As some of you noticed, the cat's out of the bag. We're actually making a game - Schizoid for Xbox Live Arcade - and we got a couple of great write-ups:
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPa
http://kotaku.com/gaming/gdc07
So - yes - it's what every game developer dreams of. The opportunity to do something that's never been done before...unprecedented levels of creative control...a small, kick-ass team...and without having to go for the housewife market: we're going for a market of people who are, for the most part, better at "Geometry Wars" than we are. So it's still the kind of game we like to play.
Not to mention, since we're using XNA Game Studio, we get to write in a nice, high-level, well-designed language instead of having to continue to live under the shackles of C++.
I'll tell you, though, we were spinning our wheels for a long time before we got here. Starting a company is...impossible.
Anyhow, some of you probably have some questions. Fire away -
we're not talking about the game yet but we can talk about developing
it and getting it approved.
How is the approval process going with Microsoft? A friend of mine started his own company several months ago, and he says Microsoft have been anything but helpful in getting them approved. Maybe he's simply referring to the huge number of TRC equivalents for Xbox Live Arcade? I have no idea..
Posted by: Aaron | March 12, 2007 at 12:17 PM
keep us posted on what you think XNA's strong and weak points are, what you think of the cost of doing "casual" games...
Posted by: davidicus | March 12, 2007 at 07:27 PM
yes, I second the request for info on your thoughts of XNA.
Posted by: Joel Martinez | March 12, 2007 at 08:07 PM
Let me understand that - right now, only the Express edition of XNAGS is available. Does that mean that
1) you have a pre-version of XNAGS Pro?
2) you're using the EE right now, planing to switch to the Pro version when it'll be released?
Anyway, that would be one of the first commercial XNA game - so congrats ! ;)
(XNA is much hyped these day - I must admit that I often contribute to that by posting XNA-related news on gamedev.net but, hey, the platform seems so cool! (at least for indy and hobbyists developers)).
Posted by: Emmanuel Deloget | March 13, 2007 at 10:52 AM
Grats, Jamie! Ping me when it's done, I'll buy it on XBLA. Can't wait to see the finished version :)
Posted by: Gabby Dizon | March 14, 2007 at 12:20 AM