Today, Microsoft announced a new pricing structure for the Xbox Live Indie Games channel (formerly Xbox Live Community Games). Rather than the old 200/400/800 points system (that’s $2.50, $5.00, $10.00 US), the numbers have been updated to 80, 240, and 400 ($1.00, $3.00, $5.00). Only games that are less than 50MB can be priced at $1.00 so ours will most likely be at one of the higher price points, but at least the options are cheaper than they used to be. Hopefully this means more impulse buys. I know I would have bought a few games on there if they had been cheaper.

Also, you can now send out Title Updates for Indie Games much like XBLA and Retail games can do. And last, but not least, developers now get 50 free tokens for their game. This means that 50 people can get a free copy of the game. This is great for sending games to news blogs and such for review, and I’m sure there will be a few contests popping up here and there for these Indie Games.

Looks like Microsoft is getting serious about the indie games channel. Better prices, auto updates, free tokens, and the addition of the rating system that’s coming with the new dashboard update. Can’t wait to get our game finished and on there!

Have you ever wondered what goes into the process of creating the enemies you’ll be fighting in the videogames that you play?  Well you’re probably not going to find out anytime soon, but you can see how WE did it!

Developer Diary #2: The Enemy of My Enemy is A Giant Octopus Wearing A Rainbow Afro
by Joey Rodriguez

Because most games tend to take place in a relatively current or realistic environment they are sometimes limited to enemy choices. Game such as Call of Duty or Medal of Honor take place in specific eras, decades, or years limiting to them to, if taking place in 1943 for instance, German, Japanese, and maybe Italian enemies. And even at that, every other enemy is really just another human with a different look. You’re not fighting Germans and then Molemen, for instance. Their intent is realism.

(continue reading…)

So, for all of you people who aren’t in the loop around here, we’ve been hard at work on our latest game, “Super Ghosts ‘n … Ghosts? : The Movie Colon The Game!”

When we started working on the game we decided that we didn’t want to have to keep anything secret and figured it’d be best to share with the community some of the inner workings.  So, for all of the fan (get it?) out there, you can check out very our first Developer Diary below! We’re hoping that these can be a semi-regular occurrence so make sure to keep an eye out for the next one!

Developer Diary #1: “…and the Octopus had a race car…” – From Idea To…Well…
by Joey Rodriguez

Since Danny started attending Full Sail for videogame programming it has always been a dream of his to finally start making his own game. We had jokingly suggested turning our movie into an over-the-top action game just for kicks. But as we started “pitching” funny ideas to ourselves we started to think that maybe making the game wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Danny could use it as his resume for getting a good job after finishing school, and maybe we could make some money in the meantime. Thus Super Ghosts ‘n … Ghosts?: The Movie Colon The Game! was born.

(continue reading…)