Creators Club Communiqué 25

Here we are at CCC number 25! Hopefully, you’ve gained a great deal of knowledge from these (mostly) weekly grabblings of learning from around the internets. I am constantly amazed at the stuff all of you space brains come up with using the XNA framework!

On XNA Creators Club we have so many dedicated Creators who are doing an incredible job helping games in Playtest and Peer Review. These are key steps in what makes Xbox LIVE Community Games work for everyone. Some people have had pretty passionate debates over what is and what is not a game. This is a great debate (although one I don’t see anyone ever “winning”) for Playtest, but it does not have a place in Peer Review. Peer Review is designed as a purely objective process. It is important to keep your own personal opinions about the game out of Peer Review. If you have questions the Creators Club Forums and the savvy superstar MVPs are there to help.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve offered links that will help Creators at different stages in their own personal journey to totally kick-butt Xbox LIVE Community Game Creator of Excellence. This week I offer links to a few things that will help you add a bit of spice, flavor, and panache to your game!

• Did you know that the Xbox 360 controller has TWO different motors to provide force feedback? Learn how to take advantage of this in your game with Kris Steele’s class on Force Feedback.
• Need to give your players a sense of progress? What could be more helpful than a Progress Bar? On his blog, Luke Rymarz shares a simple Progress Bar sample for you to drop into your own game.
• Does your game have a story to tell? Do you dream of making a deep dialogue system similar to Bioware’s Mass Effect? MVP Catalin Zima shares a sample on his blog where he implements: dialogue wheels with branched responses that have a class effect. It is pretty darn impressive and you should really check it out!

If you’ve already finished your Community Game you’re probably looking for good ways to get the word out about it. Our own Michael Klucher posted a fantastic guide on his blog on Leveraging the Power of the Xbox.com Marketplace for your game. In addition to his pro-tips MVP Nick Gravelyn with help from his comrade Scott Wendt created http://xblcg.info/. This site offers a sortable and searchable index of available Xbox LIVE Community Games as well as friendly URLs for each title! They offer all sorts of information and advice for developers on using their site. Be sure to take a look!

xxoo

~kathleen sanders

XNA Community Manager