vRAGmAZTER:

I just got an email from dbp support, telling me, that the 20 finalists will be anounced next week!!!

Nice. You must be one of them because I didn't get any e-mail. Grats!

I don't know, if I am one fo them.... I just asked them via mail, if there will be 20 finalists, and then they answered following:

vRAGmAZTER:

I don't, if I am one fo them.... I just asked them via mail, if there will be 20 finalists, and then they answered following:

..... Excerpt from mail .....

> I did learn that they are planning to show a Top 20 list on the site sometime next week. 
> 
> I don't know a specific date so you may want to check the site again next week. 

.......

I see. Thanks for the clarification. It would be nice to be on that list, but its unclear to me if that will get you a special spot on the Indie dashboard. I guess the best thing to do is "stay tuned".

Wow I just looked at the link an I'm speechless. They all look very very good! Can anyone tell me if only a single person or a full team worked on each of those? And how long did it take from start to finish?
I'm still starting to learn XNA and especially 3D development and I don't know if I will be able to fully make a game by myself at some point in the future. The coding should be no problem, although I love pair-programming, it just rocks, but I have no idea how long it will take me to understand 3D Models, not to talk about creating some (and then there is the sound department and so on). So I really wonder if I will ever be able to pull something as beautiful as those games by myself.

I can't speak for the others, but I'm the only developer on Dust (aside from the music).  I come from an art background, but do lots of technical work, so XNA made things much easier for me.  Creating assets does take a long time though, particularly with 3D.  It takes me a good while to build and bone a model, let alone setting the UVW mapping and all the textures (specular, bump, opacity, etc).  Ugh, thinking about spending the last few years on that makes me glad I'm doing a 2D game.

Of course, I have to credit the playtesters on this forum, and those willing to help me with my code, for which I am thankful.  My advice... get involved with this community, and take advantage of the playtest system.  I honestly don't know how the other finalists do without it.

falc410:

The coding should be no problem,...

Don't worry. If you know how to code, the rest wobnn't be a problem if you really want it. XNA literally takes you by the hand.
Check Mr. Hargreaves Blog once in a while to get answers to the questions that will arise...
Good luck!!!

I have to say as a judge I find some of the comments here quite interesting. I definately stand behind the top six and yep it was hard to get to that list as there was a lot of top quality games out there. There is no portfolio or requirement for us to pick a title from specific genres it's just how it panned out

Some helpful hints for folks for next year:

• Make sure your game doesn't code 4. I had a number of games (and sorry, unfortuantely I don't recall them) that code 4'd before the game even started. It's a good thing they didn't code 4 on other judge's machines. The evil checklist is a good place to start
• Frame rate, make sure it doesn't stutter
• Tutorials or some help. For a few of the games I had absolutely no idea what to do. It doesn't leave a good impression
• We're gamers. We want to play great games and you want us to be raving to the other judges about how cool your game is. Your game may be the war and peace of independent development and have a really cool boss on the 54th level but your game needs to tantalize me as soon as possible

I don't envy what you judges had to do in such a short time, but I obviously appreciate it :)  There are some amazing games this year.

For those looking for a top 20 list, I believe there might be one here...

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/press/dreambuildplay2009

...under Additional Information.  I can't open docx files, but I see a top 20 Finalists.  I'm also now seeing news coming out about the public/press getting their hands on the finalists games at PAX.  Exciting times!  For those that are there, please... PHOTOS!

Here's the list for those who can't view docx files:

Dream.Build.Play Top 20
At-a-Glance

Dust: An Elysian Tail
HurricaneX2 Evolution
Kaleidoscope
Max Blastronaut
Rotor’scope
Sol Survivor

Duality ZF
Powa Volley
Echoes
Cloudberry Kingdom
Mirror
BAMBOONO
Guru-Guru
Magnetic Mind
Square Off
Avatar Golf
Creed Arena
Band of Bears
What The?!
Masters of Belial

You need to change the file extension to docx to open the file.

Congratulations to all who made it. Unfortunately I didn't.

I looked at the doc, searched for my game, saw it wasn't there, and have emailed the admins to ask them to investigate
Obviously an oversite of some form.
:)

Grats to the top 20, commiserations to my brothers in the bottom 280.

J.

omg. just another disappointment... ;(
gratz to all who made it though!

That's a line-up of 20 high quality games indeed! Congratulations to everyone who made it into the top 20! And of course special congratulations to Dean! Great achievement, with a game that is a very worthy winner! :-)
I can imagine that this will help the prospects of your feature film quite a bit too, so double congratulations!

And since I'm guessing that only a small number of those games will be offered a XBLA contract (if any), I'm seeing a lot of quality games coming onto XBLIG in the coming months! That are really bright prospects for the service! That also includes the ones we don't see here, which placed just below the top 20...

Doc

Noogy:

I can't speak for the others, but I'm the only developer on Dust (aside from the music).  I come from an art background, but do lots of technical work, so XNA made things much easier for me.  Creating assets does take a long time though, particularly with 3D.  It takes me a good while to build and bone a model, let alone setting the UVW mapping and all the textures (specular, bump, opacity, etc).  Ugh, thinking about spending the last few years on that makes me glad I'm doing a 2D game.

Dust just looks amazing! It's so beautiful, much better then many commercial games that are out there right now. May I ask how long it did take you (roughly), or is this confidential?

Wow, great, I didn't reckon that we are on this list, this makes me really, really happy!

falc410:

May I ask how long it did take you (roughly)

Sure, around 6 months for the DBP build.  I picked up C#/XNA in December of last year, and spent the next 2 months learning/testing.  I started creating the game proper around Jan-Feb.

Most of that time was putting down the framework.  Creating content is much easier for me, and now that the framework in place, everything should be smooth sailing from here on.  The key is to be realistic and keep 'feature creep' under control.

Gooni:

omg. just another disappointment... ;(
gratz to all who made it though!

Yes, grats to all. I knew I didn't want to know any more than the first six! :) . There's stil some top notch games missing (RC Racing and GemChase just off the top of my head). I don't want to know how far down the list I was. Time to move on to the next project.

I know that the people making games for DBP are very passionate, but I don't think the hate in this thread is entirely called for.  The Sol Survivor team are up here in Seattle for PAX in force, and as much as we think we've made a good game, I speak for all of my team when I say we're floored by the quality of all of the finalists and equally floored by the quality of some of the games that did not make it.  It should be obvious just how deep this field is, this year.  Having personally played all of the other five finalist titles, I could have no regrets seeing all of them place above us in the voting.  I'm excited because this year's crop of games are going to get a lot of good press for Indie Games, which is good for everyone in the long run!

I don't like playing defense, but I feel I've been pitched to a bit here with the discussion of "formulaic" games being promoted on the platform.  We're in review right now.  Go download Sol Survivor and get into it a bit.  Play our first five levels and get a feel for the mechanics.  Play a few of the second set of five levels and get a feel for the pacing.  Check out our variety of multiplayer game modes that allow for casual, cooperative or competitive multiplayer play.  I feel we've succeeded in creating a tower defense game which brings players into the action such that the mid- to high-end play feels more like an RTS game that has no resource gathering mechanics, rather than just a tower defense game.

That's just my two cents.

cydereal:

I know that the people making games for DBP are very passionate, but I don't think the hate in this thread is entirely called for.

This post surprises me because I thought overall this thread was pretty clean. There may be one or two angry posts at most. Or put it this way - there's no more hate in this thread than in any other thread on the forums with more than 10 replies :) .

Edit: I read the thread again, and I did find one comment calling Sol Survivor a tower defense game. The original G4TV post also called it a tower defense game ("Sol Survivor is a fully-functioning 3D tower defense game made using Microsoft's games development toolset."). But I don't think these references were meant to demean your game.

vRAGmAZTER:

Wow, great, I didn't reckon that we are on this list, this makes me really, really happy!

Also congrats to all the other finalists!

I feel the same way.  This year the games were truly amazing, a huge leap forward from the top 20 of 2008.  I am honored to have Duality ZF on that list among those games.  I am assuming we (EDIT: I actually meant our game and Magnetic Mind, too) scored high on the fun factor part (thinking about our probably low innovation score) and if so that's good news.  I know speculating is pratically meaningless, but it's so hard not to do!  Congratulations to the other top 20.

@Noogy:

Thanks for your reply. I really liked the trailer, so I hope we will be able to buy it soon on the indie channel!

Removing my feeble joke. It doesn't seem as funny now with the contest results out.

Madras:

Dust: An Elysian Tail
HurricaneX2 Evolution
Kaleidoscope
Max Blastronaut
Rotor’scope
Sol Survivor

Duality ZF
Powa Volley
Echoes
Cloudberry Kingdom
Mirror
BAMBOONO
Guru-Guru
Magnetic Mind
Square Off
Avatar Golf
Creed Arena
Band of Bears
What The?!
Masters of Belial

I posted videos of the top 20 (except 2 are only screenshots):
http://xona.com/2009/09/05.html

Congratulations to all the finalist and top twentiest. Solid work.

I can hope the Masters of Belial guy(s) can find the drive within to keep going and finish the game. It looks very nice.

@Matthew:
It's really sweet Duality ZF was in the top 20. I must have missed a forum post or two... I thought it didn't make it in. Is this a complete surprise in as much as not thinking you even got into the contest?

Woot! Woot!  Number 19 in the list! (What The?!)

Congrats to Noogy. :)