XNA Creators Club - 360 Games Released

[Melbosa]

So after the GDC, Microsoft released 7 games through the XNA Community Creators contest and I have had a chance to play them all (free to download until March 9th at the moment).  Here are my thoughts on each:

Culture
By far the most graphically pleasing.  This is a puzzle game similar to that one where you drew boxes to kill the little bugs (name???).  Cept this time you have a planet and little weeds grow.  You grow flowers to kill the weeds, but you have to starve their supply of nutrients (hence the box around bugs thingy).  Fun little game and 3 different modes.  Flows well and worth checking out.

JellyCar
The most original of the bunch I would think.  You play a car that can grow to 3 times it size (limited time frame).  You stick to surfaces only with your tires, and you have limited tilt control of your vehicle.  Puzzle to get through every level, and some are very platformy.  Alright to play although I didn't find it that engrossing.

Little Gamers
Side scroller with lots of different weapons.  Fun for about 2 minutes, but then got very boring.  Look like cardboard cutouts when playing the game.  So not really one of my favorites.

ProximityHD
This is a neat little puzzle game, utilizing random game boards and numbered pieces that can only be placed in an open spot on the board.  The number on the piece determines its strength to the one beside it, and if higher that the one beside it, you take it over.  If same color as you, you boost it's strength by 2.  If different color, but yours isn't a higher number, you reduce that piece's strength by 2.  Could be very fun I would think with 4 players.

Rocketball
Basically dodgeball on turbo speed.  1-4 players, throwing balls at each other.  Juice is your health, and there are power ups for more points when scoring hits with the ball.  Didn't hold my attention much in single player.

The Dishwasher
Side scroller where you are the Dishwasher without a heart, and there are baddies after you.  Probably the best one out of the seven.  Not the best graphics, but certainly the best game play.  Even has a comic style story with it, arcade mode, and co-op play.  By far the most indepth of the non-puzzle ones.  Very much done in a dark anime style for look and feel. Depends on cost, but this one I might just buy.

TriLinea
Tetris, maejong, and added "spells" twist mixed into one. Hardest one of the bunch to understand and grasp.  Could be fun in multiplayer, although hard to play the CPU even on the easiest difficulty.



Overall these are your typical small shop games.  Most of them had well thought out styles, and even some surprises for me when I played them.  I can see that there is a great possibility of a lot of crap coming out of the XNA Creators Club... but then again there is an opportunity for that rare gem to show up too.  And it only takes one to make the system seem worth while to me.  Check it out 360 owners, at least before March 9th when they go back into the sales vault.

[Melbosa]

I played some more of TriLinea against a buddy, and we had a blast for quick little game play.  If you can find a PC version of this one, I suggest you check it out.  Was fun for us for about 2-3 hours of play.

[Lazybones]

I downloaded the launcher but trying to follow the directions on the forums I still can't figure out how to download the games.

[Melbosa]

Go to Games Tab, My Games section, and then press to the right until the top says XNA Creators Club, that is where you can download/play games.

[Lazybones]

According to a post in the Xbox forums it has been disabled for new users and was only a limited time free offer. If you want in now it costs you money.

If you already got in your free access will last for a limited amount of time.

[Melbosa]

You are right on the limited trial on the games from the announcement, but I thought they were going to be like the Arcade ones in the end.  Trials and demos free, full games pay.

[Cova]

No - you can't download the runtime for free anymore.  They did extend its time once, but that expired on Feb. 26th.  The games currently available are all just demo's and they all expire on March 9th.  So if you have them downloaded and like 'em, then play lots now cause you can't for much longer.

As to the way this will work long-term, NOTHING has been announced yet.  I think it's a fair assumption that the runtime will be a free download again sometime in the near future (probably an updated version), but it's unlikely that MS will do that until they've figured out how the games are going to work.  No point having a runtime if there's no software.  For payments and stuff - I'd not make any assumptions, it might end up like arcade games, but then this is community-developed and is MS's way of getting into user-generated content, so it might all be free.  Probably safe to say that MS was using this demo/beta to gather data to figure out what they plan to do.