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Look Out, Carcassonne Lovers!

Name:	Chris Jorgensen
Date Posted:	Apr 16, 2008
Rating:	Not Rated
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Inspiration struck me a little over two weeks ago. My wife and I were playing Carcassonne, one of our favorites, on our Xbox 360. It was a promotional free download a while back. We'd never heard of it until the XBLA version. (Though much to my recent surprise, it is loved by many.) I'd just wrapped up Mini Chess --the adorable board game without a home-- and felt energized by the concept of cranking out a few similarly simple games. As we played, I just thought to myself, "Gee, I bet I could program this."

And it turns out I could!

I'm officially at the 2.5 week mark. The goal: be done within another 2.5 weeks. I've gotten thus far by following the motto: use what I've got. I've imported art and code from both Xeno Versus and Mini Chess. Appropriately, it is set in the XVS "universe" and at the moment is called Xeno Sola: Tile Placement Game. (I considered doing XenoSonne, but thought that was a bit obvious.)

The rules are mostly in place and have some significant changes from Carcassonne. But the heart of the genre is still present. The gameplay is thus near done. It simply needs end-game scoring. Some art is missing as well: final interface, final tile-section "scored" marker, and other misc. bits and pieces like particle effects. No AI yet, though that should be simple compared to chess. No networking yet.... but hopefully some TGB experts out there can help me get going on that one.

Here are a couple quick pics. Click the thumbnails for higher res. Black stars overlay sections that have been scored.... if anyone has ideas on what would be a good "scored" marker, I'd love to hear it!

Recent Blog Posts

List:	05/16/08 - Xeno Sola Full-Featured Beta! 04/16/08 - Look Out, Carcassonne Lovers! 03/14/08 - Mini Chess Beta 2.0 03/10/08 - Download and Play Mini Chess! 10/29/07 - Reclaiming my name... and Mini-Chess! 09/26/07 - Xeno Versus Beta: Now Available to All :) 09/20/07 - Xeno Versus: Public Beta Available 06/28/07 - Xeno Versus:Space Melee Vids/Pics...

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Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Apr 16, 2008 at 21:11 GMT)

Cool! I'd never heard of it until it was free on XBLA, too. Definitely a fun game.

Kenneth Holst (Apr 16, 2008 at 21:16 GMT)

That is awesome, and Carcassonne is a great game. Nice!

Clint Herron (Apr 16, 2008 at 22:00 GMT)

Whoa Chris -- nice graphics update!

I got to play a sneak-preview of this game, and I was really impressed by the twists and variations on normal Carcassonne that Chris put in here. This is a pretty cool rule-set, and I think it has good potential to be a solid multiplayer game. Good job, Chris! I look forward to seeing this being the Instant Action equivalent of Carcassonne on XBLA. :)

--clint

Brian Wilson (Apr 17, 2008 at 02:26 GMT)

Carcassonne, as with many of the great european board games, is well worth owning a tangible copy for your game shelf. Most tabletop/comic shops sell it if you want a local copy. Those crazy germans have like 6-8 expansion packs for Carcassonne, for those who like to take a good strat boardgame even further.

Deborah Marshall (Apr 17, 2008 at 16:58 GMT)

Fantastic! Carcassonne is one of my favorite board games. I love the space theme.

Have you ever played any of the expansions? There are lots of little extra rules and tile pieces you could consider adding if you want to take this further. Or you could be inspired and make up more of your own. ^_^

Chris Jorgensen (Apr 17, 2008 at 20:15 GMT)

Thanks for the nice comments. I can definitely say that there's at least one tile type in my game that's not in Carcassonne. At the moment, vise-versa is true as well.... but as I've been play-testing it, I've been getting a good feel for what additions it might need.

I have tried the "King and Baron" expansion that you can DL off of XBLA. It adds a nice twist to the game and I have ideas to put a similar aspect into Xeno Sola. :)

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