[quote user="Matthew Doucette"]The artwork is what we are missing in Duality ZF.  You cannot capture that idea Dean is talking about unless you have a real artist.  The rest of you all have that and we don't.  Too bad for us.[/quote] I wouldn't say that; I like the look of Duality.  The explosions and effects have a nice ...

[quote user="Phaxan"]You bet well :), I used to play Aero Blasters ( Air Buster ) on Nec. Thunder Force Series, Gaiares, Side Arms Special, Soldier Blade, Parodius, Otomedius G, Area 88, Wonderboy III, Darius. I have all of this in mind, they are good references. Nonetheless, I don't mention R-type because I don't like it, ...

I'm glad you posted these, and I hope other developers take note.  Personally, I feel that the majority of indie games suffer from horrendous artwork, and since it's almost the first thing that any consumers judges, should be an area worth investing into.  There are a LOT of talented artists online, and a little searching and careful ...

[quote user="Spyn Doctor"]Before or after the vertical one we have been waiting for so long? ;-)Doc[/quote] *nod*  I'm really looking forward to Duality as well, but have always had a soft spot for horizontal shooters... particularly since they lend themselves to the 16:9 format.  I'm thinking along the lines of something more ...

I really like what I see :)  I'm dying to do a horizontal shooter next.

My budget is pretty low, considering I'm doing art myself.  And fortunately I already had all of the software/hardware I needed from my normal work.  My biggest expense so far has been music, which I've set aside several thousand for. I originally started this as a hobby, but I suppose now I am 'betting the farm'.  This ...

I liked James Silva's solution provided in his book, which I've done some modifications to.  The solution sounds similar to your slopes for grounds, however it's important that the character have different states so that you can check whether to bother with slopes above your character.  For example, characterState.Air and ...

Stupid IE, there goes my huge response :( Well, to summarize... you need a programmer and an artist at the least.  If you don't have these, put your design doc to the side for now, and spend some serious time learning.  Go through the tutorials, make some small (very SMALL) apps and games, see a small project through completion, and then ...

I was just skimming this thread, and my personal opinion is that no developer using XNA is going to push it to the limit.  Sure, you can get poor performance on the 360 with sloppy code, but XNA developers will run into asset creation/team management issues light years before they actually hit the limits of what XNA is capable of.

Make sure your friend's PC has enough RAM/Video RAM to run your game.