A new game is in the works

Here at Blacklist we've started work on a new game for Xbox 360. There was a slight delay in getting to work on our 4th title because we felt that we stretched our initial game engine to its limit and decided to start from scratch with a new engine. Anyway, for our next title we went back to something that was started about 4 years ago but was shelved due to issues with XNA 1.0. The game... Electric Football!

As a bonus, I'll also mention that price cuts are coming for our first 3 titles. So, if you've been waiting for the prices to drop... they're on the way!

That's all I've got for now.

Oh, before I go for the night....

Origin!

It's our third game... more impressive than Zombie Mania...

It's like Breakout or Arkanoid, but you have 360 degrees of motion with the paddles. The game play is pretty solid and the soundtrack will eat your brain. And... it's almost finished. I expect it to be live within 2 weeks.

Zombie Mania

Zombie Mania was released on the Xbox Live Indie channel a few days ago... It's received only a few downloads and even less in the area of purchases. It makes me wish that Xbox had a was to send actual feedback to the developers (other than the quick 0-5 star reviews). Oh well, I've included the URL for the blog in the game's title screen... maybe some gamers will stop by and tell me what's wrong with the game (maybe it's just the simplicity... PAC-MAN's not for everyone).

Here's a couple screen shots:

Update Coming

I'd like to thank those who have already purchased Heavy Payload... If you've played the game you know the menus need some work, and if you have the full game you might also know that the final arcade mission doesn't load. That will all be fixed soon.

And, as a bonus, 9 more arcade and 9 more advanced missions will be added. Other improvements include controller vibrations, D-Pad controls, cyclical menus, and menu sounds. Unfortunately, getting the update live is a slow process, but should be available next Friday.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and hope the update improves the game for everyone.

Heavy Payload has been approved!

Blacklist's first game (Heavy Payload) has been reviewed and approved by the XNA community. It should be available through Xbox Live Marketplace tomorrow... It's hidden under the new Indie Games channel (which used to be called Community Games). So, go look for it!

Our second game (Zombie Mania) will be available soon as well. Currently, its in the middle of playtesting which shoulod result in a few improvements to the game before its submitted for release. The game itself plays like Pac-Man with zombies!!! But the levels are much larger and have more enemies running around.

We've also started preliminary work on our third (yet to be named) title. The game will be like Breakout/Arkanoid but with the bricks appearing in the center of the screen and the "paddle" will rotate around the bricks instead of just moving back and forth at the bottom of the screen. I'm still not convinced the gameplay will work, but the concept seems to be solid.

Coming Soon...

TO AN XBOX NEAR YOU!

I've posted my first release of Heavy Payload (originally called B17 Flying Fortress) to the Xbox Creator's Club. If it passes the peer review it should be up on Xbox Live in less than a week. I've made some serious updates to the game's graphics and gameplay in the last two weeks so it should be solid. I've posted some new screenshots too!

XNA Issues

OK... XNA and C# are awesome, I'll admit it. I can really see them taking off in a few years.

But...

Why on Earth did the developers decide to use structures for Vectors??? Seriously! You know how much of a pain in the ass structures are? They have to be passed by value (not by reference) so you can't change the value of its members unless you copy the whole structure and pass it back into whatever object contains the vector. Its as stupid as turning off power strips to "conserve energy"... You're gonna save what in a year? The amount that my laptop uses in a hour?

Right...

Another thing I ran into today... Why do I need to call Dispose() on SoundEffectInstances? Can't they just dispose of themselves after the sound stops playing? I understand the idea behind having the whole instance thing, but couldn't there have been 2 different Play() methods? One that returns an instance and one that doesn't (which would automatically dispose of the instance when it stops playing)?

XNA is so close to being great, but I guess its a lot better than DirectX was in its third major release.

Peace.

YOU'VE BEEN BLACKLISTED

Welcome to the blog for Blacklist games. We're a small group of developers creating games for PC, Xbox 360, and Zune using Microsoft's XNA Game Studio.

Our first official game, currently titled B17 Flying Fortress, should appear on the Xbox Creator's Club channel in the next month. B17 Flying Fortress is a retro 2D game resembling Capcom's 1942. The game will have 2 modes of play, 9 levels, and 4 levels of difficulty for a total of 72 different ways to play. The "arcade" mode is what you would expect from a game like 1942; a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up. The "advanced" mode adds a nice twist to the classic game; the player's bomber is always centered on the screen and the world rotates when the player banks left and right. Enemies the player will face depend upon the mission and difficulty selected, but you can expect to encounter the following: Bf109, Bf110, Fw190, Ju88, Me163, Me262, bunkers, tanks, and anti-air guns.

We're hoping to have the game available for download for as little money as possible... $5 USD (or about 400 Microsoft Points). If sales are solid we plan on creating more versions of the game

based on the B24 Liberator and the B29 Superfortress (with A-Bomb?) with better gameplay, better graphics, and better audio. These things cost money and we currently have none.

We also have plans for a few other games in the works; a vehicle combat game, a retro role-playing game, and a Pac-Man clone with a fun twist.

Enjoy!