Avatars XBLA game unveiled News

Xbox 360 News by Oli Welsh

7 November, 2008

Microsoft's Gamescore Blog has lifted the lid on the first Xbox Live Arcade game to feature playable Avatars.

A Kingdom for Keflings is a city-building game in which your Avatar, a giant, orders Kefling minions around. It will be available on November 19th alongside the New Xbox Experience interface update that will bring Avatars to the 360. The game will cost 800 MS points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60).

You can build your village up into a city on your own, or co-operatively with up to three friends. You can order the ankle-high Keflings to gather resources and build and paint buildings, and you can kick them around if you're not happy with their work.

The gameplay is seasonal, the graphics changing dynamically to reflect the time of year, and there's dynamic music, too.

A Kingdom for Keflings is developed by NinjaBee, the Live Arcade spcialists responsible for Outpost Kaloki X, Band of Bugs and Cloning Clyde.

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Gnort

07/11/08 @ 08:56

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I'd really rather not have my avatar in the game, but I've enjoyed all of Ninjabee's previous efforts, so will definitely be giving the trial a go when this comes out.

Xerx3s

07/11/08 @ 09:09

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wtf...

hoster

07/11/08 @ 09:30

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Hasn't this been out for a while?

muscleblade

07/11/08 @ 09:35

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"Hasn't this been out for a while? "

No it hasnt.

berelain

07/11/08 @ 09:47

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sounds quite interesting actually, and Ninja Bee have a pretty good rep with XBLA titles so far.

DanWhitehead

07/11/08 @ 09:55

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This game is really quite lovely.

FHUTA

07/11/08 @ 09:59

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they really should give out a freebie XBLA game with avatars to get the ball rolling - though it didn't work for Totem Ball and using the vision cam as an eyetoy on a regular basis

Mogs

07/11/08 @ 10:12

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No thanks MS. No plans to become an avatard.

smirny

07/11/08 @ 10:15

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almost a handful of screens here >> http://www.ninjabee.com/akfk/index.html

Farzlepot

07/11/08 @ 10:19

#10

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Sounds a little like Black & White, with the giant wandering around a village and bullying the tiny residents. And no, I'm still not going to use my avatar - I'm in my twenties, and those avatars all look like snot-nosed teenagers to me!

HolyJebus

07/11/08 @ 11:02

#11

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Looks ok. I do worry about the amount of time they had to develop this game though. Hope it wasn't rushed just to have a game ready for launch with avatars in it.

I think its crazy how anti-avatars some people are. I don't care about them either way but if they are implemented well into a few games then fair play. I'm certainly not going to not buy a good game just because they use the avatars. I do think the 1v100 game has potential.

Gnort

07/11/08 @ 11:20

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@HolyJebus
I wouldn't worry too much about the game being rushed, Ninjabee have been working on this since Band of Bugs was released, which was well over a year ago. No doubt the inclusion of avatars will have been a more recent thing, but the base game has been in development for a fairly long time by XBLA standards.

Apostle

07/11/08 @ 12:05

#13

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So the giants we see in those screens are sort of place holders for our NXE avatars? Or are they heavily customised NXE avatars?

RedSparrows

09/11/08 @ 01:35

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This has been known about for months, the only new thing is the avatars. I checked IGN (cripes!) and it was there!

Ryze

09/11/08 @ 16:13

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I've got a feeling that we'll see some home-esque ripoff XBLA games that deliver what Sony are dreaming of, but in more manageable chunks - including real social gameplay.

This sounds interesting.

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