ThinkTanks XBox

ThinkTanks for XBOX live arcade is nearing completion. I am pretty stoked as when we were first asked about if we wanted to do it, I was very nervous. I was not sure we could take a game that was designed for the PC and transfer it to the xbox (with a controller to control the tanks instead of keyboard mouse).

I was not 100% sure we would come up with something that worked well.. let alone make a game that was fun to play.. but, my fears were unfounded.

The game works great with xbox dual stick, and I (and most of the other team members) think that ThinkTanks xbox is more fun to play, and is a much better game in all regards.

Neat additions to the game are the new locking reticle.. you use the right stick to move the turret, but when you get over an enemy tank, the reticle locks, and you can let go of the stick and start blasting away. If you want to change targets, you can grab the stick and yank the reticle off the tank and onto another one. Kind of hard to explain, but it feels quite intuitive when you use it, and the effect is somewhere between aiming and selecting targets..

there were a lot of subtle art upgrades. Mark McCoy created a new shell which is a little bit slicker and much more 'console'. We also added 3 new tanks to the game.


Not to get too sappy, but I really am jazzed about our 'new' team members. John, Mark, and Matt have really taken things to the next level. I feel lucky to know these guys and I honestly feel that it is a privilege to know them and to get to work with them everyday.

As this titles finishes up, and is in an almost done state, I have that feeling again of how great it feels to get a project done.

It also feels like a important milestone for our company and for me personally. I have always dreamed of seeing something I had a hand in designing ending up on the console. It may be xbox live arcade, but I get jazzed everytime I start it up. It feels great to see the fruits of years of labor and sacrifice on the TV screen. It is a great feeling, and it feels like the start of great things in our future.

I don't want to sound too much like a cheerleader, but you can do what we have done. Focus on making a good game, make sure it is an achievable goal, and if you make something good, good things will happen for you.

dRacer is starting to shape up as well. Lots of new stuff going in every day, and pretty soon the full team will be able to devote themselves to getting it done.

Check out the latest: dRacer Movie

please forgive the placeholder art.

Those of you who played it at the IGC know that it is fun, now we just need to devote ourselves to the process of polishing it up, adding all the little things that need to be added, and grinding off rough edges. Right now we are in the roughest (and to me, the funnest) part of game development. The prototype is done, and we are not yet at the slog of just adding assets to finish.. now we are at that point where we have the core, it is good, and we need to carefully look at what the game needs to be, decide on the required features, and massage it from something that is good until we get great.

The process we used on ThinkTanks and ThinkTanks xbox seems to be working for us, so we are going to keep using it. A couple of people have asked me about how we approach development, and one of these days I may try to sit down and write an outline of how we approach it and my thoughts on game development in general. Would there be any interest from the community in this?