Nick Gravelyn

This post likely won’t be the most eloquent, but as I sit around playing all sorts of games in review and playtesting, as well as thinking of my own, I figured I’d gather my thoughts and write up the things I think are important when making a game for Xbox LIVE Community Games. These are, of course, additions or elaborations on the things already present in the Best Practices guide and the Creating Great Community Games list.

The Description

Don’t write a novel. If you have more than two or three sentences, you’re doing it wrong. The description is, in my opinion, a poorly named field because it really should be a quick sales pitch. Give some basic premise that makes the player want in. Take the description from Bloc, for instance:

Bloc is a new twist on the top-down shooter. Destroy blocks by firing like-colored orbs while dodging a swarm of enemies.

Short and to the point. Besides boring people with overly long descriptions, you run some risks when making it really long. The primary one is that your description can get cut off. Even just something a few more sentences is too much for the UI in the NXE (at least on my 480i TV). Also keep in mind that they put your release date on the end of your description which makes it a tad longer. So it’s nice to keep things short for that as well.

Trial Experience

Another thing most people just don’t seem to get. If you release a game and don’t use if Guide.IsTrialMode boolean at all, you did it wrong. Games in trial mode should have, in my opinion, a number of things:

• Option to purchase the game from the main menu (usually titled “Unlock Full Game”).
• Option to purchase the game from the pause menu (again, titled “Unlock Full Game”).
• Some option/feature/mode that is disabled in trial mode. Generally if the user tries to access this, you inform them that the option/feature/mode is disabled and offer them a chance to buy it.

That’s really it. But just adding those adds a world of more opportunity for people to buy your game. Think of it this way. I download your trial and I enjoy it. Had you followed the advice above, I’d simply go to your menu, click Unlock, buy the game, and in an instant I have the full version of your game (since XBLCG games don’t have to restart for the conversion [or so I'm told]).

Now let’s look at the other side. I enjoy your game, but there’s no menu option to buy it. Now I have to exit the game taking me back to the Games Library. I have to exit the library and go to the Marketplace menu. Then find the Community Games option. Then I have to find your game. Right now this isn’t so hard as there are only a handful of games, but imagine what it will be like when there are 20, 50, or 100 up there. Am I really going to go through all of this work? If your game is really, really good I will. But if it’s mediocre I might not.

You can catch a lot of impulse buys from supporting this. The quicker I go from “I want this” to buying it the better it is for everyone.

Tell The User What’s Going On

There are a few situations when messages are useful. Things like removing the storage device in use or trying to use Xbox LIVE with an under-privileged account or in trial mode. You cannot just passively choose another storage device and you cannot just do nothing when they choose the Xbox LIVE option in your game. You have to tell them what’s going on.

For the storage device, I recommend using the Guide.BeginShowMessageBox method to show a dialog when the storage device is removed either asking the user to pick a new storage device, or telling them that they must pick a new storage device. The primary reason for it comes down to how the XNA framework handles the storage device. If I have an HDD and a memory card in my system, when you call BeginShowStorageDeviceSelector, I will be prompted. If I then pull the memory card and you call that again, I will not be prompted. At this point I, as a user, have no clue if the game is going to save to the hard drive or not save at all. By putting in that message box, you make sure your users know exactly what your game is doing.

You can also use the Guide.BeginShowMessageBox for any number of other scenarios, but there is such thing as too much. I think they are fitting for storage device issues because those are based on the hardware. Using the message box for all your dialogs and your “Do you want to exit?” messages might be overbearing, so use the method sparingly.