Help Microsoft Fix the XBLIG Forums

About a week ago, Microsoft split the XBLIG and WP7 site back into two sites. One for Xbox LIVE Indie Games and one for Windows Phone 7 development. This is nice... actually it's more funny than anything as originally the XBLIG had it's own site.. but anyway.


UPDATE (September): Looks like the forums and searching is working again. Hooray! Thanks Microsoft for getting it fixed.

ORIGINAL STORY:

After that change it turns out that doing a search for information on the forums does not work. Let that sink in. Search is broken.

Doing a search for most things on the XBLIG development forums fails. What happens is you are redirected to a pretty page that asks if you want to make an Indie Game or WP7 game. Even if you click on the Indie Game, it ignores whatever you were looking for and just takes you to the main XBLIG. Search aborted. Can't find the help you're looking for. I've found a few things that work, but the vast majority of searches fail.

We need to get that fixed, and that means writing "creators@microsoft.com". If you develop Xbox LIVE Indie Games, let's get this change happening.

Here's the body of an email I've sent. Please write your own, or use mine as a starting point or wholesale. I'd keep it short, polite, and say what's broken.

Hello team!
After the transition from pulling the XBLIG site back out of the apphub/phone site it seems the forwarding links when doing a search for information don't work. I was hoping this was just a short matter of time, but it's still not working.
This is critical for the site to be useful. That impedes not only seasoned developers but especially new developers which will crush growth.

Can we please get someone on this?
Thank you!

In any case developers, it's up to us to help convince Microsoft this is an important issue. Please write them!
I love playing and developing XBLIG as I'm sure you do as well. Keeping the forums in a healthy state is critical to the platform's ongoing growth and development.

Shipped--Let's party!

We did it. Weapon of Choice is IN the Community Games Catalog. We're set and ready to go for November 19th launch. Thanks to all for your continued support, encouragement, and for spreading the good word about Weapon of Choice. (Oh, and thanks, in advance, for buying the game! wink, wink.) Also, we decided out price would be 400 points ($5)-- a veritable STEAL!!! If you think we should have charged $10, maybe you should but two copies of the game?

Inspired by the Isabelle's in Tucson who are hold The New Xbox Experience Launch House Party, we decided to do the same thing... except we are now in Atlanta where we do not have a house NOR do we have gaming friends in this area. So, calling upon the powers of the internet, we located 2 console gaming centers to hold our events. Friday, November 21st, we will be at Waba Games in Duluth, GA from 7-9 PM and Saturday, November 22nd, we will be at the Computer Arena in Roswell, GA from 3-5 PM. Attendees can:

* Meet the Developers *
* Play the full version of Weapon of Choice will be FREE *
* Check out other brand new 360 Community Games *
* Learn more about XNA and how to make games for Xbox Community Games *
* Take home free giveaways! *

There are admission fees into the console gaming centers. Admission is reduced by $5 at Waba during the event. These will be exciting and fun nights. Tell your Atlanta gaming friends to come join us.

Also, we have a new trailer. So, pinch your uvula and cross your toes.

Help Peer Review Weapon of Choice!

I'd like to get Weapon of Choice ready for the Community Games Launch but I need your help!

The game has to pass peer review before it can enter the catalog. If you are a Creators Club premium member, you can review the game now! The sooner you can review it the better. It helps us know the process is complete and ensures we are ready for Day One of the launch. Thanks to all who can help!

If you're not a member, consider getting involved. It's easy, plus, in addition to Weapon of Choice you get to check out oodles of other crazy games before they hit the market.

Weapon of Choice Approved on CG Beta

The game was submitted to the Community Games Beta a few days ago and cleared the Peer Review. Shew! The Peer Review involved other CG developers downloading the game to their PC and launching it on their retail Xbox 360. The idea is they play the game and test to ensure it doesn't crash, doesn't have prohibited content (such as porn or copyrighted material), and that it matches the descriptors I set when I submitted the game for review. The descriptors are things like blood and sexual content. The process gets more difficult when it asks how much cruelty is in the game. Its easy to say there's blood in the game but am I being cruel to the aliens when I blow them apart? I gave it a 1 out of 3. If other peer reviewers had disagreed with this or my other descriptors the game would have gotten rejected. From there I would have to readjust the self-rating based on others feedback and resubmit it.

Fortunately no one turned it downed based on the descriptors and even better--it didn't crash for anyone! I had tested it thoroughly and didn't find any crashes myself, but there's nothing like having someone that's never played it try it out. While the game is 'out there', it's not currently publicly available. Other Community Games developers can play a limited version of Weapon of Choice, but the full game won't go on sale until later this Holiday season.
While not technically necessary I was interested in putting the game through the complete Community Games process in order to see how it worked, how long the process took, and to force myself to work on the 'boring' things that needed to get done and were starting to accumulate. The big one of those was addressing the television 'title safe' region issues for text and menus. Developing on a new computer monitor, I had pretty much (foolishly) expanded everything to fill the entire screen. On a TV this doesn't work very well as lot of the edges of text and images are lost. This work took entirely too long, but at least it's finished and I won't have to deal with it too much in the future.

Weapon of Choice launching on Community Games Beta

The game is about be released! That is, in a very limited fashion. I'm hard at work ironing out the bugs for a version to be published to Community Games beta. I've spent a surprising--annoying amount of time dealing with text and images that run off the sides of the screen with a standard-def TV. Early this coming week I plan to run the game on a HDTV. I hope there aren't any new text issues there too, but there probably will be. It will be good to see how the Peer Review process goes and to find what issues there may be. Also it will be nice to see what feedback we get from other developers.

In order to play games on the Community Games beta you have to sign up as a premium member. Only people that want to make games for Community Games should do that, though. Starting with the Holiday season of this year, the real non-beta version will launch and everyone that has an Xbox 360 and an internet connection will be able to play demos of Community Games and buy them. No special membership will be required! Microsoft says that Community Games will be available in a similar way that Live Arcade games are currently. You'll be able to browse a list of games and try them out as you please.

Currently there are over 70 games released to the CG beta 'games catalog'. I've tried a few so far. Swarm is a fun twist on Missile Command. Colosseum is very polished looking. Drop Engine is difficult but has lots of gravity gameplay in it. Spectrum is confusing in the same way that 'Double' mode in Raiden III can be. City Rain is more deep than most CG games, and has an entertaining environmental slant to it. ("Don't put a landfill near the river. You'll pollute the water supply!" Feels like something the a lame comic villain would do to Gotham city).