So I was going through the list of demos available (link here) and while I think it is awesome that Microsoft is doing this event, I want to know who decided that 2-d sidescrolling games are what the market wants right now. Seriously, like 80%* of the demos seem to be in that category. I guess I'm clearly in a minority
I am downloading the Hellpoint demo, as it looks interesting. Will also probably take a look at the Destroy all Humans demo, but that's kind of a known quantity given its a remake. Curious to hear what games you all are looking at (and impressions once you do!).
*OK 80% probably hyperbole, but its definitely a lot!
This is kind of what you get if you grab fifty to a hundred indie games on console, I strongly suspect. The demo pool isn't limited to "indie games", of course, but a good chunk of it seems to be.
2D Sidescrollers are easier to design than a 3D game, making them ideal for indie studios. You have a smaller possibility space for where a character will be in the level given there's only two axis to move on and you can be assured of how far the art assets will be from the screen at all times so you don't need them to be super duper high res for when the player puts the camera up next to it like in a 3D game.
There's probably other reasons I'm missing because I'm not a dev, but those are the ones that popped out to me immediately.
Not to mention studios like Devolver making a name for themselves with titles like that. My Friend Pedro and that new game about being a parasitic monster both are fun twists on the genre.
Not to mention studios like Devolver making a name for themselves with titles like that. My Friend Pedro and that new game about being a parasitic monster both are fun twists on the genre.
Not to mention studios like Devolver making a name for themselves with titles like that. My Friend Pedro and that new game about being a parasitic monster both are fun twists on the genre.
Carrion. Comes out in two days, I can't wait!
YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!!!!!!! *cough* ...I am mildly excited for Carrion.
EDIT: OOOOO... and it's included with Game Pass!
Le_Goat on
While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
So I was going through the list of demos available (link here)
I played Armed and Gelatinous at PAX East this year and it was a good deal of fun. Unfortunately, looks like it's just couch co-op, which is real convenient during a pandemic. And Destroy All Humans was a fun game, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the remake is like.
I also want to try out Tesla Force. It won't be as good as Tesla vs. Lovecraft, but I love top-down shooters. ERMERGERD! It's the same studio as Tesla vs Lovecraft? JOY!!!!!! Now I'm really excited. The one thing missing from that game was online co-op.
Le_Goat on
While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
jeez, even going back to that site a few hours later and the list of games is growing ridiculously. Microsoft needs to put out a sortable spreadsheet or something; by the time I watch all those intro videos the playtest time will be over!
Set Tesla Force to download, will give it a try! Looks kinda like a shooty diablo from the screenshots.
So, despite me being a huge GoW1-3 fan I somehow missed the awesomeness that is Gears 5. Game Pass and Op4 fixed that. Anyone here still playing it and wanna do some Horde mode?
So I was going through the list of demos available (link here) and while I think it is awesome that Microsoft is doing this event, I want to know who decided that 2-d sidescrolling games are what the market wants right now. Seriously, like 80%* of the demos seem to be in that category. I guess I'm clearly in a minority
I am downloading the Hellpoint demo, as it looks interesting. Will also probably take a look at the Destroy all Humans demo, but that's kind of a known quantity given its a remake. Curious to hear what games you all are looking at (and impressions once you do!).
*OK 80% probably hyperbole, but its definitely a lot!
...I'm suddenly way more interested.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
(Considering it would amount to Microsoft paying developers to maintain a subscription service on a competing closed hardware platform, not very surprising.)
Steam did something similar a few weeks back, about a billion demos, some of which were time-limited. I'm not convinced that throwing so much out there at once and only giving you a limited time where they'll even work is the best idea.
Steam did something similar a few weeks back, about a billion demos, some of which were time-limited. I'm not convinced that throwing so much out there at once and only giving you a limited time where they'll even work is the best idea.
Quite possibly. As with Steam, I suspect it has to do both with agreements with the developers ("We only want this very unfinished demo out for a limited time.") and the overall publicity/hype machine. It's definitely inconvenient for players (putting aside the whole "But I need to try all of them!" this is obviously intended to appeal to a broad segment of the audience...especially if they like...indie platformers) if it just happens to be a bad week for them.
When the norm is "no demos at all, get your digital pre-orders in today!" putting up this many demos has to provide an obvious benefit to the developer more than actually serving as a demonstration of their game.
Definitely a good move to finally get past the whole "indies can fuck off" initiative during the One launch. It'll build up goodwill among indie studios if nothing else.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
In 2018 they had 22 (plus at least two more outside of the specifically Indie part)--which is less than I remembered (and two dozen is the lazy man's "dozens"). And way more than Sony, even with if count the flutist (which I totally do).
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
They totally don't count though. It's not the event was literally called "Independent Development at Xbox" compressed into a dumb-sound initialism! :biggrin:
In less amusing news and more heartwarming news, in honor of the Special Olympics Turn10 is giving us a modest gift.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
Which is exactly the point I made in my initial post, but bringing up Microsoft's loooooong efforts to fix the initial mistake is apparently a sore point.
Though where are the weekly streams? I'm intrigued but can't find them.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
Which is exactly the point I made in my initial post, but bringing up Microsoft's loooooong efforts to fix the initial mistake is apparently a sore point.
the sore point is that you're downplaying those efforts to a comical degree, acting as if the attitudes from the beginning of the generation still hold true. and yes those efforts have been long, because its been almost a decade since the start of this generation and these things take time. no one here is pretending that MS didn't make some massive errors with the launch of the of the Xbox One, its approach to indies being one amongst many, but we've seen them move on from those mistakes and the Xbox of today isn't the Xbox of 2013.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
Which is exactly the point I made in my initial post, but bringing up Microsoft's loooooong efforts to fix the initial mistake is apparently a sore point.
the sore point is that you're downplaying those efforts to a comical degree, acting as if the attitudes from the beginning of the generation still hold true. and yes those efforts have been long, because its been almost a decade since the start of this generation and these things take time. no one here is pretending that MS didn't make some massive errors with the launch of the of the Xbox One, its approach to indies being one amongst many, but we've seen them move on from those mistakes and the Xbox of today isn't the Xbox of 2013.
...how am I downplaying? I totally acknowledged that Microsoft has improved mightily from 2013 and is doing much better. They don't have those attitudes anymore. However, it's been a long and gradual process, judging by the number of weekly releases compared to the competition. (Which is improving!) Which is not to say the flurry of demos isn't impressive! My whole point was to say the flurry of demos was impressive.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
Which is exactly the point I made in my initial post, but bringing up Microsoft's loooooong efforts to fix the initial mistake is apparently a sore point.
the sore point is that you're downplaying those efforts to a comical degree, acting as if the attitudes from the beginning of the generation still hold true. and yes those efforts have been long, because its been almost a decade since the start of this generation and these things take time. no one here is pretending that MS didn't make some massive errors with the launch of the of the Xbox One, its approach to indies being one amongst many, but we've seen them move on from those mistakes and the Xbox of today isn't the Xbox of 2013.
...how am I downplaying? I totally acknowledged that Microsoft has improved mightily from 2013 and is doing much better. They don't have those attitudes anymore. However, it's been a long and gradual process, judging by the number of weekly releases compared to the competition. (Which is improving!) Which is not to say the flurry of demos isn't impressive! My whole point was to say the flurry of demos was impressive.
Also, where's the weekly streams? I'm intrigued.
maybe i got the wrong end of things but your initial comments read like you felt that this was a recent turn of events, that MS have only just begun putting the work in to court indies and that's just not true.
as for the the streams, they have been on the Xbox channel on Mixer predominantly(i'm not sure if they also stream those on Twitch), but as that service is being killed off today its not worth looking up. looks like they've also been streaming on Twitch so worth checking out the official Xbox channel on there. again, its a mix of big and small games dependant on what is being released/updated at the time. recent ID@Xbox streams have featured Ooblets Superliminal, and West of Dead
I'm not letting myself get hyped for Halo anymore. It's nice they're finally trying to embrace the legacy of the series in the final game in the 343 trilogy... But yeah.
I'm very much looking forward to it. I still enjoy Halo 5 in co-op, and the multiplayer is literally unrivaled in the genre, plus we're going to get another excellent soundtrack.
I will miss the work the creative community has done being "lost" when we transition over to a new game, but I've watched that happen with every title since Forge was introduced. I used to worry that 343i was going to make the franchise more like Destiny, but that no longer keeps me up at night.
I have no idea what Halo Infinite even is, but I fully expect it to be the best game ever made and I'll be disappointed if it's anything but.
For what it's worth, 343i's been doing a lot better with how they're treating Halo. They've done a lot of good stuff with MCC, giving the legacy of Halo the respect it deserves. Just the simple matter of going back to traditional designs instead of the different-to-be-different hot mess they had before is promising. And the focus on big, open spaces again is intriguiging.
If the game's a dud, oh well. But I am very excited to see whatever this game turns out to be.
Hellpoint: I didn't realize going in, but this is a dark souls clone, right down to the community markers and bonfires as save points/upgrade points, to the extent where it wouldn't surprise me if the maps were identical and its just a graphical reskin. They start you off at level 48-ish with +8 weapons which is pretty nice so you can jump in and play around without feeling limited. As a DS fan, I liked it, but nothing jumped out at me as new or different so YMMV. I also got a hard crash after about 30 minutes so that was about all I played.
Unspottable: Played couch co-op with son and daughter and was a lot of fun, with much yelling and (family-friendly) cursing. However, the core concept of try to figure out who on the screen is another player and punch them feels like it would get pretty old after a couple hours. They had a couple more complex things like trying to eat 4 pieces of sushi and then escape, but if you punch the other player you win instantly, so it wasn't clear why you would ever engage with the other mechanics. Played maybe 10 matches and it was fun during that time for what its worth.
Destroy all Humans: As advertised, the identical old Xbox game with fancy graphics. The graphics are very nice though!
Unlike its interior sections, Halo 5 has by far most massive open-space level design in the series thusfar (and going back to the Bungie trilogy, you realize how tiny the actual traversable levels are by comparison, even in 3, simple due to the technology), it's interesting to see what they'll do next in a new engine they've been bragging about.
I wonder if we'll see a treatment like Gears 5, which moved towards non-linear questions (sort of how we got in the second level of CE, but on a much grander scale). Not necessarily something I want, but I was surprised how well the Coalition pulled it off.
Hellpoint: I didn't realize going in, but this is a dark souls clone, right down to the community markers and bonfires as save points/upgrade points, to the extent where it wouldn't surprise me if the maps were identical and its just a graphical reskin. They start you off at level 48-ish with +8 weapons which is pretty nice so you can jump in and play around without feeling limited. As a DS fan, I liked it, but nothing jumped out at me as new or different so YMMV. I also got a hard crash after about 30 minutes so that was about all I played.
Unspottable: Played couch co-op with son and daughter and was a lot of fun, with much yelling and (family-friendly) cursing. However, the core concept of try to figure out who on the screen is another player and punch them feels like it would get pretty old after a couple hours. They had a couple more complex things like trying to eat 4 pieces of sushi and then escape, but if you punch the other player you win instantly, so it wasn't clear why you would ever engage with the other mechanics. Played maybe 10 matches and it was fun during that time for what its worth.
Destroy all Humans: As advertised, the identical old Xbox game with fancy graphics. The graphics are very nice though!
Thanks for sharing. I don't exactly have a great deal of time--also not a huge fan of the Dark Souls formula personally, so I'm just trying to find a free moment to play the Cris Tales demo.
nothing exciting, but Seagate have put up a page detailing the storage expansion cards they'll be releasing for the Series X. 1TB in size. games will run off them as they would off the internal drive*. also offering a 3 year warranty which is nice. no word on price yet though.
Seagate is thrilled to be a key player in next-generation gaming. With a new standard in performance, games will be more dynamic, visually stunning, and more immersive than ever. Seagate's Xbox Series X Storage Expansion Card technology delivers additional game storage at peak speeds, replicating the console’s internal SSD experience. We are proud to join forces with Xbox and can’t wait to help gamers immerse themselves in the high-fidelity experience.
*or should do at least. we'll need to wait and see if there's any actual performance difference between running off internal drive and expansion cards.
Posts
This is kind of what you get if you grab fifty to a hundred indie games on console, I strongly suspect. The demo pool isn't limited to "indie games", of course, but a good chunk of it seems to be.
There's probably other reasons I'm missing because I'm not a dev, but those are the ones that popped out to me immediately.
Carrion. Comes out in two days, I can't wait!
EDIT: OOOOO... and it's included with Game Pass!
I also want to try out Tesla Force. It won't be as good as Tesla vs. Lovecraft, but I love top-down shooters. ERMERGERD! It's the same studio as Tesla vs Lovecraft? JOY!!!!!! Now I'm really excited. The one thing missing from that game was online co-op.
Set Tesla Force to download, will give it a try! Looks kinda like a shooty diablo from the screenshots.
Store > Browse Games > Game Fest Demos
Though, last time I checked not all of them are listed there, SkateBird for one. That one I had to do a search to find.
...I'm suddenly way more interested.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
(Considering it would amount to Microsoft paying developers to maintain a subscription service on a competing closed hardware platform, not very surprising.)
Here is perhaps a slightly more complete list of the 70 67 demos available for this week (so try them out before they're goine if you're interested!).
Steam | XBL
Quite possibly. As with Steam, I suspect it has to do both with agreements with the developers ("We only want this very unfinished demo out for a limited time.") and the overall publicity/hype machine. It's definitely inconvenient for players (putting aside the whole "But I need to try all of them!" this is obviously intended to appeal to a broad segment of the audience...especially if they like...indie platformers) if it just happens to be a bad week for them.
When the norm is "no demos at all, get your digital pre-orders in today!" putting up this many demos has to provide an obvious benefit to the developer more than actually serving as a demonstration of their game.
Come on, you know it'll never be enough for you, Cloudeagle. That's why we like you.
Meanwhile Sony and Nintendo have featured hundreds.
Honestly, they're getting there, but it's taking a LOT of time and effort to undo the damage.
Hundreds at a single event?
I gotta say, that's impressive. Considering at their last E3, Sony featured six games (and one flutist).
Oh, you mean individual events? Near as I can tell, Microsoft has never featured dozens of games in a single E3.
In 2019 they had 11, near as I can tell.
Meanwhile Nintendo features indie Directs nearly every quarter, with upwards of a couple dozen each.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't doing indie stuff, it's just that Nintendo and Sony have (in the past) done more, which has made it difficult for Microsoft to keep up and get their weekly indie release list numbers close to theirs.
In 2018 they had 22 (plus at least two more outside of the specifically Indie part)--which is less than I remembered (and two dozen is the lazy man's "dozens"). And way more than Sony, even with if count the flutist (which I totally do).
In 2019, they actually had more than thirty Indie games available as part of the Xbox Experience, but I doubt they actually featured dozens of them in videos. Versus the hundreds Nintendo presumably had.
this was the most recent ID@Xbox showcase, 5 videos covering 34 games.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/06/24/id-xbox-launches-summer-spotlight-series/
they've done a couple of these these now. prior to that they had shorter more focused videos and did a couple ID@Xbox on Game Pass videos to highlight smaller games coming to that service. the idea that they aren't doing as much as others is just not close to being true anymore. and this isn't even getting into the various streams they do each week highlighting games big and small.
They totally don't count though. It's not the event was literally called "Independent Development at Xbox" compressed into a dumb-sound initialism! :biggrin:
In less amusing news and more heartwarming news, in honor of the Special Olympics Turn10 is giving us a modest gift.
I love me some Forza Motorsport, so I am pleased.
Which is exactly the point I made in my initial post, but bringing up Microsoft's loooooong efforts to fix the initial mistake is apparently a sore point.
Though where are the weekly streams? I'm intrigued but can't find them.
the sore point is that you're downplaying those efforts to a comical degree, acting as if the attitudes from the beginning of the generation still hold true. and yes those efforts have been long, because its been almost a decade since the start of this generation and these things take time. no one here is pretending that MS didn't make some massive errors with the launch of the of the Xbox One, its approach to indies being one amongst many, but we've seen them move on from those mistakes and the Xbox of today isn't the Xbox of 2013.
...how am I downplaying? I totally acknowledged that Microsoft has improved mightily from 2013 and is doing much better. They don't have those attitudes anymore. However, it's been a long and gradual process, judging by the number of weekly releases compared to the competition. (Which is improving!) Which is not to say the flurry of demos isn't impressive! My whole point was to say the flurry of demos was impressive.
Also, where's the weekly streams? I'm intrigued.
maybe i got the wrong end of things but your initial comments read like you felt that this was a recent turn of events, that MS have only just begun putting the work in to court indies and that's just not true.
as for the the streams, they have been on the Xbox channel on Mixer predominantly(i'm not sure if they also stream those on Twitch), but as that service is being killed off today its not worth looking up. looks like they've also been streaming on Twitch so worth checking out the official Xbox channel on there. again, its a mix of big and small games dependant on what is being released/updated at the time. recent ID@Xbox streams have featured Ooblets Superliminal, and West of Dead
*i assume.
I will miss the work the creative community has done being "lost" when we transition over to a new game, but I've watched that happen with every title since Forge was introduced. I used to worry that 343i was going to make the franchise more like Destiny, but that no longer keeps me up at night.
For what it's worth, 343i's been doing a lot better with how they're treating Halo. They've done a lot of good stuff with MCC, giving the legacy of Halo the respect it deserves. Just the simple matter of going back to traditional designs instead of the different-to-be-different hot mess they had before is promising. And the focus on big, open spaces again is intriguiging.
If the game's a dud, oh well. But I am very excited to see whatever this game turns out to be.
Hellpoint: I didn't realize going in, but this is a dark souls clone, right down to the community markers and bonfires as save points/upgrade points, to the extent where it wouldn't surprise me if the maps were identical and its just a graphical reskin. They start you off at level 48-ish with +8 weapons which is pretty nice so you can jump in and play around without feeling limited. As a DS fan, I liked it, but nothing jumped out at me as new or different so YMMV. I also got a hard crash after about 30 minutes so that was about all I played.
Unspottable: Played couch co-op with son and daughter and was a lot of fun, with much yelling and (family-friendly) cursing. However, the core concept of try to figure out who on the screen is another player and punch them feels like it would get pretty old after a couple hours. They had a couple more complex things like trying to eat 4 pieces of sushi and then escape, but if you punch the other player you win instantly, so it wasn't clear why you would ever engage with the other mechanics. Played maybe 10 matches and it was fun during that time for what its worth.
Destroy all Humans: As advertised, the identical old Xbox game with fancy graphics. The graphics are very nice though!
I wonder if we'll see a treatment like Gears 5, which moved towards non-linear questions (sort of how we got in the second level of CE, but on a much grander scale). Not necessarily something I want, but I was surprised how well the Coalition pulled it off.
Thanks for sharing. I don't exactly have a great deal of time--also not a huge fan of the Dark Souls formula personally, so I'm just trying to find a free moment to play the Cris Tales demo.
https://www.trueachievements.com/n42537/xbox-series-x-storage-expansion
offical page here.
*or should do at least. we'll need to wait and see if there's any actual performance difference between running off internal drive and expansion cards.
Also, given what we know about the PS5, expanding the storage on that is going ot be LUDICROUSLY expensive.
Like, when this news first came out for the Series X, I cringed. Now it's looking like they'll be the cheaper of the two, which is nuts.