Just wandering how is everybody doing on their DBP game. Actually I'm just a little worried with the deadline, and would feel "less bad" if I'm not the only one. I have something like 20% of the game done, and you?

Oh ya, doing poorly indeed. :)

But mine is more of a portfolio piece than a serious DBP contender. I expect I'll be able to enter it, but it won't be the winner by any means.

I'm also doing it for practice, and I know that I don't have any chance in wining, but I would like to make my game in time because that kind of stress is part of the experience. The time that you take for making an application is also important for you portfolio. I could make an awesome in 3 years, but it would be so impressive if it could be done in 4 months.

I was toying with the idea of asking this question!

(partly because everyone seems quiet about their progress, understandable really)

I am doing ok, ish.

I find it quite interesting, the challenge of motivating yourself, trying to reach the point where you show people the game and they show genuine interest!

My aim is to get to a point where people may play the game without me physically holding them down by June 2nd. (I go on holiday for a week then).

I am also constantly trying to guage if I have bitten off more than I can chew :)

Good luck all.

J

I've got a playfield, sprites and enough interactivity to reassure me that my idea was worth pursuing. I struggled with whether to use the gamestate example in it's entirety for my front end but figured I'd learn more if I did it myself. Of course, the front end now looks like the gamestate example, less transitions ;-) I'm probably 30% done.

I will say the level of talent here is intimidating. I'm a full time programmer but the sort of stuff I see here makes me feel very much like a beginner, at least when it comes to games.

My Situation is:
If I had finished the Game Engine, then I might have time to finish all the Assets on time
If I had finished the Assets, then I might have time to finish all the Codes on time
Now none of them is done, due to inappropriate planning, lol

My progress has been VERY slow. I expected to have a lot more done by now. So yeah, I'm probably at the 10-20% mark.

I really just want to make sure that I finish with my game concept playable, so I'm going to keep plugging away at it. Time to refocus and get committed again (well, committed to developing my DBP entry again, committed to the mental ward after that maybe...we'll just see how it goes :) )

And yeah, the competition and quality of talent in this contest is fierce. It's still been a blast working on it and just having a deadline to work towards.

Now if I could just remember what was I working on in it last time I opened the source....

I am also around the 20 % mark.
I had not so much time as I wanted to have , because I have to write the Central Exams in Class 10, we were the first school year here in Germany which had to write them so nobody has known how they will be , but they were easy :)

Only some weeks of school and I will have more time to work on my game (holydays), hopefully I can finish it in that time.

With other projects that have come up, I've had to put my entry on the back burner. I may or may not get it done in time. Even if I don't get it done in time to enter I'm planning on finishing it and getting it out there to gamers.

Machaira:

With other projects that have come up, I've had to put my entry on the back burner. I may or may not get it done in time. Even if I don't get it done in time to enter I'm planning on finishing it and getting it out there to gamers.

 

I'm in the same boat. My real work got kind of crazy over the last couple months and XNA has sort of taken a back seat. I'm getting back to it now, but I don't think there is enough time to do what I want to do. I spent the weekend rewriting some tools I'm using to get data into my game. We'll see what happens. I'm thinking if I do do what I want to do the game would be disqualified from the DBP competition anyway due to content ;P

I'm starting to feel slightly panicky now as well.  I've got a pretty good amount done (I'd say 50-60%) but I'm more concerned about the other things, mainly artwork but also sound effects, music and menu system.  Thankfully I've managed to wangle two weeks unpaid leave from my work in June in which I intend to strap myself to the computer and get things finished.

Thankfully, the nature of my game (Shuggy, www.smudgedcat.com/shuggy) means I can concentrate on "finishing" the game (level features, menu screen, shader effects) first and then keep chucking in new levels up until the deadline.

I'm definitely going to be submitting something for the competition.

Cheers,

    Dave J

Rarely is a game submitted to Xbox Live Arcade and it is a complete game.  More often then not, it is a playable demo or prototype to convey a sense of artistic direction, storyline, gameplay mechanics, etc.  These playable demos or prototypes then get "green lit" into full production provided they meet a number of criteria that are set by the Xbox Live Arcade portfolio review team.  It is in this period that games get finished, polished and readied for commercial distribution.

Ponder that for a moment...

lol, I was thinking of posting a similar post for precisly the same reason Daniel started this thread. Things have been going a bit slowly for us, I'd say we have about 10% done :s.

The main challenge for us was that we kept changing our main game idea every week, we finally settled on something a few weeks ago, but with all of use working full time, and me having to travel a lot for work lately, its been hard to get things done. Hopefully it'll all pull together at the end :D, I'm planning to take a week off work just before the entry is due, hopefully that'll help pull things together enough for an entry.

Its hard to get motivated sometimes, so I added a countdown timer to our blog. I'm not sure it has helped lol


Is anyone considering submitting their game for any other competitions? We decided that after this, we would keep working on it and enter it in the IGF.

"Rarely is a game submitted to Xbox Live Arcade and it is a complete game.  More often then not, it is a playable demo or prototype to convey a sense of artistic direction, storyline, gameplay mechanics, etc.  These playable demos or prototypes then get "green lit" into full production provided they meet a number of criteria..."

Really glad to hear you say that Dave. That's how my team and I have approached our game thus far. We spent a chunk getting the tech up to speed and are now soley focused on core gameplay mechanics. We hope to have a presentable vertical slice come July 2nd.

Also good to see everyone is in a similar boat :)

Thanks Dave! now I can focus on the details, rather than trying to do the whole game.