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GameMarx 2011 XBLIG Game Awards Recap

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
Fishcraft / Angry Fish

Most Misleading Box Art

Nominees: Akane the Kunoichi, Bunker Buster, Temple of Dogolrak, Off Balance, The Charge

Temple of Dogolrak
Temple of Dogolrak

Weirdest Ironic Hipster Humor

Nominees: The Skyfish series, the GHXYK2 series

GHXYK2 Classics Vol. 1 SWASHBUCKEL UR SEATBELTS RE: Get To Schol On Time
The GHXYK2 Series

Most Squandered Potential

Nominees: Crazy Hobo, President John America Saves America, A Pimp RPG

Crazy Hobo
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?
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
Bureau - Agent Kendall

Best Use of FMV

Nominees: Bloody Mary, Sword and Hammer, Hell's House

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
Wacky Waving I. A. F. Avatars

Best Finger To "The Man"

Nominees: Game Type, DLC Quest, Why Did I Buy This?

Game Type
Game Type

Best 2011 Game Released in 2010

Nominees: Cthulhu Saves the World, Cursed Loot

Cthulhu Saves the World
Cthulhu Saves the World

Best Retro Throwback

Nominees: Ionball, Wizorb, Battle High: San Bruno, Insanity X

Battle High: San Bruno
Battle High: San Bruno

Most Ambitious Design

Nominees: Avatar Adventurers Online, Alpha Squad, Raventhorne, Battle for Venga Islands

Avatar Adventurers Online
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
Dead Pixels

Best Looking Graphics

Nominees: Orbitron: Revolution, radiangames Ballistic, Lil' Demons: Splatter, Infinity Danger, Shifters, T.E.C. 3001, TIC: Part 1

TIC: Part 1

Dylan's Top 10 for 2011

  1. Sequence
  2. Battle High: San Bruno
  3. Dark Delve
  4. Dead Pixels
  5. LaserCat
  6. Avatar Legends
  7. Wizorb
  8. Doom & Destiny
  9. Laser Logic
  10. Solve It - Pack 1

Cicelie's Top 10 for 2011

  1. Aban Hawkins & the 1000 SPIKES
  2. PLATFORMANCE: Temple Death
  3. Avatar Legends
  4. Wizorb
  5. Bonded Realities
  6. LaserCat
  7. Wizard's Keep
  8. GrappleBoy
  9. FishCraft
  10. FortressCraft Chapter 1

Mike's Top 10 for 2011

  1. Solar Struggle: Survival
  2. Junk Fields
  3. Mute Crimson
  4. Escape Goat
  5. Nyan Cat Adventure
  6. DLC Quest
  7. Hidden in Plain Sight
  8. Moe Mekuri 2
  9. Fatal Seduction
  10. Can You Handle 2 At Once?

Game of the Year 2011 Runner-Up

Battle High: San Burno
Battle High: San Bruno

GameMarx Game of the Year 2011

radiangames Ballistic
radiangames Ballistic

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GameMarx's 2011 Xbox Indie Award Show Tonight (and some charts)!

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:

price

genre_count

month

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.

rating

genre

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!

selling

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GameMarx Giveaway Survey Results

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.

pur

count

visit

try

feature

important

dash

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.

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Announcing the GameMarx Indie Mega-Pack Giveaway!

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!

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Tonight on GameMarx: Matthew Leigh of Firebase Industries

Tonight’s guest is Matthew Leigh, Founder of Firebase Industries, a boutique video game development and publishing studio in Vancouver, Canada.  Their recent release, Orbitron: Revolution, has been called “gorgeous” by Kotaku, described as Defender meets Wipeout by Destructoid, and “A Shmup That Should Have Been An XBLA Title" by OtakuDante’s Gaming Inferno.  It was built using the SunBurn Engine, so expect some framework talk tonight!

Firebase Industries: Website | Twitter
Matthew Leigh: Twitter

The podcast is recorded live at 10 PM Est. Friday night.  Join us at http://GameMarx.com/live and chat with the show cast and other viewers.  If you miss the show don’t worry, it will be posted to the GameMarx YouTube Channel and the GameMarx Podcast.

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