Microsoft Annouces Self Publishing via XBLA

This is basically the news that we've been waiting for:

Starting with the beta launch of the Xbox LIVE Community Games service later this spring, subscribers of the XNA Creators Club will be able to submit their own game creations for self-distribution through to Xbox LIVE Marketplace via the http://creators.xna.com website. A community of their subscriber peers will be given a chance to download, play and review the game and its content for appropriateness and conformance to the service’s TOS. Should it pass, the game will then be added to the global games catalog on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and available to gamers worldwide connected to Xbox LIVE.

More info here...

Now a hobbyists like ourselves need not secure a publishing contract just to give the XBOX version of our game away!

Conquerator Mini-Review on Kotaku

Posted on Kotaku:

As you send troops to attack adjacent territories to vanquish your enemy—only to see a new wave of troops appear slyly across the map—you wonder why we haven't seen this fast-paced bastardization of Risk yet.

First, thanks to the folks a Kotaku for the amazingly positive review. I'm excited to see people enjoying the game!

That said, I've seen a number of comments knocking the finalist entries for not being of the same caliber as this year's AAA titles. We agree! We're not professional game developers (this is really just a hobby for us) and we spent a total of three weeks (while working day jobs) creating our entry. Entries were also judged primarily according to how their AI contributed to the gameplay. The fact that we could get something fun up and running in this period of time is a testament to the hard work of the XNA Game Studio team, and the potential for games created by mere mortals on that platform.

Conquerator is at GDC!

As some of you have probably already read, Conquerator was one of the five games selected as 'finalists' in the Silicon Minds warmup challenge. It's currently on display, along with the other finalists' entries in the Microsoft XNA Lounge (at the entrance to Moscone Center North). We'll hopefully have our 2-player version up tomorrow as well, so if you are here, and you have someone you want to beat up on, drag them along.

Many thanks to the folks that have given us feedback!

Conquerator 1.0 Released

Conquerator is our entry into the Silicon Minds Warm-up Challenge, part of Microsoft’s Dream Build Play 2008 contest.

Download Here! (Requires Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista, and a graphics card that fully supports DirectX 9)

Conquerator is a player vs AI real time strategy game. Each player controls nodes on the map, and has units for attacking and defending nodes. The more nodes you control, the more units you produce. The goal of the game is to eliminate the other player from the map. At the start of the game, there is a neutral player who owns most of the map, but will not attack.

Units may move from a node that you control to any node that is adjacent along a link. You are not allowed to move the last unit out of a node that you control. In addition to the map nodes, each player has a satellite node. This is where new units enter the game. You can move units from your satellite to a node you control, or to a neutral node, but not to an enemy node. You can also move extra units you control up to the satellite.

The Control Scheme

• Left Click - select a node.
• Right Click - move 10% + 1 of the units from the selected node to the new node.
• Spacebar - pause\unpause the game
• Esc - give up early

Enjoy!