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[Our own Chris Remo analyzes the surprisingly comprehensive changes made to BioWare's much-awaited sequel Mass Effect 2, wondering if it'll serve as "template... or genre experiment" to games that follow.]

As I played the first few hours of Mass Effect 2, I found myself constantly surprised — not by the early twist which allows for a clean break between the plot of Mass Effect and its sequel, but by how much of the game had been heavily redesigned.

Having now completed the game, I find myself wondering whether BioWare has managed to codify a genre whose relative rarity I have often found odd: the action-game-with-classes-and-dialogue, to coin a clumsy phrase.

Nearly every major player-exposed gameplay system from the first game was considerably tweaked or completely redesigned by the BioWare development team, and nearly all of these changes work to streamline or simplify the game’s overall flow and system management.

The original Mass Effect was described as an action-RPG hybrid, thanks in large part to the inspiration it drew from the currently very fashionable third-person cover shooter genre. Mass Effect 2 moves much farther in the action direction.

The Big Changes

It’s worth listing Mass Effect 2‘s noticeably altered mechanics, because direct sequels released two years later are rarely overhauled this comprehensively. They include the following: experience point gain and leveling, skill trees, mission resolution, combat and cover, squad combat control, equipment management, weapon upgrades, squadmate weapon choices, interplanetary travel, clothing and armor customization, hacking and decryption mini-games, resource management, minor planet exploration, and probably more.

In some cases, systems were effectively removed, such as the standalone inventory system and grenades. And in the PC version of the game, even many of the default key mappings were changed (I don’t have an Xbox 360 version handy to compare).

But it’s not just the up-front systems that have been altered. The game’s mission structure is now much more discretely demarcated. Quests (both main quests and most side quests) are more clearly initiated, and they even end with a “Mission Complete” review screen.

Largely gone are the tapestries of overlapping and often interconnected minor quests set throughout the first game’s enormous Citadel (there’s no comparably rich and populated location in this game), and at least during my playthrough I came across nothing like the snaking bureaucracy- and law enforcement-tinged quest line of Mass Effect‘s Noveria.

In the first game, experience points were littered all around the world, conferred for examining items and locations and completing small standalone quest lines. It was possible to level Shepard up a fair amount by simply exploring. Now, that’s almost all been relegated to missions, which tend to be open-and-shut affairs consisting mainly of extended linear action sequences punctuated by conversation. As a result, while the action parts play much better, I was less invested from a personal perspective.

As a player I thus felt slightly less important to the events of Mass Effect 2 (particularly since the broad plot of “Shepard is part of a covert organization and must save the galaxy from an enigmatic evil” was basically carbon copied, with a different covert organization and a sort-of-different enigmatic evil), but the game did absolutely pay off in spades the effort made to enable character transfers from the first game, with many decision-dependent callbacks.

Playability And ‘Critic-Proofing’

That fundamental approach, overlaid with the game’s many streamlined mechanics, makes Mass Effect 2 move much more briskly. It’s a macro pacing adjustment that’s furthered by action game allusions like the new quick time event-inspired mid-conversation interjection of altruistic or aggressive actions. Ostensibly, that offers more opportunities for players to distinguish their experiences, but it’s hard for me to imagine many people being able to resist punching it in when the prompt is flashing on screen.

There’s also no need to comb through an overcrowded inventory, meticulously swapping weapons, armor, and upgrades around. Once a mission has begun, it tends to be a straight shot to the end, particularly since BioWare managed to eliminate most mid-mission loading times. Experience points aren’t conferred until the mission is complete, so there’s no sudden pause to browse through the squad screen.

Nearly every upgradable piece of equipment applies to the squad as a whole; only the player character has configurable armor; and weapon swapping is almost irrelevant anyway, since nearly every gun is just a directly-upgraded version of another gun of its category. It solves Mass Effect‘s problem of deluging the player with hundreds of nearly-identical items by putting all the characters on much more class-defined and automated paths, with many fewer skills to upgrade.

In a recent Gamasutra interview, BioWare’s Adrien Cho said the team “wanted to make sure that absolutely every issue [critics and players] brought up was addressed.” In that light, the changes make sense; almost all of them result in less hassle. They also decrease the player’s input in how the game is played, at least after the initial class selection.

So are these systemic changes good or bad, on balance? It depends on what you liked (or didn’t) about the first game. If Mass Effect was a sci-fi shooter saddled with excess RPG micromanagement, Mass Effect 2 is the ideal evolution. If Mass Effect was an RPG that tips its hat to third-person action games, Mass Effect 2 may be less satisfying than expected.

Genre Distinctions

There is still, however, a focus on character conversation that, in keeping with BioWare’s design ethic, is far more pervasive than any straight-ahead action game would ever maintain. That’s why, even though I fall on the side of those who would have preferred Mass Effect 2 to patch up its micromanagement rather than largely discard it, and to retain the often mundane but charming urban side quests, the game remains a fascinating — and I think ultimately successful — experiment in genre.

It’s all the more fascinating that this game was spearheaded by a sister team to the group that made Dragon Age: Origins, one of the most consciously intricate and mechanically complex mainstream RPGs to surface in quite some time.

(It isn’t as though every change to Mass Effect 2 points in the same direction; the player character’s armor is enjoyably customizable to a much greater degree than in the first game, even as that capability is removed entirely from party members. And while I initially liked the planet-scanning resource-collecting minigame as one of the game’s few mechanical nods to eggheaded Space Race-era sci-fi, it soon became realistically mind-numbing.)

These genre distinctions are surely irrelevant to many players; if a game is fun, it doesn’t necessarily matter how to describe its genre. But although genre cross-pollination is common, most game designs are still driven by heavily codified boundaries.

I’ve long wondered why there seems to be a requirement in game design that including copious amounts of player-driven dialogue must necessarily be accompanied by traditional RPG systems or the fading puzzle mechanics of graphic adventure games. In some parallel universe, a slightly different Mass Effect 2 wasn’t the result of a gradual reduction of RPG systems from an action-RPG, it was the result of continual layering of accomplished dialogue systems and a class system onto a shooter.

Taking The ‘RPG’ Out Of RPGs?

I haven’t played Final Fantasy XIII, but as far as I can tell from my colleague Christian Nutt’s analysis, BioWare and Square Enix both seem interested in stripping a bit of the RPG out of their RPGs — but they’re doing it in almost entirely different ways that speak to the traditional distillations of their regional genre conventions.

Now, I find myself curious not only about where BioWare will go with Mass Effect 3 — now that BioWare has both justified the cross-game continuity of player choice and planted clear signposts about its design evolution for this series — but whether any other developers will follow in these footsteps. There are plenty of action games with character level systems and upgradable weapons with systems nearly as detailed as Mass Effect 2‘s, but there are effectively none with such a well-integrated, player-affected, and content-heavy dialogue layer.

It’s easy to imagine why. In an age of increasingly costly content creation, there’s no real need for developers of shooters, which get along just fine without lots of dialogue and classes, to bolt on so many extra costs. That’s why we’re in this universe, where Mass Effect 2 is the result of RPG heritage, and not the other way around.

New trends are always driven by initial success, and critical reception suggests Mass Effect 2 is resonating strongly. Still, The Sims is one of the most successful game designs of all time, and there have barely even been attempts to duplicate it. So will Mass Effect 2 serve as the template for the class-based single-player action game with dynamic narrative? Or will it stand as a genre experiment unto itself?

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

Frank Cifaldi, who writes for 1UP and has his own site at Lost Levels, has recently been doing some work collating as many photos as he can find of the Winter 1990 Consumer Electronics Show, back when CES was the biggest trade show for the video-game industry. The results have led to some pretty fascinating discoveries (NEC had a surprisingly enormous booth for what would eventually become the TurboGrafx-16, for one), but that’s not what this column is about.

One page Frank found (from a 1990 issue of Famicom Tsushin) has a photo of some American game magazines, one of which has “PC” on the cover but is otherwise obscured. He showed me the page and asked me what other PC mags existed in 1990 apart from Computer Gaming World. The fact he didn’t know about the existence of PC Games magazine isn’t that surprising to me — it sort of indicates the problems that title had throughout its surprisingly long history.

PC Games’s first issue was published in August 1988 by IDG Publishing, which still had all of its editorial operations way up in Peterborough, NH (pop. 5000) at the time. It was a quarterly that, for the most part, devoted its pages to reviews and buyer’s-guide roundup features. I am guessing that IDG launched the magazine because MS-DOS compatibles were beginning to form a decent-sized marketplace for games and PC World, IDG’s flagship consumer publication, was too “highbrow” and business-oriented to be appropriate for pitching to game publishers as an ad partner.

After a couple of issues, production of PC Games was taken over by IDG’s brand-new office in San Mateo, CA — i.e., the outfit behind GamePro. The mag took on a flashy visual look that aped the GamePro of the day (right down to the crazily-detailed airbrush art on the cover), and GamePro staffers like LeeAnne McDermott, Wes Nihei and Rusel DeMaria contributed content — under their real names, too, instead of persona nicknames.

The result was very eye-catching and definitely unique in the marketplace (Computer Gaming World, the main competition, was extremely text-heavy and academic by comparison), but for whatever reason, the GamePro arrangement didn’t last. PC Games was back to production in Peterborough by the end of 1990, and while it was a bit more colorful than the first few issues, things looked much plainer and more suitable for the mature PC audience.

Slowly PC Games grew with the MS-DOS game audience, finally upping its frequency to eight issues a year in 1993. PC Games published its final issue in late 1993, and in its place, IDG founded Electronic Entertainment, one of many titles around this time (CD-ROM Today and Multimedia World among them) that capitalized on the “multimedia” buzzword craze gripping the PC scene. Inspired more than a bit by Wired, the new mag featured extensive coverage of new tech like virtual reality, cutting-edge PC accessories, and the Internet, although very slowly at first.

Like a lot other “multimedia” mags of the time, EE had trouble finding an audience, thanks to trying to cover every new piece of technology all at once — PC game fans weren’t much interested in 3DO reference-book software coverage, for example. As a result, by 1995, EE had become a de-facto PC game magazine, not much separated in style from CGW and the brand-new PC Gamer.

Reflecting this fact, editor-in-chief Frederic Paul changed the name of EE to PC Entertainment with the January 1996 issue. “We’ve been focusing on computer-based entertainment for more than a year now, and we simply decided it’s time to update the name to match the content,” he wrote. In June 1996, the title changed names again — back to PC Games, allegedly to focus even more on what had become its bread-and-butter coverage.

Even by this point, however, the writing was on the wall. Most of the ’96 issues are about 112 pages long, while PC Gamer and CGW were both larger by a factor of several dozen edit pages. Despite being as quick as PC Gamer to institute a cover-mounted CD-ROM, PC Games never really made itself unique in the marketplace, and in gamers’ minds, it was in a third-place position from the start.

The magazine soldiered on until March 8, 1999, when it was purchased by Imagine Media (now Future). Imagine immediately closed the magazine and began sending PC Gamer to its subscriber base instead; if readers were already receiving PC Gamer, they got the (then brand-new) PC Accelerator instead.

So ended the first major consolidation of the PC game mag market in the US. Funny to think that the second one didn’t happen for another six or so years, huh?

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Kevin Gifford)

[In the latest of an occasional series of demoscene-related posts on GameSetWatch before, AteBit's Paul 'EvilPaul' Grenfell presents a multi-part retrospective on 2009's best demos - continuing with the top real-time rendered intros that fit into just 64kb or 4kb in size. Previously: best demos.]

Continuing our round up of 2009′s demoscene offerings, this time we’ll take at look at PC 64k and 4k intros. Intros follow roughly the same criteria as demos except for one major difference: size. 64k intros must fit all of their code and data into a measly 65536 bytes. 4K intros take this size limitation even further, and cram everything into just 4096 bytes.

For comparison, the logo on the front page of Google’s site is over 8k in size, and just 0.4 seconds of CD quality audio would blow your entire 64k budget. Bear this in mind, then, as you look at what people with the right skills can do in such tiny amounts of space.

64K Intros

The 64k scene still hasn’t found its feet after the highs of the early to mid noughties, when the likes of Conspiracy, Fairlight and Farbrausch fought for 1st place on a yearly basis. Since these guys stepped out of the limelight a few years ago there’s been a bit of a power vacuum, with no-one really stepping up to the plate to take over the fight.

This year felt particularly empty, with few high quality releases, and even fewer of them particularly standing out from the crowd. As a result, I’m only including my top 5 picks from this category, and I found it incredibly difficult to put them into any order – I was even tempted not to put them into any order at all.

1st: Hotel Bar Heroes by Portal Process

A lovely rendering style and strong soundtrack in this intro from Portal Process. The group have been around since the late 90′s but this is their first 64k intro.

2nd: Ephemera by Approximate

Technically excellent, this intro from the relatively new group, Approximate, packs a huge amount into 64k.

3rd: Transform by Ate Bit

Ate Bit’s second ever 64k is a massive departure from their first, Pimp My Spectrum, and won the Assembly ’09 64k intro competition. You could even say that it’s something of a transformation for them.. [Disclaimer: I coded and designed this ]

4th: Scatterpillar by Inque

A simple scene, but I love the colors and atmosphere of this one.

5th: Proof of Concept by Evoflash

I have to admit that I’m a sucker for people who do things differently, so I love this really old-school style demo from Evoflash. The twist is that it’s written in Flash, and managed to more than hold its own in Assembly 2009′s 64k competition — where it came in an impressive second place.

4K Intros

The 4k scene also wasn’t quite as strong in 2009 as it has been in previous years so, again, I’ve limited this chart to just five places. That’s not to say that there weren’t some cracking intros this year – Elevated alone should put your jaw firmly on the floor, and Rudebox should keep it there. It’s just that there weren’t quite enough of them for a top ten.

One interesting thing to note about 4k intros is the amount of sharing that goes on between authors. For example, the synth created by Alcatraz is not only used in their own Rudebox intro but also in Dollop, while the extreme compression library Crinkler, which was jointly developed by members of TBC and Loonies, was used for at least four of our top five intros.

1st: Elevated by RGBA & TBC

A visually stunning 4k from RGBA and TBC, Elevated caused a sensation when it was released back in April. This intro tried and succeeded in doing something that no-one else seemed to be attempting – to render a realistic and believable world rather than one that could only exist inside the confines of a computer. And for an extra treat, you can download the author’s presentation about the tech behind this demo.

2nd: Rudebox by Alcatraz

Another stunning 4k intro from Alcatraz. This one showcases multiple scenes and an impressive sounding synth. The final scene alone is more impressive than most other 4ks released this year.

3rd: Dollop by Sqny

Beautiful tune and design in this mostly abstract intro by Sqny (pronounced, I am informed, as “Sony with a Q”)

4th: Sult by Loonies

Yet another excellent example of what you can do with modern GPU programming and a bit of voodoo.

5th: Paradistance by Titan

And finally, drink in the ambience of this Titan intro, captured as it was presented live at Evoke. (The winner from this year’s 4k competiton at Evoke is also a gem.)

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Evil Paul)

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.]

This week on ‘Best Of Indie Games’, we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week.

The delights in this edition include an action game that redefines rocket jumps, a platformer that will test your patience and skills, a first-person roguelike game that lets you take control of nine party members at the same time, a 2D platform game that features cakes prominently, and a browser-based remake of the old arcade classic Qix.

Here’s the highlights from the last seven days:

Game Pick: ‘Lethal Application‘ (Daisessen, freeware)
“Lethal Application is a 2D action game that introduces a unique gameplay system for moving your character around each stage. Instead of a jump button that most players are accustomed to, we have here a weapon so strong that its recoil effect can propel the protagonist in the opposite of her shot direction.”

Game Pick: ‘Flood the Chamber‘ (Matt Scorah, freeware)
“In Flood the Chamber your job is to help the prisoner escape the chamber, reaching the top of the screen before the advancing water level reaches our agile rogue. A warning: you will not complete this on your first attempt. Or your second. Or your… well, let’s put it another way – if you manage to complete the game, you have some serious skills.”

Game Pick: ‘ro9‘ (Justin Smith, freeware)
“ro9 is a turn-based role-playing game in which you get to control the actions of nine different characters at the same time, using only one set of controls for all. The objective here is to get all of your heroes down to the ninth and last level of the dungeon to loot the treasure, although you can still win if some of them succumb to their injuries before reaching the goal.”

Game Pick: ‘Paper Cakes‘ (HUSCK, browser)
“Paper Cakes is a clever puzzle platformer in which you play as a character who has a craving for cakes. The gimmick here is that each level is drawn on both sides of a paper, and to reach the cake you would have to fold the paper and form new platforms to walk on or make the geometrical-shaped creatures disappear.”

Game Pick: ‘Reclamation‘ (Zeke Brill, browser)
“Reclamation is a browser-based remake of the classic arcade game Qix, in which players have to claim a certain percentage of each level as their own to progress. This is achieved by drawing a closed shape around enemies while trying to avoid a collision with any of them. There are a couple of power-up items to collect, ranging from those that reward you with a boost ability, missiles, and even a shockwave weapon that eliminates just about all anthropods in close proximity.”

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (timw)

Xseed has revealed that Korg DS-10 Plus, its music creation program for the Nintendo DS based on the Korg MS-10 synthesizer, will ship to U.S. stores on February 16th with a $30 price tag. As with the original Korg DS-10 released in 2008, the software is geared for both professional and aspiring musicians, giving them inexpensive access to emulated synthesizers and drum machines.

The program’s new features include an expanded song mode with programmable track mute and realtime edit. Xseed notes that if you have a DSi, the software uses a “Dual DS-10″ mode, in which the Analog Synth Simulator increases from 2 to 4, the Drum Machine increases from 1 to 2, and a 12 Track Sequencer becomes available (as opposed to the standard 6-Track Sequencer).

I’ve no idea how Xseed can justify bringing over the Korg DS-10 series to the States considering the software’s niche audience here, but God bless them for doing so, especially since Nintendo DSi’s region-locking prevents importers from running Japanese copies of Korg DS-10 Plus. Also, this time around, the publisher has arranged it so consumers can buy the software from retail locations and not just online shops.

For those of you that still don’t understand how a simple DS application can help musicians, I’ve included three videos below of artists that have integrated Korg DS-10 Plus into their setups. Also, if you remember that odd but awesome chiptune performance by Omodaka, he was also using the original Korg DS-10 in his act.

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili)

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra’s industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 38 Studios, Vicarious Visions and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site’s daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, ‘serious games’, independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

38 Studios: User Interface Engineer
“Would you like to become part of the team that includes the creative visionaries behind Drizzt Do’Urden and Spawn? 38 Studios is currently seeking a User Interface Engineer to join our Engineering department. This is a full-time position with competitive salary, full benefits and 401(k), and the chance to be part of online gaming history!”

Bungie: Gameplay Design Lead
“Do you love the challenge of designing great gameplay? Do you have 10 ideas on how to make Halo’s player interface better? Do you hate that moment in a game when you realize that you’ve found the ultimate powerful weapon, making all others pointless? Are you an experienced game designer looking to work on AAA games with talented and passionate people in a team environment? If so we have the job for you! Bungie Studios is looking for a passionate, creative and hard-working Gameplay Design Lead for our next project.”

Krome Studios: Lead Designer
“Krome Studios is Australia’s largest game development studio and has come a long way since its humble beginning in 1999. Krome Studios now boasts 5 project teams, over 300 talented employees and an increasing presence in the worldwide game development industry.
To date, Krome Studios has created ten successful titles on multiple platforms and languages, including Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Krome’s own IP and Platinum selling global videogame franchise.”

Super Happy Fun Fun: Game Designer
“Design top-notch iPhone products! The Designer will be a skilled, creative and thorough craftsperson with proven experience in full product development lifecycle: concept generation to final tuning. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated ability to collaborate with creative professionals to develop and maintain a consistent level of high quality and execution.”

Tencent Boston: QA Lead
“Tencent Boston is a premier game development studio led by industry veterans that are driving the creation of world class online games for a global audience. We are a division of Tencent Inc., one of the largest internet companies in China. For more than 400 million people Tencent is the internet encompassing portal, shopping, community and entertainment services. We are right in the middle of one of the most dynamic and fast growing game markets in the world and we are looking for outstanding individuals with passion, talent and a team focused mindset.”

Vicarious Visions: Producer
“The Producer is primarily responsible for managing the product development team and supporting development from concept to submission. Responsibilities include scheduling, tracking development, and ensuring team deliverables are met in a timely manner at high quality. The Producer will manage and coordinate the relationship with external stakeholders and internal team resources to produce games for a variety of game platforms.”

To browse hundreds of similar jobs, and for more information on searching, responding to, or posting game industry-relevant jobs to the top source for jobs in the business, please visit Gamasutra’s job board now.

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

This neat multi-touch table demonstration of 2D Boy’s puzzle game World of Goo was hacked together at Berlin’s 26th Chaos Communication Congress (26C3) last December. According to Youtube poster Inh2l, this setup uses the Linux edition of the game (which supports multiple mice) with the Vinput software suite to make World of Goo work on supported multi-touch devices.

This video reminded me that 2D Boy revealed plans to develop an iPhone version of World of Goo last October and actually managed to get it “running well” on the iPhone 3GS — I hope they’re still working on the project. Considering that the upcoming iPad will be able to play iPhone games, I imagine that World of Goo for iPad would look/play a lot like this!

[Via 2D Boy]

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili)

[In this piece, GamerBytes editor Ryan Langley analyzes performance data and sales for Xbox Live Indie Games in 2009 -- and concludes the Xbox 360 service is becoming a much more promising way for developers to reach console gamers with hobbyist titles.]

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the Xbox Live Indie Games scene for some time now, and while it had a bit of a rough beginning, we’ve seen numerous additions to the service: a ratings system, Avatar support, an entirely new name, and new pricing tiers. Finding the sweet spot for hobbyist and user-submitted indie games has been a long process, but there’s definitely been some progress.

Major Nelson may have released the Top 20 XBL Indie games for 2009, but it’s thanks to the participants of the official XNA forums — including many of the developers — that we have sales data for their games over the year, and thus a much clearer picture.

The below graph shows the sales of the games, the amount of trial versions of the game that were downloaded, the conversion percentage from trial to sale, the price and the money made by the developer itself.

The money made by a developer on any XBLIG game is 70% of its selling price – Microsoft picks up 30% of each sale:

The Win Of ZOMBIES!

It’s not much of a surprise to see James Silva’s GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES become the top selling game of the year. It’s an incredibly simple game, but also follows numerous traits of the top tier Indie games – a bizarre style, a weird song and an extremely low price. All of these points brought the game to the attention of gamers and game blogs everywhere – Kotaku, Joystiq, and many major news sutes mentioned it. And it had a personality, alongside being a pretty decent game.

The Rise Of The Application

One thing that has certainly gotten a lot of attention on Indie Games are applications. An application’s not a game, per se, but something akin to iPhone’s non-game Apps – simple programs that allow players to make use of their systems outside of gaming itself.

DrumKit allows players to take control of Rock Band or Guitar Hero drums without the official games. Aquarium HD and myFishTank turn Xbox 360s into habitats for digital fish, and Rumble Massage and A Perfect Massage let users go crazy with the controller’s rumble ability.

It may frustrate those who make “real” games to see these applications do so well, but it makes perfect sense, as many people are drawn to simple, alternative and inexpensive apps. Compare with the Fireplace DVDs, which cost 10 times as much money. Even the guy who made RC-Airsim has stated that any other simulation of remote control aeroplanes will ask for nearly $100 for it, so asking $2.50 for RC-AirSim is a bargain by comparison.

And ezmuze+, which is a pretty complex audio looping system, made it to the list even at the $10 asking price. People aren’t afraid of spending big money on Xbox Indies – but developers have to give people a reason to buy it at asking price.

The Simple Game

Other games that have done well are usually simple but direct – Headshot and Headshot 2 are among the top sellers on the system, while Avatar Drop and The Impossible Game, being very simple concepts, have also made it into the Top 20. By proving they’re worth their asking price, they have enticed the player to click that “Buy Now” button at the end of the trial.

Those That Missed Out

Other developers also appeared on the XNA.com forums to discuss their Xbox Live Indie Games sales, revealing their 2009 sales and trial downloads to get a better understanding of the full spectrum of XBLIG creators.

Some games that we’re big fans of, including Solar and Weapon Of Choice, did quite well for themselves. For some perspective, they’ve actually done better than some Xbox Live Arcade games (albeit XBLA games that will never make their development costs back) that we’ve been following in our sales data.

There have been some games that have not sold well, but there’s usually a reason – poor marketing, dull premise or bad box artwork. There are plenty of issues out there that can damage sales, but the idea that weak sales are the fault of the service doesn’t hold as much water as it once did.

A Bit Of Perspective

The Xbox Live Indie Scene has been catching some flack lately over less-than-epic game sales, but let’s put this into a bit of perspective.

Solar, which is one of the coolest Xbox Indie titles out there, has sold around 10,000 copies over its 9 months on the market. The Xbox 360 version of the game took around 4 months of work during the developer’s spare time. For the most part the game was sold at its original $2.50 price point, so overall it made a bit less than $17,500.

$17,500 for 4 months of work is good money. That’s over a grand per week for that game’s development. Now, obviously, that wouldn’t support a larger team working full time, but even something like Lacrosse 2010 has done well for itself, considering the small coterie who created it.

One of the main criticisms of the XBLIG space is also that people just aren’t looking at it. But the numbers are certainly increasing – 55,000 people downloaded the trial to Little Racers, 26,000 people have trialed Avatar Snowball fight, and NextWar had 30,000 people give it a go. People are looking at games, especially those in the top 20 lists, but it’s up to the developers to convince customers to make the purchase.

Just having them download the demo is a huge step – that means the premise has piqued their interest, or the box art has made the game look interesting, or that the developer has strong marketing skills.

But without good design underneath, the game won’t sell. That may be why a game like ZenHack only has a conversion rate of 3.5 percent while Groov has a rate of 25 percent, which is far higher than the usual rate you’d see on a trial-to-purchase.

Failure? Not Quite

To call Xbox Live Indie games a failure is short-sighted at this point. To expect the same top-line numbers as that of the iPhone’s App Store — as some critics do — is also ludicrous. The App Store is a different animal. Top games sell up to 30,000 copies a day, but often at bargain basement prices – and the vast majority of sell very few.

Other comparison points, such as indie PC games on Steam aren’t necessarily appropriate either. However, the ecosystem in terms of release volume is partway between XBLA and the App Store, perhaps — it’s worth noting that, since there’s only one or two Xbox Live Arcade games released weekly, developers are guaranteed at least a little prominence.

Yet for XBLIG titles, games can get lost in the shuffle quite swiftly after they disappear from the ‘New Releases’ page. After that, they can’t do much to get back up – or at least, price cuts like those implemented in the App Store seem to have less of an effect. This leads to situations like a game that sold 21 units in the first month, when the larger, more professional developer needs 10,000 to break even, ouch.

Can there still be criticism of XBLIG? Sure, there are several things that Microsoft could be doing to increase awareness of the Indie Games section, as mentioned in a recent article by Boing Boing but they can’t do everything. Developers need to keep the awareness up. I’ll mention again an article I wrote some time ago – send out press releases to weblogs, create trailers, Twitter about it, get on NeoGAF, IndieGames.com and TIGSource and talk about your games. The more people you get to download your demo, the more purchases you ultimately get – simple, but the majority of developers aren’t doing that.

And meanwhile, at least for mid and high-level performers, XBLIG is becoming a viable platform for hobbyists and single-man shops to make some cash and get their game seen – and for end users to pick up some genuinely interesting games.

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

[In the latest Road to the IGF interview with 2010 Independent Games Festival finalists, we speak with Sidhe Interactive's Mario Wynands about the PSN Game Shatter, nominated in the audio category.]

In its gameplay, concept, and audio, Sidhe Interactive’s brick-breaking PlayStation Network game Shatter for PlayStation 3 is a nostalgic throwback, albeit injected with a thoroughly modern vibe.

The audio work for the downloadable PSN game, highlighted by an outstanding soundtrack by Jeramiah “Module” Ross, was enough to earn an audio nomination for the 2010 Independent Games Festival Awards.

Here, Mario Wynands, managing director for New Zealand-based Sidhe, offers some background behind the making of Shatter‘s audio, describes his excitement for the evolution of the indie game development scene, and why nostalgia isn’t necessarily the “driving force” behind the popularity of retro-inspired games.

What kind of background do you have making games?

Sidhe has been around for over a decade now, and was personally my first foray into formal game development aside from a few stop-start efforts when growing up. Over that time the studio has developed a number of titles across many different platforms and genres.

In recent years, we have put much more focus onto creating new and original titles that we can self publish via digital distribution, which has generated titles such as GripShift and more recently, Shatter.

What development tools did you use?

The primary tools we used were Adobe Photoshop, Maya, and Visual Studio. We also built a custom level editor for the game.

How long had your team been working on Shatter?

Development of the game took around 18 months from start to finish, with a team size of around five for most of that time. We had originally planned development to be around a year, but we allowed the extra time to take meaningful advantage of some of the gameplay discoveries along the way and to apply as much polish as possible.

How did you come up with the concept for the game? Why explore the brick-breaking genre?

We were inspired by games like Geometry Wars and Pacman Championship Edition in the way those games had modernized retro games in ways people initially wouldn’t have thought of. We actively sought a concept where we could attempt something similar, and looked to retro games that we played growing up that we were still playing in the studio.

Brick-breaking games were something that had stood the test of time but recent iterations had generally been hampered by legacy issues such as intermittent interaction, slow pacing, uninspired presentation and the “last brick” problem. It seemed like a great creative challenge to try to bring the genre into the modern era, and so Shatter was born.

What do you think is the appeal of retro-styled games–does it go beyond nostalgia?

The success of many retro style games is certainly contributed to by nostalgia. But if nostalgia were the driving force, then when wouldn’t be seeing a younger audience responding to those types of games.

The core appeal of such games is a return to simplicity and unique presentation, which can be refreshing in the face of many complex modern titles which exist along a barely distinguishable continuum. When you have something that is elegantly simple, and package it in a compelling way, you have the opportunity to engage your audience with unique experiences.

The game was nominated for best audio. What rules did you try to stick with when designing the audio?

We wanted the audio to really gel with the gameplay and visuals of Shatter and be a seamless fit to the game. It had to be a significant part of the experience that helped draw the player in and immerse them in the world.

In particular we wanted it to add to the game at an emotional level and help carry a very light story element that was present in Shatter, from the BAT1138′s initial escape, through to ultimate triumph over his captors. It had to bring up memories of classic arcade games and tip the hat to the retro roots that inspired Shatter. The artist, Jeramiah “Module” Ross, was the perfect fit for that approach and on board from day one.

We decided early on to take some risks and use style references that seemed completely over the top at the time. Long lead guitar solos, 80s electro build ups and tunes that were definitely not run of the mill, background game music. As a result we have tracks varying from three to almost nine minutes in length. We let the music guide how long it should be.

The music also benefited from having a very long period of development. From initial discussions and sketches through to gold master, the music and sound effects took over 12 months of semi-continuous work with the music taking inspiration from the game and vice versa. All in we created over 90 minutes of original music, and countless sound effects that were professionally mixed and mastered in post.

The audio has become a major part of the experience for a number of fans, and has been successful in its own right, with over 250,000 online streams of the soundtrack via http://sidhe.bandcamp.com. We’ve had a such a positive response to the music that we now have it available on iTunes and are working towards a physical release.

If you could start the project over again, what would you do differently?

It is difficult to think of what we would change. The development of Shatter was a very organic process, and while we took some wrong turns along the way, it would have been very hard to plan from the start to get to the point where the game ended up.

We have certainly learned a lot along the way, and will apply those lessons to our process and future titles.

Have you played any of the other IGF finalists? Any games you particularly enjoyed?

I think the finalist I have most enjoyed is Rocketbirds: Revolution! The game is such a great all around package.

I have also been taunted by the Limbo video teaser for well over a year. The taste we have been given is very tantalizing, and I can’t wait to try it out.

What do you think of the current state of the indie scene?

The massive growth in the indie scene in recent years has been a refreshing counter to the direction of the traditional retail-based industry. As a developer across multiple markets, it is inspiring to see the plethora of engaging ideas emerging from the indie community. The burst of indie spirit and content and the positive response and open-mindedness of gamers is really having an impact on shaping the future of the game industry right now.

One thing that is really great to see is indie developers actually able to capitalize on their art and make their development sustainable via new commercial opportunities beyond PC offered by iPhone, WiiWare, XBLA, PSN, and PSP. However, there are huge disparities between the ability of individual indies to reach larger audiences successfully. Everybody needs to get better at telling the world about our games.

[Previous 'Road To The IGF' interview subjects have included Enviro-Bear 2000 developer Justin Smith, Rocketbirds: Revolution's co-creators Sian Yue Tan and Teck Lee Tan, Vessel co-creator John Krajewski, Trauma creator Krystian Majewski, and Super Meat Boy co-creators Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes.]

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

Lazy 8 Studios’s Cogs — recently shortlisted for the 2010 Independent Games Festival’s Excellence in Design category — is now available on iPhonefor $.99 (11 levels, with four additional 10-stage downloadable packs at $.99 each).

As with the PC version (downlad a free demo here), Cogs for iPhone challenges players with a series of 2D and 3D puzzles in which you slide tiles containing gears, pipes, balloons, chimes, wheels, and more to build different contraptions. The game features three modes: the standard Inventor Mode; Time Challenge mode, for solving puzzles in 30 seconds, and Move Challenge, for finding 10-move solutions.

The iPhone edition also includes several social gaming features such as challenges, achievements, leaderboards, and integration with social networks, made possible with the integration of Chillingo’s Crystal platform. You can see more screenshots of Cogs at publisher Chillingo’s site.

Original post editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili)