GDC: XNA Trials Roundup

Culture, JellyCar, Little Gamers, ProximityHD, Rocketball, Dishwasher, TriLinea.

So, many moons after the XNA (Xbox Nautical Acclimatiser) was first announced, we're finally getting to see the fruits of all those amateur coders, beavering away over a hot keyboard. Seven preview versions of XNA titles are available from the Xbox Live Marketplace, but will turn into smoke and be blown away on a fragrant breeze in just over two weeks time.

To access the games, you first need to download the XNA Launcher from the Game Store. Then scroll through the blades to My Games, and select XNA Creators Club from the top bar. Hit the Y button and you can start downloading.

The games are, as you'd expect, a mixed bag. Some have their amateur roots proudly on display, others could be added to Live Arcade tomorrow and fit right in. This, then, is not a review but a sort of "previewy roundup", to use Tom's delightful phrase - a critical overview to see what sort of content is being created, how it's shaping up and what we might start seeing once Microsoft's peer-reviewed developer community really starts cranking them out.

Culture

  • Developed by: Hidden Path Entertainment, USA
'GDC: XNA Trials Roundup' Screenshot culture

Three horticultural mini-games await in this curious compilation. In Bloom Game, you're the curator of a spherical green garden. Nasty weeds pop up on the surface and you must stamp down their botanical invasion by surrounding them with flowers. Rotate the globe, draw lines of flowers, try to remove all the weeds before they dominate the garden. It sounds simple and it is. Accurately boxing in the weeds can be a random affair, however, since you're never entirely sure if your lines are joining up. Is that a gap in your line, or just the normal gap between the flowers? The effect of the flowers sprouting life beneath your cursor is very nice, but it's all too repetitive and vague to really grab your imagination.

Paint With Flowers is exactly what it sounds like. Paint By Numbers, using flowers instead of paint. Scroll around the large grid, selecting the correct colour from your palette and clicking in the right place. Once you've correctly filled all the areas, the game zooms out and shows you your masterpiece. It's almost entirely devoid of challenge, but strangely compelling.

Both of these games earn you "mixers" which can then be used in the third element of the game - the Flower Garden. Here you combine different types of flower to create new colours and designs.

Certainly the most unusual of the seven demos, it's not entirely clear who Culture is aimed at. It's got a very nice relaxing feel to it, but it's not exactly overflowing with gameplay. Somewhere in this grab bag of ideas is the seed of a really lovely game, but it'll need careful nurturing to bear fruit.

JellyCar

  • Developed by: Walaber, USA
'GDC: XNA Trials Roundup' Screenshot jellocar

Now this is the sort of title that grabs your attention. A car? Made of jelly? Who could resist the chance to muck about with such a thing?

As the game succinctly explains, the aim is to drive a squishy car through squishy worlds. Between you and your goal are ramps, obstacles and other pitfalls. You can inflate your car to traverse gaps, and simply watching your gelatinous vehicle burble across the eight preview levels is immediately enjoyable. Calling to mind Crayon Physics Deluxe, the game is cheerful and bouncy in all the right ways, and there's clearly potential here for some devilish level designs. The part in the Factory level where the car is squished between two giant wheels and boinged across the room is a particular highlight.

Control, however, is very twitchy and navigating some of the moving puzzles is a right chore, especially as it's easy to get stuck in the scenery. Checkpoints wouldn't go amiss as well, since nothing drains goodwill more than painstakingly crossing a series of fiendish rotating platforms, only to start all over again after one mistake. Those are easy problems to fix, though, and this is one of those demos where you can clearly see how much fun the full game will be.

Little Gamers

  • Developed by: Loic Dansart, Belgium

The first of two side-scrolling games, Little Gamers is based on a web comic. My tolerance for smug Penny Arcade rip-offs is incredibly low, so I'll just move onto the game itself.

'GDC: XNA Trials Roundup' Screenshot littlegamers

It's sort of like River City Ransom, as you guide the hilarious Little Gamer characters across a series of nicely rendered but rather bland levels. There are loads of weapons to pick up, and as enemies approach from the left and right you mash the buttons to kill them all. In its favour, the game does mix things up with each new level, introducing vertical ascents up skyscrapers and mech-suit combat, but the core gameplay never changes to suit.

Little Gamers certainly looks good but is neither original nor particularly interesting at this stage, I'm afraid. I'd happily swap all the "l33t" jokes in the world for some better-paced level design.

ProximityHD

  • Developed by: Brian Cable, USA

Visually, this is unlikely to set any hearts pounding, but the core concept has the sort of simple genius that typifies a great puzzle game. Offline multiplayer only (at least in this demo form), you and up to three friends take it in turns to place randomly assigned numbers on a grid. If you place a higher number next to a rival, it turns to your colour. If your number is lower, you reduce their total by two. Place a number next to a piece of your own, and you boost its value by the same amount. When all the grid is filled, the player with the highest total wins. From that basic framework, Proximity extrapolates a satisfying strategic experience.

Is it better to go on the attack, and use your highest numbers to steal rival spaces? Or should you use low numbers to bolster your high-scoring tiles, making them harder to steal? Unfortunately, at the moment too much depends on the luck of the draw, meaning that it's possible for a player to stand very little chance of success. For most of one game, for instance, the first player received only one tile with a value higher than 10 while the second was regularly receiving 18, 19 and 20 score tiles. It may feel like a minimalist Catan or Carcasonne, but with a little more balancing and more pizzazz in the presentation, Proximity has the makings of a fine strategy game.

Rocketball

  • Developed by: Fuel N' Spark Games
'GDC: XNA Trials Roundup' Screenshot rocketball

All I know about dodgeball I learned from Ben Stiller, but it's hard to see this overly busy update of America's most bully-friendly pastime turning into anything special. Two teams of two face off across an annoyingly narrow playing field, lobbing balls at each other, and using rocket power-ups for more powerful attacks. Get knocked over too many times and you have to do a quick burst of button-matching to get back on your feet.

Control is a little stiff, with the claustrophobic play area separated into two horizontal planes of action. You shuttle between these like table football, but have smoother movement left and right. You have to pick up balls by pressing A when standing over them, which feels rather clunky, and then throw it straight ahead or use it to block throws from the other team. It's all too manic, while the stiff controls mean that simply grabbing a ball and throwing it with any accuracy is a hassle rather than an intuitive gameplay component.

It's execution rather than concept that seems to be holding Rocketball back. With a larger play area, the ability to freely move around and automatically pick up balls, and more varied power-ups, this could be something fun. Right now, unfortunately, it isn't.

The Dishwasher

  • Developed by: James Silva/Ska Studios
'GDC: XNA Trials Roundup' Screenshot dishwasher

Certainly the most professional-looking game of the seven, The Dishwasher is another scrolling button-masher like Little Gamers. This time the tone is dark and nasty, as a humble dishwasher from the Foghorn Café awakes to discover his heart has been torn out and bad guys are out to get him. He grabs a pair of cleavers and sets off to slash everybody to pieces.

While the scratchy and gloomy comic-book style sometimes combines with the frenzied gameplay to leave you confused, there are enough compelling gameplay elements here to impress. Even in the first demo level you'll discover a fairly rich combo system, a hierarchy of power-ups and support items that can be purchased or earned, and a well executed boss battle.

The only major criticism that can be levelled is that the game doesn't really do much to disguise its debt to Alien Hominid, but that may well be a recommendation to some. Polished and balanced, this is the sort of game that could easily command an 800-Point asking price on Live Arcade.

TriLinea

  • Developed by: Edison Prata, Brazil

A sometimes-bewildering mixture of Tetris, Puzzle Quest and dominos, TriLinea deserves praise for trying to find a new combination of well-known puzzle elements.

'GDC: XNA Trials Roundup' Screenshot trilinea

It's a competitive two-player game where you have a board and a procession of pieces to place. The pieces are like dominos, with two halves each bearing a colour and icon. Drop them on the board, form coloured lines of three horizontally or vertically, and do damage to the other player. The stroke of genius here is that there's no taking turns. You're each playing at the same time, on the same board. Keeping an eye on your opponent, stealing their lines and fouling up their plans is the order of the day.

To aid you in this respect, you can choose four spells to take into battle, each of which impacts the board in some beneficial or aggressive way. You can also trigger special events - tornadoes, meteor strikes and so on - by matching the icons as well as the colours. Some will almost certainly find it too fast-paced, as the game gives you little time to get your bearings. There's even a story mode - which is where the Puzzle Quest comparison comes in. While it can be a little crude graphically, it's clear that a lot of thought has gone into the gameplay and the result is a game with a lot of potential.

So, get downloading. It's not like you have to pay, and the more you play and talk about them online the more their creators will be able to adjust and learn from the experience.

Comments (18) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Darkedge #1 4 years ago

    only interested in Dishwasher and Little gamers myself.

    Hope this isn't just a one off though and they periodically do another batch of stuff
  • muscleblade #2 4 years ago

    The dishwasher is ok, but not nearly as good as Alien Hominid. At 400 points it could do alright.
  • Xerx3s #3 4 years ago

    Darkedge: I reckon that it will be some time before there is more stuff (as ms is still working to get the infra structure up to speed) but once everything falls in place, the speed will only be determined by the amount of bedroom devs.
  • SomaticSense #4 4 years ago

    I personally didn't like Alien Hominid whatsoever, whereas love Dishwasher from what I've played so far and can't wait for a proper release. So there are obviously some differences that set them apart which define the difference for a personal hate-worthy game and an utterly brilliant one. Accessability and fairness is one.
  • DrDamn #5 4 years ago

    I found the titles I tried (Culture, Jelly Car & Dishwasher) interesting but not things I would have paid money for. To be fair Dishwasher is one which other people seem to like but is just not my cuppa.

    @Darkedge

    They said they were aiming for 1000 releases before the end of the year. I think periodically do another batch is well under the plans they have. Needs a way to sort through the crap to unearth the gems - but I suppose that is what EG is for :). A Youtube type rating system is something I've seen mooted but not sure it is a "would like to have" or an official aspect.

    Coupled with this announcement was that XNA has now been made free for students. Hence the number of titles could balloon substatially.
  • Kyle #6 4 years ago

    Dishwasher and Jelly Car FTW!

    I agree with EG though, Dishwasher would probably be worth 800 points but I don't think the rest could ask for more than 400.
  • Vivid #7 4 years ago

    So, many moons after the XNA (Xbox Nautical Acclimatiser) was first announced,"

    For goodness sake, people! Do your bloody research. It stands for Xylophone Naked Arousal, for reasons that are FAR too obvious to go into.

    http://ms dn2.microsoft.com/en-us/directx...
  • That_Happy_Cat #8 4 years ago

    i cried myself to sleep trying to work out how a dishwasher could be a character in a video game.

    Now i understand... dish washer / dishwasher?? Erm?

    Oh god
  • monkie_king #9 4 years ago

    there's a pseudo-sequel in the works, i hear, The Tumbledryer.
  • monkie_king #10 4 years ago

    Dan, please don't use the words "hot", "amateur" and "beaver" in such close proximity in future. It can be most alarming.
  • DanWhitehead #11 4 years ago

    Works wonders for the Google hits though.
  • Kraftwurm #12 4 years ago

    They all look better than they are fun to play.
    But maybe that's just me...
  • bad09 #13 4 years ago

    Just tried Jelly Car and Dishwasher and I have to say great fun! I'd pay a couple of quid for these.
  • GregorV #14 4 years ago

    I am not terribly fond of the frantic gameplay in Dishwasher, but the art and style of this game are absolutely top notch! It's an incredibly impressive effort.

    I also tried the Jelly Car and it is a very fun concept too, I just don't think it can carry an extended game. But as a five minute romp (especially if it should ever feature a possibilty for user created downloadable content) it's very solid and enjoyable.
  • Tomo #15 4 years ago

    Found most of them pretty meh. JellyCar was ok and Dishwasher kept me playing surprisingly even if it felt a bit like Viewtiful Joe which I find a bit gash.

    Rocketball is awful though and Little Friends is pretty boring too. At one point in the latter, you get in a Mech Warrior type thing and it's actually harder to kill the bad guys... nice one...
  • riz23 #16 4 years ago

    Jellycar is essentially Elastomania with a couple of tweaks. It's fun though
    Edited by 2 at 28/02/08 @ 00:31
  • captain-future #17 4 years ago

    my tolerance for IGN-site rip-offs like Eurogamer... *LULZ*
    [link url=http: //little-gamers.com/index.php?comicID=1769
    ]http://li ttle-gamers.com/index.php?comic...[/link]

    --

    I'm seriously mad at the STUPID and uncalled comment about Little Gamers web comic being a Penny Arcade rip-off.
    Guess the review dude never even visited the site because he's comparing apples to oranges.
  • bushwod #18 4 years ago

    I loved jellycar, couldn't put it down.