally written by Puppy Games. Xbox version is pretty much a direct port (with a simple coop mode).

Titan Attacks should hopefully be coming next.

[ChrisF]

Hey Paul! Welcome

[toythatkills]

There's a Hangman game. It's rubbish, yet at the same time utterly compelling. I had to force myself to stop playing it. Demo allows only four letters per word, so each round was over in 30 seconds, this may have contributed.

It turns out I would definitely buy a Hangman game on XBLA given the chance, though.

There's some hilarity in its definitions, it offers an explanation of what every word means, yet only includes a single definition, and more often than not it's some obscure meaning that no one really uses, rather than something blindingly obvious.

[Ouenben]

I'm finding myself lacking the energy to download and try all the trials to find the good from the bad, some are obviously well done and many are obviously poor and although I know i shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, the novel "XBLA: community games" is mostly full of ****e! (maybe Jane Austen wrote it)

The RC aeroplane trial seemed potentially fun but let me down quite severely, (going by the trial so don't know if the full version is different) the camera doesn't follow your plane it just zooms out to show more when you move out of picture, crashing is very boring as just before impact it stops and respawns your plane within a couple seconds, the setting is very boring and lacking, etc.

I've already seen two pathetic cash ins, Fireplace and Vacation (or whatever) the first being a virtual fireplace and the 2nd being a virtual view out on the sea, the pictures are alright but the sound is awful!