Dream-Build-Play

Final Six

Flowchart Revival LLC — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:56:21 GMT

Grats to all, esp. Noogy, although no big shocker there. One of the winners had me scratching my head a bit, but overall, I think its a good list.

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/698917/Here-Are-2009s-Dream-Build-Play-Finalists--.html

A quick question to ask the people

aurelious — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:18:21 GMT

Hey, quick question? When you post a game for Dream build play, how much of it can you send? Do you post a demo that ranges within 200Mb(s)? Or do you try to squeeze the whole game into a 200 Mb compressed file?? I just need to know before I get any farther into my game.

Thanx ^_^

-Aurelious

P.s. I have read the rules on the Dream Build Play website, I just wanted an answer from a person who already has submitted.

Any news of a DBP 2010

aurelious — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:19:25 GMT

Does Anyone if there is going to be new of a DBP 2010? just a quick topic to ask a question on

canadians eligible?

Gaurdian King — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:16:38 GMT

I was reading 2009' eligibility and it says quebec, canada are not eligible so does that mean just quebec or all of canada because that doesn't make sense to post quebec seperatly if all of canada isnt eligible? I really want to enter but Im a canadian are canadians eligible?

Area5 CO-OP at PAX

Noogy — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:05:11 GMT

http://area5.tv/blog/co-op-0214-sfcu-halo-3-odst-beatles-rock-band-and-xna-indie.html

This episode of co-op does a fantastic overview of the indie booth and the games there for the first segment. And I gotta say, the hair is looking good, Kathleen :)

20 finalists ordered by rank?

reedake2 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:28:29 GMT

Has Microsoft released the 20 finalists in order of rank? xona.com claims to have such a list. It places Duality ZF as number 7 and raves about its percentile ranking. The problem is I've scoured the net and haven't found this data from any official source...

DBP and feedback

Transus — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:49:39 GMT

I'm curious what people's experience has been who submitted last year. I'd love to end up as a finalist, but one of the big reason I entered the contest was because I was hoping for some constructive feedback. Did people get much feedback about their games?

Use of voice actors for sound/voiceovers

Paul Malyschko — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:05:42 GMT

Greetings community,

I was hoping to get a clarification on the use of sound and voiceovers. At the moment I'm part of a team of seven, which includes a sound engineer. The game is in need of some narration and creature noises, however, we are unsure as to whether voice actors (most likely friends) employed by the sound engineer to capture his sounds count towards the official team size. If it does, we'll need to use ourselves as voice actors. It's not a problem, but we'd prefer a professional cut to the sound. Thanks for your time.

Fun Factor/Innovation/Production Quality = 40/40/20 or 40/30/30 ?

Matthew Doucette — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:39:55 GMT

According to http://creators.xna.com/downloads/?id=412 (from http://creators.xna.com/en-US/press/dreambuildplay2009) it is 40/40/20 but according to http://www.dreambuildplay.com/main/Rules.aspx it is 40/30/30. I'm just curious if innovation was actually worth more this year than the previous years...

DBP winners not in IG channel yet?

arctan — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:27:41 GMT

So I'm looking at the list of winners for the DBP contest and I don't see any of them in the Indie Games channel. Why is that? Do they not get submitted to the channel when you enter them in the contest? Do they wait until later to release them or something?

Winners announced

Gooni — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:56:12 GMT

Here's an article that announces this year's winners:
1) Dust
2) Max Blastronaut
3) Rotor'scope
4) HurricaneX2 Evolution

Congratulations to the winners!!

DBP/Indie Games pictures from PAX

The ZMan — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:32:48 GMT

Here's some pictures I took last night... I'll try to get some more today.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brummy/sets/72157622131582197/ Feel free to use these however you feel fit. If you have a flickr/yahoo account you should be able to download the originals.

They are switching the top 6 in and out so I seem to only have pictures of 3 of them so far.

Plenty of people playing too.

Couple from Nick too:
Indie games booth http://twitpic.com/glj2z
Trino http://twitpic.com/gl9ax (its one of the PAX10)
CarneyVale http://twitpic.com/gl8vd (the other XNA game in the PAX10)

List of DBP 2009 entries

The ZMan — Sat, 16 May 2009 06:12:38 GMT

Rather than having 50 threads like we did last year if all you want to do is let people see a video or download a trial then reply to this thread and I or another friendly mod will roll the information up into one post.

If you have a website, videos or a download then feel free to link it here. If you want your download to be limited and you have a premium subscription then upload it to the playtest area for feedback and so others can play it.

Please add your videos to the DBP group on YouTube, and tag it with "Dream Build Play" and "XNA" at a minimum
There's no concept of groups on soapbox - but if you tag "DBP09" then we can make a virtual group
Vimeo doesn't have a group either so use "DBP09" too
Where else are people making videos?

** means this was recently updated or is a new addition

Ønes                                             Games Never Change                    website, video 1
Nasty                                            Kris Steele                       website, pics, vids
Masters of Belial                                Brain Seal                        website, pics, video 1
Balloon Blocks                                     Michael A                         blog, video 1, video 2, download
Ceres Dawn                                         Transus                           video 1, 2, 3
Revenge of the Evil Aliens                         Harald Maassen                        video 1
Tankz                                             Destiny Games (DreadlordKillz)    video 1
Zulu Hour                                          Crying Monkey Studio              Studio, video 1
Magnetic Mind                                vRAGmAZTER                        Videos/Blog, Video 2, video 3
The dead takumi                                    SimonJ                          Blog
DeadShift                                          PolyVector                        Pics, Video 1
Elysian Tail: Dust                               Dean Dodrill (Noogy)              Video 1, 2
Boring Space Shooter                               Lefantome                           Blog, Video 1
Gum Drop Celestial Frontier                        Mechaghost                      Blog, Video 1, download
Duality ZF                                         Xona Games                            website, Videos/Pics, Video 1, 2
Guardian                         Willow Ridge Software (Dave Carlile) blog, website, video, video 2
Pioneer                            laurent goethals    blog (French), video 1, 2
Cloudberry Kingdom                               Pwnee Studios (Tewth Brush)           blog, website, video 1, 2
Aesop's Garden                                     Excalibur Studios                     website, video 1, video 2
Physics Sandbox                                   xMONOX                                video 1
Whirlygig                                          SyndicateX                            website, video 1
SBARG                                              conkerjo                              video 1, pic 1
Rail Gun Charlie                                   Duckocide                             website, videos
Office Politics                                    Moment Games (horizonfire)            website, video 1
Track Architect                                    Victor Ortega                         website, video 1
PyroManic - Solo                                   tricktale                             video 1
Autobol                                            Bad Milk Games                        video 1, screenshots 1, 2, 3
Neo Smash                                          Mecha Kiwi Productions                video 1
Biophage                                           phizz                                 website, video 1
PebbleDash                                         lutas                                 video 1
Awesome Tank                                       UberGeekGames                         website, game page, trailer
Little Racers                        Milkstone Sutdios    website, trailer
Gogs                                               Gogs
Balloon Guard                                      Flowchart Revival LLC                 video 1
Skiddy                                             White Pixel                           video 1
Junkworld                                          Exemplar Games                        video 1, screenshots 1 2 3
Wacky Karts                                        KrollWare LLC video 1
Cyborg Mice Arena                                Bioroid video 1
RC Racing 360                                      WizGames                              website, video 1
Duel: The Art of Combat                            Madras                                video 1
Sky Arena                                          wangjuntom360                         video 1
Superspace                                         DeepSpace                             video 1
The Messenger                                      InnerSilence                          video 1
Rotorscope: The secret of the endless energy       Nivel21                              video 1
XCross                                             ralph78fr                             website, screenshots, video
Pushy    Aztec                                 blog, video
Battle Beat                                        Stegersaurus Games                    video
MadFight                                           Winterhell                            video
Cannonbot Go!                                      Segawa                                video
Star Hammer                                        gutripper000                          video
Hollandia                                          Team Holland                          video, website
Ikaroids                                           John Wordsworth (Iron Star Media)     Video
**GemChase                                         Huehnerschaender                      video
**Marvelous Galaxy                                 Darix                                 website, screenshots
**Square Off Roonda                          Blog, Images: 1 2 3, video, download
**Ectoplasmic Wars                                 Oscar K                               Website, Blog, Video, Screens: 1 2 3
**Motoball marcus pflanz                         website, video
**Merc Defenders                                   Primetime                             website, video

DBP and Pax - top 6 finalist

Transus — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:03:13 GMT

Dream.Build.Play People’s Choice @ PAX
View and play the top six finalists from this year’s Dream.Build.Play contest. Cast your vote for the game you like the most. Vote all weekend at the Xbox LIVE Indie Games booth!

Looks like the finalist will have a deadline to get something super playable. I hope they give the finalist enough warning!

Parasitus

Ringo — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:22:33 GMT

video

Our game for dream build play this year. We would have like to have polished it some more, but we are overall pretty happy with it. The game is a result of a team of 3, Owigg and myself doing the programming, Thaddeus doing art, and me also doing the music. We are going for an action packed metroid-ish sort of vibe, but I dont think we managed to give that across in the demo.

DBP 4 Month CC Premium Membership

MarkMD76 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:32:02 GMT

From our entries to DBP this year, we were yet again given a free 4 month premium membership. I have tried to use this code, but keep getting an error and have to assume that it is because I already have premium membership, I also notice from the sticky by Dean that the code is not transferable, so I assume I cannot just give it away. I do recall that there was a checkbox on the DBP site to indicate whether or not you were a CC member and if I recall I checked that, does that have anything to do with it?

The error from xbox.com is:
An error has occurred during the transaction. Please try again later.

I have also tried it directly from my xbox, but still get an error. Any ideas or info on this? Is there anything that can I do with this code apart from look at it?

Thanks,

Mark

Avalon Legend

Kangsanagi — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:39:54 GMT

Hi guys,

just want to share my team's game with everyone on this forum. The road for DreamBuildPlay was a bumpy one for us, as we had severe difficulties uploading our game in the closing hours of the competition.

But thanks to the good folks at Microsoft and the DreamBuildPlay team, we were allowed to submit our game separately, in light of this problem. According to the DBP Team, our game is still being reviewed to be displayed alongside the rest of the great games this year in the DBP Website's Gallery, but in the meantime...

Avalon Legend Website: http://dark-manifesto.blogspot.com/2009/08/avalon-legend.html

Avalon Legend Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_AKA6z16wc

Questions and concerns for Microsoft regarding top 6 finalists being displayed at PAX

kiwasabi — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:19:51 GMT

I was wondering if it would be possible for the community to get official answers regarding these very important questions about the top 6 finalists being displayed at PAX 2009:

1) Will it be possible to submit a more current and more polished version of a game that got into the top 6 to be shown at PAX 2009 at the Indie Games both?

If no, here's my main concern with this: players get used to a game playing and looking a certain way, even if those things (graphics, gameplay, etc) aren't optimal compared to the updated changes. This can and does turn off players (aka POTENTIAL BUYERS), especially if, for instance, the game has an overpowered mechanic that players experience in the more primitive version, and then expect it in the newer version (even though it's worse for the game's overall quality).

There was an example of this happening with a certain indie several months ago where he released a video of an early build of his 2d platformer game, and then when he released the game with a slightly different background, he got lots of mail from angry players wondering what happened to the old background in the video (even though that was worse quality by far).

I almost think having an old version of your game on display hurts it more than it helps it. It can either turn people off with how bad it is compared to the new version of the game (they won't give you the chance to check out the new version if they don't like the old one) or they'll receive false expectations regarding how the game will look and feel and will not like the final product due to small inconsistencies from the version they played. First impressions are very delicate entities that need to be handled with care.

2) Do you encourage top 6 finalists to plan on hanging out around their game at the Indie Games booth at PAX 2009? And do you encourage them to hand out fliers and schwag? Remember that any promotion the developers do for themselves is more money for Microsoft without Microsoft spending any more money on marketing.

If Microsoft could find it to give complete and honest answers to the above questions, the community would definitely benefit from it.

Sincerely,

Adam Coate

GamesCom

Gooni — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:19:30 GMT

Hi!

I was just wondering whether any of you guys that take part in DBP09 are going to be at the GamesCom in Cologne?!
As I happen to do a radio magazine about games (not as a job, just a hobby) I will be there tomorrow (when it's open to press). I think it would be very nice to meet for a coffee if anyone wants to. :)

Regards, Gooni.

Sequence

Feep — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:34:22 GMT

Well, I've been workin' on this one for fifteen months, and I submitted approximately 23 minutes before the deadline. Amazing how so many new problems can pop up only hours before the due date, isn't it? = D

As usual, the trailer does not do a good job of explaining what the hell is going on. Sequence is a hybrid of a rhythm title and an RPG, by which there are three separate streams of notes, each corresponding to one of offense, defense, and mana regeneration. It gets pretty chaotic. There's an in-depth item synthesis system, fantastic art, and a script written by myself and several professional Hollywood screenwriters. It's quite ambitious, but the game is probably 60-70% complete at this point. I'm gunning for an early 2010 release date.

Trailer: Sequence Dream Build Play '09 HD Trailer

Really impressive games this year

Pandapadawan — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:59:02 GMT

My favorites so far:

Guru Guru
Masters of Belial
Dust - An Elysian Tail
Band of Bears
Creed Arena
Kuchibi
Rotorscope
RC Racing 360
Wacky Karts
Magnetic Mind
Hollandia

MAJOR GS 3.1 bug deleted ALL CONTENT in DBP submission

JasonD — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:20:16 GMT

I was in the final compile, using GS3.1, with FireFox 3.5 showing my YouTube video (to ensure the URL was correct for the DBP submission) and the DBP submission website. The compile failed, even though I was just playing my game... I was horrified to find that it deleted all of my content. Every image gone from the repository!

It's possible (but I don't know for certain) this is due to DirectX being used internally by Firefox 3.5 to render Youtube and/or the DBP submission/uploader website, since DirectX usage -- even when not rendering to the screen -- breaks compilations, and I know add-ons can use DirectX. I don't know what was using DirectX. All I know is that Firefox 3.5 was only other app running.

But this wasn't just a compile error -- VC# wiped my ENTIRE project void of ALL ITS CONTENT. :S I had to scramble to find out what content was lost (all graphics were gone), and to restore it from backups. I had no time to ensure the content was restored correctly, and due to the hectic nature of the last few days, I'm not even sure I have the latest content restored. This delay means my upload only started 5 to 10 minutes before the deadline, so it ended about 20 minutes after.

What an amazingly crazy bug.......

I hope my submission is accepted, and I hope it works.

Autumn Dynasty

tsdnxa — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:44:56 GMT

Hi everyone! :)

Here's a trailer for our game, Autumn Dynasty, an oriental-style ink-brush RTS, made as a student hobby project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fUlFsyuaCk

We got started a little late (compared to the awesomely polished stuff in this competition! :) ), so this represents just two months of part time work.

Things are currently multiplayer only (either splitscreen or network)-- but single player AI will be arriving real soon! We appreciate the difficulties of playing strategy games using a controller, but it's actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. It plays much, much better on our (school-built) multitouch table however, and it would be really, really nice we could gain access to a microsoft surface SDK! *hint*

170 games and counting...

Flowchart Revival LLC — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:57:20 GMT

How many games were there in DBP08?

DBP09 youtube group page has been upgraded - check it out

Transus — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:08:45 GMT

Look like youtube has altered their group interface somewhat, making it easier to vote for videos. As much as I enjoyed being the sole voter for a few minutes (THE POWER!), everyone should probably go in there an let their votes be heard!

http://www.youtube.com/group/dbp09

Also, I ask authors to take a look at the list of videos and see if you have more then one video in the group. If so, it would be great to prune them down to one per game (just to make the voting more clear).

Finally, if you know someone who has an entry and their game video isn't in the group, please ask them to add it. I'd love it to be a central place we can go to look at all the games!