Robert
Breath of Death VII just passed 20,000 copies sold!
To celebrate, here’s a little gift – a copy of the Breath of Death VII world map. You can get it here.
Although there should be a lot of awesome games coming soon (based on what I’ve seen floating around in the peer review & playtesting queues), the releases on XBLIG have been pretty weak of late. But hey, here are two games that are well worth a trial.
First up is a great bullet hell shmup called Vampire Rage.
Next up is a highly polished geography game called Around the World
Both games are only 80 MS points and are well worth checking out if you’re interested in difficult vertical shmups or geography-based quiz games respectively.
Gamasutra had a very nice article about 10 of the best XBox Live Indie Games to come out recently. You can read the full article here.
All of the games they picked are excellent choices and I’ve talked about a few myself on this website. I’d also like to add one more that came out right after the article – Gerbil Physics 2. Gerbil Physics 1 was an excellent puzzle game with a nice sense of humor and the sequel is the same thing but better and with a few new tricks up its sleeves. It’s only 80 MS points. Buy it, love it.
And I really must say, this past week or so has been an awesome time for XBox Live Indie Games. Gerbil Physics 2, JoyJoy, Zombie Estate, Retrofit: Overload, and Mamotte Knight are all very high quality games that each deserve a spot in the top 20 best rated. Even some of the second string games this last week were pretty good – I got sent a review copy of Ranger and though it’s not much more than a glorified flash game (shoot arrows at the incoming hordes, using several power-ups to give yourself an edge), at least it’s a fun glorified flash game.
Today, XBox Live Indie Games, got a real treat, Mamotte Knight or まもって騎士 for the Japanese inclined. Mamotte Knight is the first XBLIG title from Ancient Corp - best known for their work on the Beyond Oasis series for the Genesis & Saturn. Their experience shines in Mamotte Knight as this is one of the finest games to have been released on the XBLIG service.
Gameplay is like Gauntlet crossed with a simple tower defense game. As either a Knight, Ninja, Amazon, or Mage, you run around killing monsters, bolstering defenses, and otherwise protecting your princess. If the princess dies, it’s game over so her safety is the #1 priority. Between levels, you can use points gained to level up in 4 different abilities which vary from character to character. For example, the Amazon can increase her speed, gain a life draining ability, increase her attack power and combo potential, or improve her boomerang special attack with the ability to have multiple boomerangs out at one time and improved range.
Monsters start out simple, but as the levels progress, they get more advanced from ghosts that teleport around the stage to giant dragons & monster dumping airships. But don’t worry – an easy difficulty level, unlimited continues, and the potential to bring some friends along help keep the game manageable for the inexperienced. And if you want a challenge, the higher difficulty levels definitely provide just that.
The whole game is presented with an excellent 8-bit visual and audio presentation (albeit with drastically more happening on screen at once than any actual 8-bit game). The game is fun in one player and the different character classes provide a good amount of variety to the gameplay, however where the game really shines is in the multiplayer. Grab some friends, crank up the difficulty level, and prepare yourself for a multiplayer gaming experience rarely matched.
Really, the only major omission to the game is the lack of online multiplayer. Online multiplayer would have elevated Mamotte Knight from an excellent game to an “EVERYONE MUST BUY THIS NOW!!!!!” game. However, even without online multiplayer, Mamotte Knight is one of the finest XBox Live Indie Games out there. A great single player game and a fantastic multiplayer game, all for only 240 MS points. Well worth a purchase.
I’m feeling under the weather so I’m going to keep this brief – if you like old school arcade games (specifically Galaga) remade with high quality graphics & more intense gameplay, all for a mere 80 MS points, then you would be well served by downloading Retrofit – Overload.
Sales data reporting for XBLIG is working again and Breath of Death VII did better than that early spreadsheet report led us to believe.
4/22-5/2
5701 Sales
10727 Trials
53.15% Conversion Rate
1847 Sales in our first week (7th best selling XBLIG)
3481 Sales in our second week
373 Sales yesterday
We were hoping for 5k+ sales by the end of last week and we made it! Woohoo! If sales manage to stabilize at 1k or more average a week, we’re looking at a big financial success here.
Thank you everyone who has purchased the game and who has helped to spread the word. With your help, we’re looking forward to making many more high quality RPGs for the XBox Live Indie Games service.
Right now, we’re the highest rated XBLIG in the US! This honestly boggles my mind. I don’t know how long it’ll last (we’re obviously very close to IMAGWZII since we dropped back to #2 briefly yesterday before going back to #1), but even if we only end up staying in the top spot for a short time, we’re extremely pleased.
Reviews have started coming in for Breath of Death VII and they’re very positive. Here and here both really liked it. This article was also very positive. Also, I was on the RPGamer Podcast last Saturday to talk about the game and various RPG stuff.
We did it! Breath of Death VII: The Beginning is now on the XBox Live Indie Game Marketplace! Follow this link to download the demo or purchase the full version (or you can download it directly on your XBox 360 – Game Marketplace -> Indie Games -> Breath of Death VII).
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585504bd
We’ll have the new trailer up later today.
From the look of the progress bar and peer review comments thread for Breath of Death VII, we’ve probably gotten about 4-5 reviews in peer review so far. I believe you need around 8-10 to be approved for release on the XBox Marketplace so we’re getting close! 
Bill is hard at work finishing up our launch trailer so we should have that ready when the game goes up. It’s very exciting – everyone who has played our game in playtesting and peer review have been very positive so we’re really looking forward to the moment when everyone can have a chance to play it.
Yeah, I know Final Fantasy XIII is not an indie game or anything, but hey, we’re making an RPG so it’s on topic in that respect.
I picked up the XBox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII at midnight last night. It was my first time going to a midnight release and it wasn’t as creepy as I was expecting. Sure, there was one loudmouth in line who just kept going on and on about everything that popped into his head, but for the most part, it was just a few dozen 20-something year old men quietly waiting in the cold to pick up a videogame (a few women and a teenager or two rounded out the crowd). When I picked up my copy of the game, I saw that they had a lot more PS3 copies in stock. I expect the 360 version will end up selling more in the long run to the casual crowd, but I’m not surprised that more of the hardcore enthusiasts are picking up the PS3 version.
I played through the first chapter of the game before deciding that I’d better get some sleep since I had work the next day. Here are my first impressions on Final Fantasy XIII.
The 360 version looks awesome. There have been several reports on how the 360 version of FF13 is inferior to the PS3 version, but honestly, unless you’re really picky or are playing the two versions side by side, I have a hard time imagining anyone noticing.
The music in Final Fantasy XIII so far has been excellent. I can see why so many people have been importing the soundtrack.
The dialogue is still firmly in JRPG mode. It works, but you can tell it’s a translation. Voice acting seems decent.
Combat seems like it’ll be really fun, although it’s still pretty basic. Timing is important despite being a menu-based game – use an area attack at the right moment and you could hit everything whereas 1 sec earlier, the enemies might have been spread too far apart. Even though things are easy and simple so far, the fact that you get graded in each battle and higher grades result in better item drop rates encourages you to play your best at all times.
The maps are very linear so far, but they have still managed to hide some extra treasure chests here and there.
Anyway, Final Fantasy XIII has lived up to my expectation so far. I’m looking forward to playing it some more (when I’m not working on Breath of Death VII)