My girlfirend bought an Xbox 1 month ago and after some research, I found that there are community games on Xbox 360 that you can buy which are produced by "normal people".
Apparently, all the games are developed with "XNA development". It's some sort of framework called the "XNA framework" that requires a tool called XNA Game Studio Express. Apparently this frameworks is coded in C# which is a programming language I never heard before. So I tried getting a few information about C# (which is pronounced C-Sharp) and it looks like: the syntax C++, plus the features of Java, plus some ideas of Visual Basic, minus the annoyances of C++.
One of the good things, is afher you game is done, since the code is machine independent (like in java), it can also run on Windows and Xbox.
So I was just wondering if it could be a good idea to implement some of our board game on Xbox which would probably be seen by more people than it implemented in board game systems like Vassal and Zuntsu?
Another things I thought is if it could be possible to make a code library for managing common elements found in board games: for example, A hand and deck of cards. This way, the development of new games could be faster to do.
It has been a while since I programmed and the thing that scares me the most is the amount of time to put in the programming. I remember spending 2 years of my life to make a video game that never reached the end. Even if C# is more programmer friendly, there is still a lot of work to do behind video games. The worst part that scares me is artificial intelligence programming which I really don't want to do.
At least in "Thousands parsec" (a space conquest game engine) you seemed to have AI modules that you could plug in to your game.
Any comments?
Effectively, there is not that much games in the board game category.
Of course, it depends on the power of the XNA library. I have used allegro before and the more powerful the library is the more you can do in less time. Of course it would have been better to have a library specifically for board game. Example: have a procedure to roll any die you want and make the die roll animation anywhere you want on the screen.
As for the member ship fees and royalty income, it is comparable to other print and play website where you have a setup fee and a 65%-75% income. The only difference is that it is not an monthly fee. I am also not sure that if you stop your subscription, do they remove the game from the site or can you still continue to sell copies. 50$ a month can be a lot but considering that you game is ready to play ( compared to PDF print and play) and that everybody who has an Xbox can see your game, you would probably make much more sales than with a PDF print and play game.
The only drawback so far is the development time which adds up to the whole game development and the artificial intelligence. Maybe if you make a board game and it really sell well, you could then anticipate to make a Video game out of it.
Of course making a video game right away can sometimes make the game design faster because you can place an almost unlimited amount of information in the game and you can resolve many things using a math formula. While in a real board game, you must make sure that all this information can be represented with components and rules.