Great article over on Kotaku

Yeah! We made Kotaku :)

http://kotaku.com/5419536/sticks-up-lacrosse-breaks-into-the-xbox-360

Excellent reaction to CL10

So CL10 has been out for a week now and sales have been excellent - we're #1 best selling Xbox 360 Indie Game in the US and Canada at the moment. The reaction of the lax community to the game has been overwhelming, they are loving it - we've been rated over 2000 times in the US alone with a rating of over 4.5 stars, currently ahead of Portal, Gears of War 2 and Geometry Wars Evolved. There have also been great comments posted on our Facebook page, here's just some of them:

Alex Konigseder: thank you so much for making this game. i have been waiting for a game for lacrosse since i started playing 6 years ago. and finally some one did. this is the best sports game i have ever played thank you so much!

Chris Sullivan: Cant wait for 2011!

Andrew Buligan: Awsome game. So worth the 5 bucks. Love the graphics. It's sooo realistic. All in all great game.

Nick DeSanctis: just got it. great work guys. i love it! great start!

Stefvon Facey: So i was having the shittiest of the days today then i came home and got this and have been in a great mood ever since. thanks for the game you did a great job on it can't wait to see the future of this game now that you have opened the door

Neil Jackson: awesome game. easy to pick up and easy to play. love it

Mathew Goggins: I love this game - I'm addicted... THANK YOU CL2010

Mikey McGraw: Playing it as we speak best game EVER!!! Ima stop playing cod just to play this im wrecking it up with some huggeee hitss mann its insane GO IRISH!!!


Loads more great comments & reviews check them all out on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/collegelacrosse2010?v=info#/collegelacrosse2010?v=wall

Inside Lacrosse's CL2010 - OUT NOW!!!

Yes, the game has made its way through peer review and is now out and available for download and purchase. Find it in your 360 dash at Indie Games->Browse->Sports & Recreation (or in New Releases for the next few days) or if you prefer to set it up to download from your PC head over to Xbox Marketplace here.

Hope you enjoy the game, and please don't forget to rate the game after you've played it.

Progression Video

Carlo's put together a video showing the progression of Lacrosse throughout the last 6 months - from Fitba to Inside Lacrosse's College Lacrosse 2010. It's funny to look back at the game and see it changing. One word of warning - you might want to turn your speakers down a touch, the musics a bit LOUD!

Inside Lacrosse's College Lacrosse 2010

Too tired to post properly, but it looks like we're going into peer review tonight, one last multi player test and we're there. Back to watching the slow blue line creep towards release.

New low price!

I've cut the price of Fitba to a mere 240 points, Fill your boots - go on - you can buy two copies and have change from a Fiver :)

Fitba Patch - Out Now!

Fitba's been updated with a new version, which has now passed peer review and is available for download. Here's what's new...

Fixed occasional crash in network game when player is sent off.
Added option to alter length of games.
Added option to pause or manually control rotation of player in player editing.
Fixed juddering when the goalkeeper is kicking from hands on client in network game.
Dont allow client to join server if server is running a different version to the client.


Upating to the latest version is currently a bit clunky in the community games channel. You have to manually delete the game from your 360 and download it again. Apparently this is a process that is going to be improved "soon".

Facebook Group

Another way to stay in touch with Fitba & Triple B Games news is to join our new Facebook group - head to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=73010533084 if you would rather keep in touch that way.

XBLCG.info

Some of the XNA Community Games creators have got together and put a Community Games Review site together. Hopefully if this site is a success it'll shame Microsoft into pulling their finger out and getting user ratings integrated into the dash. The site allows you to give each game your approval and see charts of the highest ranked games.

You can find the site here http://xblcg.info/ and its Fitba page is here http://xblcg.info/game/fitba

All approvals gratefully received :)

I've been noodled!

Nope nothing about the new disgusting kebab flavoured pot noodles, but I've done a developer Q&A over at Noodlegamer.com check it out here.

Developer Interview for Cranky Gamers UK

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Fly for Cranky Gamers UK, discussing Fitba, making games with XNA and all the fun and games that's involved in getting your game out on Community Games.

Head over here for the Cranky blog or over to iTunes to listen to the interview.

"Jumpers for goalposts"

XnPlay have posted a review of the game, and despite not being a football game fan they've enjoyed the game... "A few minutes into the game pass and I’m having fun. Me? Fun? With a football game? What is this world coming to? I’ve long stopped worrying about what button does what and settled into a nice groove of passing back and forth, sliding tackling a random passer by purely because I’m a child at heart and still find kicking people over funny"

Fitba - the only footy game that allows you to please your inner child by slide tackling the oppositions star striker as they're lining up to kick off :)

Fitba made the News Of The World!

The News of the World picked up on Fitba for its Scottish edition in its "What we like on the web this week". I'm dead chuffed to make it into national press coverage, quite a coup for a game that's only out on Community Games. Here's a scan of the article:

Luv and more for Fitba

GameLuv's got luv for Fitba "For 400 Microsoft Points it could be one of the Community Games that really takes off in the mainstream. Well, in the European mainstream anyways." It's true there has been more interest in the game from over here, but I've had quite a few e-mails and comments from US players, so it's not like nobody in the US is playing it. The foreign reviews are great entertainment when you run them through babelfish to try and work out whether they like the game or not. Like the translation of this Spanish blog "Fitba... irremediably remembers classic the Sensible Soccer, something that always is a good signal." I think he likes it :)

Another Spanish blog, but this time written in English really likes the game. "Possibly, the best game of Community Games... Indeed, very good game."

Youtube Trailer

Some people have reported problems with Soapbox and Chrome, so here's the exact same vid on youtube.

Youtube review

SatanicBakedBeanz's James has posted a video review of Fitba, and a couple of other CG games too. He likes the game, prefers it to Sensi and picks up on the Kick Off influence that is definitely there.

For me it is really interesting to see other people playing the game. Nobody seems to get the hang of taking the kick offs which is my fault entirely - for a long while in order to take the kick off you had to run into the ball to kick it and the game would then start. I then added the option so that if you press A or pull the trigger the nearest computer controlled player would then run up and knock it forward thus starting the game. However what seems to happen is the people just run around all over the shop before the kick off, so the opposition are coming in and stealing the ball before the player reacts. I guess I should have just forced the players position to be right there for the kick off. There's not really much to be gained from giving the player the freedom to run around at that point of the game, but I am always loathe to take control away from the player.

The other thing that James seems to do is use the A button for passing a lot. He only seems to be using the kick stick for aftertouch, rather than for actually performing the pass. Pressing A as an option for the pass was a pretty late addition, primarily so my kids, who can't really handle twin stick controls, could play the game, and isn't really how the game is meant to be played. Perhaps I should have introduced it with some kind of tutorial... hmmm.

Still he likes the game which is good, even if he likes Zoomaroom more...

Feedback starting to come in.

So Fitba's been out there over the weekend and it's starting to get some reviews & feedback.

The XBLCG team blog liked it... "Fitba, the soccer game for people who love the beautiful game but can't be bothered with the ego of the superstars. This is just pure fun. My next CG purchase for sure."

411 Mania did a review, but didn't seem to find the option to change the camera. They still seemed to like the game, "This game does a lot of things right - including separating passing and kicking by using both analog sticks, which creates a new level of gameplay."

Also had an email from Pete Rankin of Leith FM who loves the game and is going to be giving it a spot today about 4pm. "A great little football game that gives fifa and pes a run for their money... easily the best community game so far."

Fitba also got a load of good and encouraging comments from those who peer reviewed the game. “Fantastic game … I am not a soccer/ football fan, but this is still a blast.”, “Excellent game”, “Game rocks”, “I don't watch or play soccer, but I thought this game was a lot of fun.”

More as I get them.

It really is done this time...

It's a wrap, done, finished, finito, completed, gone gold, out, go download it, even better buy it, it's only 400 MS points.

Of course if you don't have a 360 this can be the perfect excuse for you to go and get one.

I'm off to get drunk and watch the Community Games charts filtered by popularity - the only way to get any idea of how it's selling until they come up with some system of sales tracking.

It's done...

... well almost. I've had the game being playtested for the last week or so on the Community Games site, and it's now into the Peer Review stage. This is the stage at which other Creator's Club members check it over to make sure it doesn't crash, it doesn't have any dodgy stuff in it etc. So it should be about a week to ten days until it's out on the Community Games channel. That is as long as there aren't any issues found. Then you'll finally be able to fork out your hard earned and see just what I've been beavering away at.

Edit: I should have said, if anybody's a premium Creators Club member and would like to join in the peer review, this is the link. Thanks.

Here's the new vid I've put together as part of the submission, I spent a bit longer on this vid than the last one, hope you like it:

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=6b12e448-066f-4fd4-ba72-5b9fca2854db" target="_new" title="Fitba Community Games Trailer">Video: Fitba Community Games Trailer</a>