Latest GameMarx News
Dylan
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Here is the recap of our personal Top 10 games of 2011 lists and our GameMarx 2011 Xbox Indie Awards. To hear the discussions behind each category, check out podcast EP71 - 2011 Game Award Show.
Videos
GameMarx 2011 Xbox Indie Game Awards
Dylan's Top 10 Games of 2011
Cicelie's Top 10 Games of 2011
Mike's Top 10 Games of 2011
Most Blatant Ripoff
Nominees: FortressCraft Chapter 1, CastleMiner, Total Miner: Forge, Fishcraft / Angry Fish, Avatar Farm
Fishcraft / Angry Fish
Most Misleading Box Art
Nominees: Akane the Kunoichi, Bunker Buster, Temple of Dogolrak, Off Balance, The Charge
Temple of Dogolrak
Weirdest Ironic Hipster Humor
Nominees: The Skyfish series, the GHXYK2 series
The GHXYK2 Series
Most Squandered Potential
Nominees: Crazy Hobo, President John America Saves America, A Pimp RPG
Crazy Hobo
Creepiest Attempt at "Sex-Sells"
Nominees: Spermatozoon, Can You Handle 2 At Once?, Moe Mekuri 2.5
Can You Handle 2 At Once?
Uncanniest Valley
Nominees: Incident of Dreamy Vale Church, Blackstone - Part One, Bureau - Agent Kendall, Colonies: Neociv
Bureau - Agent Kendall
Best Use of FMV
Nominees: Bloody Mary, Sword and Hammer, Hell's House
Hell's House
Best "With Avatars" Sellout
Nominees: Wacky Waving I. A. F. Avatars; Avatar's Rock Paper Scissors; Avatar Workout; Avatar Snake; Dude, Where's My Avatar?; Avatar Gold Grab X-mas Version
Wacky Waving I. A. F. Avatars
Best Finger To "The Man"
Nominees: Game Type, DLC Quest, Why Did I Buy This?
Game Type
Best 2011 Game Released in 2010
Nominees: Cthulhu Saves the World, Cursed Loot
Cthulhu Saves the World
Best Retro Throwback
Nominees: Ionball, Wizorb, Battle High: San Bruno, Insanity X
Battle High: San Bruno
Most Ambitious Design
Nominees: Avatar Adventurers Online, Alpha Squad, Raventhorne, Battle for Venga Islands
Avatar Adventurers Online
Best Use of Zombies
Nominees: Attack of the Zombie Horde; Dead Pixels; Undead Empire; Zombie Death Zone; I, Zombie; Zombies Ruined My Day
Dead Pixels
Best Looking Graphics
Nominees: Orbitron: Revolution, radiangames Ballistic, Lil' Demons: Splatter, Infinity Danger, Shifters, T.E.C. 3001, TIC: Part 1
Dylan's Top 10 for 2011
- Sequence
- Battle High: San Bruno
- Dark Delve
- Dead Pixels
- LaserCat
- Avatar Legends
- Wizorb
- Doom & Destiny
- Laser Logic
- Solve It - Pack 1
Cicelie's Top 10 for 2011
- Aban Hawkins & the 1000 SPIKES
- PLATFORMANCE: Temple Death
- Avatar Legends
- Wizorb
- Bonded Realities
- LaserCat
- Wizard's Keep
- GrappleBoy
- FishCraft
- FortressCraft Chapter 1
Mike's Top 10 for 2011
- Solar Struggle: Survival
- Junk Fields
- Mute Crimson
- Escape Goat
- Nyan Cat Adventure
- DLC Quest
- Hidden in Plain Sight
- Moe Mekuri 2
- Fatal Seduction
- Can You Handle 2 At Once?
Game of the Year 2011 Runner-Up
Battle High: San Bruno
GameMarx Game of the Year 2011
radiangames Ballistic
Mike
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Friday, January 06, 2012
Tonight's podcast will be the live broadcast of the first ever Xbox Live Indie Games award show! We promise it will include more game related content than some other game award shows! Tune in to the live show at 10 PM EST at GameMarx.com/live, or catch it Saturday via the podcast or youtube. We will also be releasing special video recaps next week.
In the mean time, here are some charts from the data at XboxIndies.com. The first charts are the breakdown of the 743 games by price, genre, and month released:
This next chart shows the top 10 games by "world rating" - the weighted (by vote count) average of the game's rating across all regions, for games released in 2011, and then again broken down by genre. Some genres have more than 10 listed because of ties, and Microsoft Excel is a dick.
This next chart required a bit of explanation. For each region, Xbox.com shows a Best Selling Today list. Each day, the positions of all games are recorded at XboxIndies.com. I took this data and created a top 25 games list by sorting the games by average position on the best selling list for the days the game was available. I also weighted each region's list by the number of votes from that region. The purpose here, is if you take a large grain of salt, this list is the top grossing games by daily sales average (instead of all time total, which would heavily favor games released early in the year). I would love to compare this to the real revenue data for the games released in 2011 to see just how accurate this crazy method is!
Mike
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Sunday, January 01, 2012
The GameMarx Indie Mega-Pack Giveaway is over now, congratulations to MaxShrek, scion of tea, Ruebals, Forenzik xx, DittosWorld3910, and Will Tomorrow! Each person that entered the completed a short survey. After cleaning up the results, there were 168 surveys completed - you can download the results at http://static.gamemarx.com/assets/GameMarx_Giveaway_Survey.zip
Below are some of the results. Keep in mind that there is a bit of selection bias in the results - the giveaway was only mentioned on Xbox Live Indie Game sites. To hear some of our thoughts on the results, check out the latest podcast starting around the 56 minute mark.
The survey also had a few open ended questions, however the system used to record the results truncated the responses. I really wish there was a way I could go back and fix this as many respondents provided great answers. Some hilights (all answers are in the download above)
Favorite Xbox Live Indie Games?
Blocks that matter, Arkedo series-Pixel, Total Miner, Apple Jack
Pretty much all of the titles from Radiangames, as well as a burning love for milkstone games.
I maed a game with zombies in it, Soulcaster, Dead Pixels, Avatar Legends.
This is all based off of playing demos. I'm still trying to decide where my meager amount of points should go :P
Cthulhu Saves the World,Weapon Of Choice,Streets of Fury,Shoot 1UP,Score Rush,Plague,Nasty,Laser Cat,Explosionade,Half Brick Echoes,Decimation X3,Apple Jack
Inca Blocks!!! (Really don't have a large history w/ downloading Indies)
Groov. By a long shot. It's easy to pickup, it's always different, and I love the element of being able to create my own music through the way I play the game. It hits all the right buttons, and I can't get enough.
try not to fart is hellarious
Breath of Death VII, Epic Dungeon and Protect Me Knight
Anything SKA Studios, Dishwasher, Dishwasher Vampire Smiles, CANT Wait for Charlie Murder!!!
Any comments on XBLIGs you want to share?
Great platform for upcoming developers that's sadly over-saturated with poor titles making the gems hard to find in the sea of mediocrity.
Finding great XBLIG games is like finding a diamond in the rough. Theres a lot of games that I would never touch but there are some real sparks of creativity that grab me.
Price is important. With weekly deals dropping professional XBLA games down to the 200-600 point range, it can be hard to justify 240 or more points for an XBLIG. These days I personally don't consider buying them if they are above 80 points.
I enjoy Indie Games as not only can I buy lots of them without breaking the bank balance, they often offer unique gameplay, which AAA titles are afraid to diverse into. Many have surprisingly good art work and it's good to support the effort that goes into
For as much garbage as there is on the XBLIG marketplace there are quite a few gems but too it's a shame the best games don't get enough spotlight.
I hope that XNA SDK and community continues to progress with Windows 8 and the next Xbox
If XBLIGs had achievements I'm sure I would have downloaded loads of them by now.
XBLIGs have so much potential if only the average Xbox owner would take them seriously. Even just a more respectable position in the marketplace could make a world of difference.
I think Microsoft had squandered its opportunity with XBLIG in a way that ultimately benefits noone. As much as I love some of the titles that have come about it
My God.. it's full of crap.
The survey also asked "Favorite Gaming News Sites?" and "Favorite Mainstream Xbox Games?" and you can fine the response to these in the full results above.
Mike
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Head over to http://giveaway.gamemarx.com/homepage/register/ to enter to win a collection of over 50 Xbox Live Indie Games!
Why are you doing this?
GameMarx.com is changing focus and no longer doing XBLIG reviews. We’ve loved covering the XBLIG scene, but now it’s time for us to go back to being game developers and stop playing at being game journalists. GameMarx.com focus will become more developer centric for indie and hobbyist game developers. We’ll leave the reviews to the many qualified sites on the internet, many of which can be found at http://www.xboxindies.com/, which we will continue to host and support.
But this has left us with a stack of review codes! So we contacted the developers to get permission to give them away. We could give them out one at the time, but where is the fun it that? It’s a Thunderdome-winner-take-all giveaway! We did have some duplicate codes left over, so we’ll give these out as "mini packs" leading up to the big giveaway Friday December 30, 2011.
We also thought it would be fun to run a survey with the contest. Many of the items on the survey have been the basis for debates among the XBLIG scene. We don’t expect this survey will settle any arguments, but it will be interesting to see the data!
Mike
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Friday, December 16, 2011