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Dream Build Play winner One Finger Death Punch now on Steam
Silver Dollar Games' over-the-top two-button brawler One Finger Death Punch is now available on Steam after taking the grand prize in Microsoft's Dream Build Play competition back in 2012. Originally released for the Xbox Live Indie Games service, One Finger Death Punch is a reflex-testing fighting game that challenges players to fend off waves of opponents with carefully-timed button presses as they approach from one of two directions. The game earned a devoted fan following after its initial release, winning it a spot in Steam's catalog via Greenlight. One Finger Death Punch is available at a discounted rate of $3.99 during its debut week. [Image: Silver Dollar]
Congratulations to the 2011 Dream Build Play winners!
Swing Swing Submarine, creator of adorable puzzle-platformer Blocks That Matter, is the grand-prize winner of the 2011 Microsoft Dream Build Play competition, earning $40,000 and the opportunity for an XBLA publishing contract. In Blocks that Matter, you play as a Tetrobot, a tiny mining machine, to drill blocks of different minerals, which are stored and later reused to help Tetrobot find his kidnapped creators. Blocks That Matter is available now on Steam and XBLIG. Congrats to grand-prize champion Blocks that Matter and the following Dream Build Play winners: First Prize ($20,000): Solar 2 Second Prize ($10,000): TIC: Part 1 Third Prize ($5,000): Sequence Honorable Mention (Production Quality): Alien Jelly Honorable Mention (Innovation): The Bridge Honorable Mention (Fun Factor): Ninja Crash
Microsoft kicks off Dream Build Play 2011 with $75K prize pool
Registration for Microsoft's fifth annual Dream Build Play competition opened today. Submissions will be accepted from May 17 through June 14. Dream Build Play challenges amateur developers to create a game using Microsoft's XNA Game Studio and rewards winners with a cash prize and "the opportunity" for an Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract (though it's a big commitment, previous winner James Silva warns). A total of $75,000 will be up for grabs this year, with $40,000 going to the grand prize winner, $20K to first prize, $10K to second and the remaining $5K to the third prize winner. Last year's grand prize winner, Lumi (pictured), is available now as an Xbox Live Indie Game. Previous winners include Dust: An Elysian Tale and Silva's The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. The latter was released on XBLA and its sequel is in the works, while Dust should arrive on XBLA in the near future. Those wishing to enter this year's competition should head over to the Dream Build Play website.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: A.R.E.S.
Being a giant, beloved video game site has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Nenin Ananbanchachai, managing director of Extend Interactive, whose Dream.Build.Play first place winner A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda launches today on Direct2Drive and Gamersgate. How did you or your company get started? Almost everyone in Extend Studio knew each other from university. We have participated and won many game contests in Thailand. After our graduation, we set up our own game company and started working on A.R.E.S. as our first title. Why did you want to make games? We'd played many games when we were young, and some of them really inspired us. We want to make something unique, fun and different in our game. %Gallery-110564%
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Prismatic Solid
Being a giant, beloved video game site has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Yoichi Hayashi, whose Prismatic Solid took home third place in this year's Dream.Build.Play contest. How did you get started in game design? I started developing games using BASIC from the early '80s when I was in junior high. Books and magazines were my teachers since there was no internet at that time.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Lumi
Being a giant, beloved video game site has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Christophe Panattoni, co-creator of Kydos Studios, the developer behind Dream.Build.Play grand prize winner Lumi. How did you get started in game design? I created Kydos Studio with Nicolas Daures a year ago; we both had a background in game development. We basically started designing games at the same time and we often take our inspiration from real life activities. For example, the main idea behind our latest game, Lumi, came while we were pinning tasks on a white board using small magnets. We were having fun with those magnets and we thought that would be a good start for a game.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Rotor'scope
Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Mauricio Garcia, one of the programmers of Nivel21, about how their game Rotor'scope proves that nothing is impossible. How did your company get started? Nivel21 Entertainment was born in 2005. At that time, some of us were working in software development and enterprise consultation. We were lucky to get to know each other some way or another, a group of videogame aficionados sharing the common dream of becoming professional game developers. So we decided to join forces and immediately began working together, trying to establish our own studio, or, at least, learn enough so that we could end up working in some other studio. We never gave up hope to finally get where we are now, and we spent a lot of time and effort to learn just by ourselves everything that there is to know to make videogames. Even though it all started out as a hobby, we're pretty damn serious about it. Since our first "learning" projects, we've tried to work as professionally as we possibly can. After all these years, we finally see our dream come true in Rotor'scope.
Dream-Build-Play puzzler Rotor'scope now on Xbox Live Indie Games
We got to check out Rotor'scope: The Secret of the Endless Energy at PAX last year, and it nearly broke our minds. Of course, our minds were quite fragile at that point, weakened by long nights of tireless writing and frequent coffee binges -- still, the fact remains that Rotor'scope was one of the most original concepts for a puzzle game we'd played in a good long time. Fortunately, we now have the chance to give the game another go -- it was recently added to the Xbox Live Indie Games platform for 400 ($5). Check out the Rotor'scope trailer after the jump to see the game's cog-flipping puzzle mechanics in action and to get a sense of the title's overarching story. With create-a-level modes, hand-drawn graphics and even some Facebook integration, it looks like you'll be getting a lot of bang for your buck. Or five bucks, as the case may be. Shortcut: Add Rotor'scope (trial / full game) to your Xbox 360 download queue [via Xbox.com]
Are you not entertained? Indie game 'Creed Arena' throws gladiators into the future
A new Xbox Live Indie Game from Safari Studios, a dev comprised of two brothers from Australia, placess gladiators in a semi-futuristic arena, vying for the adoration of a bloodthirsty mob. It's like they plucked the design document from our own horrifying dreams. Creed Arena launched on Microsoft's Indie platform on January 1, 2010, after ranking among the Top 20 titles in the 2009 Dream Build Play competition. Looking to bathe in blood in front of millions of virtual fans? Creed Arena is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 400 ($5). Make sure to follow Joystiq on Twitter, where we will give away a download code for a free copy of the game later today. Footage of frantic action can be watched after the break. Queue the free trial of Creed Arena on your Xbox 360
Snap Judgment: XNA Dream-Build-Play 2009 finalists
While nearly all of my demo appointments at PAX required me to absorb information about new games at blinding speed, the XNA Dream-Build-Play Finalists booth demo tasked me with getting a feel for six games in just under an hour. It would be difficult for me to develop any kind of deep analyses on these brief gameplay slivers -- instead, I've collected my initial, hastily acquired thoughts about the games after the jump.Here's the short version: They're all pretty fun, but Dust: An Elysian Tail is clearly the leader of the pack.
2009 Dream-Build-Play winners announced, Dust takes top honor
It must be nice winning $40,000! We imagine Dust: An Elysian Tail developer Dean Dodrill will be drinking his fair share of shirley temples this weekend with all those extra duckets, after winning first place in this year's XNA Developer Dream-Build-Play competition. As you can see in the gallery below and video after the break, Dust is a beautiful, hand-drawn side-scroller that features action-RPG gameplay in the vein of Castlevania ... but with furries.Second place (and $20,000) went to Panya Inversin from Coin App who created Max Blastronaut, which looks to be a mix between Super Stardust HD and ... Double Dragon? We're just as confused as you are, but see for yourself after the break, below the Dust clip. Third and fourth place went to Mauricio Garcia's Rotor'scope and Hu Ling's HurricaneX2 Evolution, respectively. Congratulations to all of this year's winners!%Gallery-72019%
PSA: Dream-Build-Play submission deadline tomorrow
Just a quick reminder for all the aspiring game creators out there: Tomorrow, August 6, is the last day to submit entries for the 2009 XNA Dream-Build-Play competition. So, put the finishing touches on that masterpiece because time is running out. Don't give up! Just tighten up those graphics in Level 3. Who knows, your game might be the next Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.If you haven't actually started your XNA project, you might be in trouble. Still, we're confident that you could probably whip up a sweet, HD fart simulator in a day. How hard could it be?[Thanks, Ted]
GDC09: MS announces new XNA features, Dream-Build-Play 2009, new dev kit
Microsoft today announced an update to XNA Game Studio, its free Xbox 360 development tools. The update will allow Xbox Live Arcade or Community Game developers to include Avatar support in their games. The update will also include support for the Xbox 360's Party system. Additionally, the update gives professional XBLA developers the ability to release downloadable content.Along with the new XNA Game Studio update, Microsoft announced this year's Dream-Build-Play competition. The contest charges developers with creating an XNA game and offers cash prizes to the winners as well as a chance to publish their games on Xbox Live Arcade. Joystiq readers may recognize CarneyVale: Showtime and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (pictured), both of which won previous Dream-Build-Play competitions. Dream-Build-Play 2009 will begin accepting submissions on April 6.Finally, and much less interesting, Microsoft is previewing its latest development kit. The kit has "additional debugging memory" which should help developers "push the console to its maximum capabilities." Just don't push it too hard, mkay?
Microsoft awards $75,000 to Dream-Build-Play 2008 winners
The winners of the annual indie developer-friendly contest Dream-Build-Play were recently announced. After scouring the 350 titles that were submitted (including, we imagine, a great deal of groundbreaking Pong clones), Microsoft awarded the $40,000 grand prize to Singapore's Team Gambit, for their XNA Game Studio-borne entry, CarnyVale: Showtime (pictured above), an "acrobatic puzzle game" which includes a built-in level editor. In addition to the cash prize, Team Gambit will apparently have the opportunity to publish their title on Xbox Live Arcade.Other submissions garnered cash prizes and XBLA invitations for their creators, including a side-scrolling action game titled Weapon of Choice, a martial arts sim named HurricaneX, and the self-explanatory, infinitely intriguing Battle Tennis. These finalists, as well as many other submissions for the contest, will be available on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel when the NXE is released on November 19.
XNA 2.0 release adds Xbox Live support and more
Yesterday, Microsoft lifted the veil and unleashed an exciting update to its XNA Xbox 360 development software by adding Xbox Live support. XNA 2.0 is available to aspiring game developers and now features complete Xbox Live functionality including matchmaking and co-op gameplay. Not only that, but more than 15 other tweaks have been released in this 2.0 update including Visual Studio support, enhanced project management, API updates and more. Also, Microsoft announced their second annual XNA Dream-Build-Play contest where they're calling on developers to create a game in hopes of getting it published to the XBLA. Our friend James Silva did it, so can you! More information about Dream-Build-Play 2008 can be viewed here and you can get the complete dish on XNA 2.0 after the jump. Start building fanboys, you have games that need creating and we have games that need playing.
Video: slick XNA game in progress
Dave Weller, XNA's official guru, pointed out an impressive demo of what XNA can do in skilled hands. Found on a Japanese website (in English here), the game is a 3D shooter and it looks very nice for a home brew project. The game's website includes multiple screen shots and videos of the game as it progresses in development. While the game includes some placeholder graphics and looks somewhat generic, it's important to note that everything you see has been accomplished in only a month's time. It's part of the previously announced Dream-Build-Play contest, so we may be hearing about it again. Check out the video after the break.
