Schizoid Launches In July

I've been waiting so long to tell everyone this.  It's official!  Schizoid is done, it's through certification, we have a release date on Xbox Live Arcade, and it's in July.  (Exactly when in July I'm not supposed to tell.)

If you don't know what Schizoid is head on over to http://www.torpexgames.com and check out the news. 

I'm incredibly happy with it.  Never have I worked with such a concentrated pool of talent and experience:
James Chao
Richard Garfield (yes, *the* Richard Garfield)
Skaff Elias
Greg Taylor
Brian Luzietti
Chip Brown (couldn't find a good link for him, and he's not a game developer, but he is a god over at Adobe)
and my partner and producer Bill Dugan.

And the XNA Game Studio people were awesome as well - this being the first XNA Game Studio game to launch on Xbox Live Arcade.

And never before this have I been able to take so much time to iterate and polish.  Up until this game, it's always been, "Well, it's got problems, but we've got a movie release to beat," or, "Well, it's got problems, but the publisher isn't going to pay us anymore and we're out of money."  This time, there's nothing in there I don't stand by - it may not be a game for everybody, but if there's something in there you don't like, it's in there because we liked it, not because we ran out of time and punted.

So, woo!  Now I can't wait for it to launch, so I can play it with some of you.

Comments

[Brett Douville]

You know, I might actually buy a 360 for this...

Congrats, man!

[Frank Cifaldi]

Congratulations! I've been looking forward to your game, and I can't wait to play it.

[Jay K.]

Congratulations! I can't wait to play it. Having been through a few game releases myself, I can't say that I've ever had the privilege of waiting until *I* was done with a game before it shipped. Absolutely stupendous. Now maybe you can go help with Duke Nukem Forever. :)

[Joel Martinez]

Congrats! I bet it's a huge weight off you and your team's chest :-)

[Scott Perry]

"This time, there's nothing in there I don't stand by - it may not be a game for everybody, but if there's something in there you don't like, it's in there because we liked it, not because we ran out of time and punted."

wow, it's not often you get to say that… I'll bet it feels great.

excellent work, I bet it's going to rock.

[Mark Nau]

w00t!

[Tom Armitage]

Congratulations, Jamie (et al)! Looking forward to seeing it.

[Paul Evans]

Congratulations, I look forward to playing it :-)

[Jeffool]

Kudos, congrats, and good job sir!

[Clinton Keith]

Congratulations! I can't wait to buy a copy. You used Scrum on the project, correct? ;)

[jvalenzu]

Congratulations!

[Jamie Fristrom]

Oh, yes, and let's not forget Brett Douville (http://www.brettdouville.com/), who came in for a week near the end to help kill bugs.

As for Scrum, no - we did use some stuff from Mike Cohn's *Agile Estimating And Planning* (planning poker and a long term burndown chart - our 'release' was the actual release-release: submit to cert), and there was a period of time where Richard & Skaff were co-goal-owners - up until we started devoting almost all our time to passing cert - and we did TDD, but we didn't do sprints or daily meetings. There was a time when I wanted to do Scrum but didn't know how to make it work with our distributed team who all worked different hours, most of whom were part-time and some of whom couldn't even do a daily conference call.

[Sergio]

Congrats!!! You have such a talented and passionate group, so I wish you tons of success on your latest effort!

[greggman]

Congratulations! Take a well deserved break :-)

[Benjamin Hoyt]

Congrats, Jamie. I know you've been killing yourself on this project for a LONG time. I can't wait to see it.

[Brian L.]

I think I finally found a reason to purchase an Xbox360.