With that said, we will not be celebrating the anniversary today *gasp!* Why? Well, it’s because our “super awesome surprise” has taken longer to prep than we expected and requires another week of baking time. Instead, we’ll be waiting until next Monday, August 23rd to party and at that time will cut into the cake, break out the party hats and be officially celebrating Z0MB1ES‘ success. But if you can’t contain your excitement for another seven days, we won’t hold it against you.

Thanks for the support and watch for a surprising Z0MB1ES surprise next week on Monday, August 23rd.

Update: Check out the nom’tastic looking Z0MB1ES cake that Nate Sieko made!

“The background in Diamonds looks good, but it’s not CD-ROM graphics.”

“You know a 1 MB image will look just as good if it’s on a CD as it will if it’s on the hard drive?”

“Well, it’s still not CD-ROM graphics.”

When the term “Flash Games” gets thrown around to describe anything on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel (and, ugh, yes, The Dishwasher, which, for the last effing time, is an Arcade title, thankyouverymuch), I am reminded of Andrew and CD-ROM graphics.  It’s basically the guy who has seen one thing, seen another thing, and, with scant knowledge of, well, anything else, has decided that they are the same.  Adventure game on a CD?  That’s CD-ROM graphics.  2D small scope game?  That’s a Flash Game.

The more logical aspect of the argument is that Flash games are free, so why pay for Xbox Indie Games of [apparently] equal or lesser value?

Well (obvious setup here), they’re not of equal or lesser value.  Content aside (and sure, there’s some questionable quality on XBLIG), let’s talk specs:

• I don’t like playing games on a keyboard, unless it’s a mouse+keyboard shooter.  XBLIG means you’re using an Xbox360 controller; Flash means you’re using a keyboard and/or mouse.
• XBLIG is multiplayer-friendly.  Most games that can support 4-player couch coop (like Z0MB1ES!) do; some support multiplayer on Xbox Live (like ZP2K9!).  I can’t speak for all of Flash, but couch coop is out (no-brianer) and when there is a multiplayer effort, it seems like it’s part of a larger business effort, which means we’re going to be paying that value in one way or another (advertising, sneaky advertising, and maliciously sneaky advertising)
• XBLIG games get to use Xbox360 hardware.  Z0MB1ES in Flash?  Not possible!  Not all things that take place on a 2D plane are created equal; to port Z0MB1ES to Flash I’d have to cut a bunch of stuff and the game would still run poorly on lower end systems (and, let’s face it, do the God Box builders really make their systems to play Flash games?)
• XBLIG games don’t play in a little box in the middle of a browser surrounded by banner ads.

(And where’s the outrage at having to spend $3 on a Flash-to-iPhone port that crashes all the time?)

Of course, I don’t hate Flash.  I made my site with it.  Heck, I was once technically a professional Flash developer.  I just prefer XBLIG to Flash as a games platform.  XBLIG is a platform that can offer gamers much, much more.

Also, I keep forgetting the definite possibility that all of the “Indie Games = Flash” sentiments are from PS3/PC fanboys and/or disgruntled XBLIG developer hopefuls who gave up because it was “too stupid.”  In which case I shouldn’t care.  Because there are insecurity issues at hand which I am not adequately trained to help with.

And please, someone, slap me a few times the next time I start to read Internet comments.

And holy roundup, Batman:

• Kotaku would pay $1 just for the theme song
• Destructoid calls it this year’s “Still Alive”
• Joystiq thinks it’s “astounding”
• GameGirl is hooked
• GamingAngels was blown away by the awesomeness of the game
• TheXboxDomain liked the awesome music, addictive qualities, great replay value
• IndieGames.com thinks it’s way too much fun for its own good

50,000 downloads, 6,237 ratings and an average score of 4.75, these are freaking excellent numbers.  This was exactly what I had in mind when I heard Microsoft was rebranding XBLCG as Xbox Live Indie Games and switching the price points to let us sell games for $1.  It’s indie! It’s a dollar! It’s the type of thing that would’ve seemed like a really bad idea if you were trying to describe it to someone you wanted to borrow money from!

And to think that Joystiq’s Andrew Yoon just declared that XBLIG is “floundering” (qualified by a 5-month old article, no less).  Guess we can chalk that one up to Playstation fanboyism!  Of course, if Sony created some sort of zero-entry-barrier developer-friendly platform (think XNA), maybe my PS3 could be more than just a protein folding Blu-Ray player… burn!

Ska Studios LLC today announced a truly epic title in the true tradition of epicness with its latest video game entertainment product release, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, set for release August 16, 2009 on the Xbox Live Indie Games for 80 Microsoft Points.

Presenting a familiarly themed, engrossing and stylized “game universe,” then adding zombies to that world, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 aims to completely revolutionize the videogames industry, destroy it in fire a thousand times, and resurrect it as a phoenix sitting on a unicorn atop a shiny city of golden gumdrops.  As we say at Ska Studios LLC, “our games will pique your interest and defenestrate your cats.”

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 represents a culmination of years of intensive psychological research, bleeding edge engineering, and artistic collaboration by over two dozen internationally recognized art houses that may or may not exist, using such technologies as the HYPERMAGIC 3.0 engine to power never-before-seen eye candy and the MEGACORE X parallelization processor for smooth-as-glass presentation.

“You can make a game,” said Ska Studios Lead Engineer Gato Maria Hernando Rodriguez-Rodriguez in an exclusive interview with Chairman Meow Magazine, “but what happens when you put zombies in it?  Nobody knows, but they’ll find out soon.  We’ll all find out soon.”  And, with Xbox Live Indie Games interest flagging under reports of poor sales, difficulty locating the section in the Dashboard while inebriated, and super-smart people saying super-smart things on web forums, the game couldn’t be released at a better time.

“We were following trends and noticed that most people were buying Xbox360s for the DVD player, the Xbox Live Vision Camera, and the Calculator app on XBLIG, but not for games,” Gato continues, “I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES!!1 will change that.  You’ll be playing our game.  It has zombies in it.  Ok bye.”

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 will arrive on Xbox Live Indie Games on August 16, 2009.  It will cost 80 Microsoft Points.

The main criticisms, as far as I can tell are:

• Microsoft hasn’t done enough to market XBLCG
• Microsoft has not made Community Games visible enough in the dash
• Stupid apps are taking all of the sales

So put your money where your mouth is.  If XBLCG is such a tragic platform, why not release on Windows?

Here’s why:

• Visibility: Criticize XBLCG’s lack of marketing all you want, but for any hobbyist developer with minimal connections and no budget, having your game show up on the New Arrivals list ensures that (wild guesstimate) hundreds of thousands of people will see it.  If it looks good, they’ll download it.  If it’s fun, they’ll buy it.  What’s the alternative?  Well, for a Windows release you’d want to send press releases to and review codes to all of the indie game review sites you know, enter IGF, try to generate some buzz here and there, and hope for the best.  Of course, if you make an XBLCG game, you can still send out press releases and enter IGF.  Couldn’t hurt!
• Upselling: Speaking of review codes, how will you generate those?  For my first shareware game, I used a “give me your code and I’ll send you the unlock code” system, which meant I had to check my email every day (back in the era when email wasn’t quite as central to life) and drop everything, launch my “unlock” app, generate a key and send a form email reply.  XBLCG takes care of this automagically.
• Payment Processing: I’m not sure what the scene for this is like today, but when I got started I was using Paypal, which, again, meant a lot of “send me your code and I’ll send you the unlock” nonsense.  There are payment processor sites like digitalriver and Esellerate, but these all have specific systems that are tedious to trudge through, and it’s obnoxious/impossible to make the transition from your site to the payment processor site less than majorly tacky.  None of this is particularly awful, but what is is that in order to buy your game, the user has to find a credit card, enter sensitive information onto a website he or she has never heard of, and maybe even sign up for yet another account.  People don’t like doing this.  On Xbox Live, the account is already there, the credit card is already there, and the points are there.
• Installer/Uninstaller: On Windows I was using Nullsoft Install System.  It worked, but wasn’t pretty: lots of XML editing in Notepad.  I guess Installshield is wonderful, but expensive.  Of course, if you’ve pirated Installshield, you deserve all the bad karma you’ll get on the next point:
• Piracy: You can’t pirate XBLCG games.  Indie games on Windows are, quite tragically, probably the easiest games to pirate.  While EA et al can invest lots of people and money into DRM, Indies can’t, and even when they try, they end up irritating a lot of people and getting cracked anyway.
• Support: For a Windows release, you have to make sure the game runs.  If it doesn’t, the customer will come back asking for a refund.  Or they’ll want you to help them troubleshoot.  Frustration ensues, usually culminating in a refund.  On Xbox360, if it works on yours, it works on theirs.  Wonderfully enough, in the Marketplace, the description closes with a “there are no refunds for this item.”

If you get your game released on a portal (especially something like Steam), you nail some visibility, piracy, support, and payment issues.  But you’ve got to get approved.  Good luck getting on Steam; I assume they put a lot of attention into maintaining a diverse portfolio.  I’ve had a game on GarageGames and one on Reflexive, and both did pretty poorly.

So what about all the lack of marketing and abundance of craptastic apps on XBLCG?  XBLCG gets compared to the iPhone App Store a lot.  So why shouldn’t we see “there’s an app for that” ads from Microsoft? Well, it’s the economy, stupid.

Let’s say you buy an iPhone.  It makes calls.  It plays music.  And hey, I can’t believe this, I can play Tower Defense! Tower Defense, nay, an army of Tower Defense games, on a phone is a new, exciting phenomenon!  Everyone loves Tower Defense games.  Now, on iPhone, they’re playable on a touch screen, they’re cheap, and they look gorgeous.  It’s a step up.

Now try releasing a tower defense game on XBLCG.  The games machine that’s capable of pumping out 60 fps of glorious, high def  Command and Conquer or Halo Wars at 720p can also play… Fieldrunners.  Heck, you don’t even get the coolness of pinching to zoom.  It’s a step down.

This is why those stupid XBLCG apps that everyone loves to blame are doing well.  They hit markets that aren’t touched by the rest of the platform: painting, music creation, (ugh) massage apps, drum kits, etc.  In the Xbox360 market of painting, music creation, massage and drum kits, these apps are a step up.

And someone’s got to say it: all of the poor marketing, poor visibility and app overcrowding in the world can’t doom a game that wasn’t fun to play in the first place.  Make better games, people!  All of this blaming nonsense just hurts everyone, and tragically generates more blogroll buzz than any yay-XNA articles do.

Final word?  Quit complaining.  XBLCG is a great platform, but it’s not a magical money generator (unless you make yet-another-massage-game).  Just making a game does not guarantee you success and wealth and fame and happiness, but putting that game out on XBLCG definitely gives you a sweet head start.

Right now it’s… well… not the least popular game, but its still getting pummeled in the popularity contest by Garrett the Slug. You don’t have to buy it (though it costs the same as 5 64×64 images), but at least give it a download.  My image is on the line.

Also, xnPlay is all over it.

If anything, I guess this should go to show how easy it is to get a game on XBCG.

It’s as complicated as:

• Make a game that doesn’t crash (bonus: make a game that doesn’t suck!  For pointers, buy my book!)
• Make a box art image, take 4 screenshots, make a thumbnail, make a movie (optional)
• Upload the game
• Wait for it to pass review (as long as it doesn’t crash and doesn’t contain colons, racism, or Nazis, this should be painless)
• Wait for it to go LIVE!

Granted, the first step is the most time consuming, but traditionally in the PC gaming world, the other steps are the biggest hassle (submitting to random portals, setting up payment processing services, etc).  This means that hobbyist game development, a hobby which is traditionally 90% fun, is now 98% fun and console-deployable.  Amazing.  Go nuts!

One big difference between the previous shot: it’s 720p, baby!  Survival Crisis Z, by contrast, was good old VGA–640×480, and the previous SCX shot was 800×600 (the XNA default).  Get with the times, James!

This does remind me–I need to add shadows under characters.

Here are the big ones:

1. How do I make games?
   I’d definitely recommend taking any classes if they’re available, whether you’re in high school or college. Though XNA is all C#, learning C, C++, or Java will still help to familiarize you with the basics of programming.

   Also, my advice to everyone is always this: start small! Not to sound arrogant, but The Dishwasher is basically the culmination of 6 years of hobbyist game development experience; if you’ve only got a week of experience you’re not exactly going to be able to match the caliber of The Dishwasher. And forget 3D altogether if you’re just starting. Basically, if you set out to make something that would’ve been considered cool in the 80′s, you’ve got a fighting chance.

2. Is The Dishwasher coming out for Windows?
   There aren’t any plans currently, for a few reasons. The biggest reason, of course, is because Microsoft is publishing it as an XBLA title, so I’m going to focus on that. Also, the game plays like rubbish with a keyboard, and adding support for multiple gamepads is always ugly in my opinion. The Dishwasher is made for the Xbox360 controller (though I could see the DualShock working). I also think PC piracy is a really, really, really big problem.
3. When is The Dishwasher coming out?
   When it’s done! The XNA team and I are both breaking new ground by adding all sorts of new functionality, and there certainly is a lot to do. I’m 99.9% certain it’ll be out in 2008, but beyond that, I can’t really say anything, because it would amount to nothing more than a politician’s promise.

So there you have it!  I’m always happy to answer questions, so keep ‘em coming!

From the article:

Far from a typical retail boxed product, The Dishwasher is a side-scrolling beat-’em-up with a penchant for Kill Bill-style blood geysers, shambling zombies, and maniacal robots. Inspired by equal parts jeet kune do master Bruce Lee, poseur Italian restaurants, and Ryuhei Kitamura’s epic Versus, The Dishwasher in many ways acts as a proof of concept for Microsoft’s ambitious service and gives players the chance to channel their inner butcher while bounding off walls and mashing on buttons in the process.

And then I say cool things like:

GS: In terms of ease of use, does XNA have the potential to be the magic bullet for bringing game design and development to the masses? As in, are we going to see a lot of average joes making quality, fun games?

JS: Game development is still an extremely ambitious venture, so depending on your definition of “the masses,” we may never see this type of magic bullet. Otherwise, a guy like me is probably always going to be the best you can hope for as an average joe. I went to school for computer science while working a series of crappy jobs and have always dreamed of making video games but have no industry experience or special game development education.

Then I checked the GameSpot forum on this, and found some excellent nuggets of InterWeb wisdom; some good ones:

1 of the best Arcade games out

I want to buy it now but that not a option. Dam you Microsoft, Dam you.

The one drawback to this game being so amazing

Is that every Wed. until it releases will be a disappointment no matter what comes out.

…and some not so good ones:

This is the most hot topic game in the world.

It might as well be called Johnny the Homicidal Douchebag.

There are a lot more good ones then there are not so good ones, so I’m really pleased (and I’m getting a little better at accepting criticism).  It seems like people are really hungry for some XBLA content that isn’t classic arcade games or cutesy casual games.  Not like there’s anything terrifically wrong with classic arcade games and cutesy casual games (I like a little Boom Boom Rocket and Metal Slug 3, thankyouverymuch), but I think people are pretty agreed about the desire for interesting new content, even if it is “hot topic.”

And for the record, I prefer Salvation Army for my counterculture wardrobe over Hot Topic.  Think I can afford Hot Topic?  I’m still poor, you know.