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Music Island RELEASE

That's right, it's OUT! Music Island is finally through the XBox Live Indie Games review process, and was released just minutes ago on the same system.

I'm very excited to finally have been behind a truly published game. We're giving out the trial version of the game for free on the PC, and you can get it here as an installer that will take care of everything, or here as an executable if you already have the XNA and .NET frameworks. And, of course, you should buy it on XBox Live Indie Games!

Music Island Release Date

Music Island has finally been approved by Xbox Live Indie Games, and the release date is set for March 19th! Finally, Thunderfish's first game will be out for purchase. I think all the work we've put in since June of last year has paid off, and we have a fine game to show for it. Pick it up if you can, especially if you're a fan of rhythm- and beat-oriented games!

RPG Engine Jam

Yesterday I got roped into an awesome programming jam session with fellow game programmers Stephen Herlihy, Alex Naraghi, and Brenden Booth, aided and abetted by production Justin Britch and Bryan Ploof. Our goal: create an engine for a top-down role-playing game in the style of Diablo and Torchlight. Oh yeah, and users have to be able to build and play their own games in it with zero programming and scripting. Oh yeah, and we only had 12 hours.

It doesn't look like much (I'm a programmer, Jim, not an artist), but this demo features enemies, melee combat, player death, an attack spell, and jumping. What's more, it is paired with a well-featured editor, and both are built on an extremely flexible component system that defines functionality for generic "game objects" by assigning them components like Combatable, Impassable, and Mobile. Users can add generic objects to the game, alter their appearance, and change their behaviors simply by adding and removing components. You'll be hearing more about this one in the future.

Music Island Back In Review...

The XBLIG review process has been long, but Music Island is in review for hopefully the final week or two before its release. Despite the lack of support for Live leaderboards for indie games, Music Island features a leaderboard system through the use of a distributed storage technique that should allow highscores to transfer through the system, giving players the chance to compare themselves to others in the game.

One reviewer: "My four year old couldn't get past the brown mask. She just kept saying 'the guy looks too weird and creepy'. I thought the art was cute, so take those comments with a grain of salt!"

Music Island Release

Our first XBox Live Indie game has been submitted to peer review this week! This game was begun in June of last year and finished in early December. The remainder of December was spent shooting bugs, which were quite prevalent!

Music Island is a rhythm-based arcade-style game with generative music. In it, you must defend an island from streams of invading sea creatures by casting the appropriate spell at them on the song's beat. This action generates musical notes that build on the song's background rhythm. The game features a 10-level Story or tutorial mode, and the highscore-based Infinite mode.

This project was a good experience in working with a small team to make a clear, organized game. The game was produced by Justin Britch, with music and sound by Bryan Ploof and art and design by Jacob Anderson. The programming was done by myself. I will post when the game is approved and available on the XBox Live Indie system.

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