With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later!

Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community!

Time Critical XNA News:

• PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!)
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx
• Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock
  • http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928

XNA Team:

• Nick Gravelyn
  • Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2
    • http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/
  • And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games
    • http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/

XNA MVPs:

• Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx
• Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit
  • http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx

XNA Developers:

• Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games
  • Wraps up GDC
    • http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html
  • And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!)
    • http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html
• James Silva of Ska Studios announces
  • http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/
  • http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/
  • http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/
• Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers
  • http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx
• Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam
  • http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php
  • http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586
  • And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year
    • http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php
    • http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php
    • http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php
    • http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php
    • http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php
• Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview
  • http://www.vimeo.com/20904070

Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG):

• Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th
  • http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/
• Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games
  • http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/
  • http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/
• Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!)
  • http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/
• Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel
  • http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696
  • http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx
• Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done!
  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/
  • There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones.
    • http://www.armlessoctopus.com/
• GameMarx Episode 12
  • http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx
• B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam!
  • http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php
• German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro
  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/
• XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!)
  • http://xboxindies.com/
• Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk
  • http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504
• Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action
  • http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264
• TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage
  • http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/
• XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7
  • http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/
• Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement
  • http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/
• Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..)
  • http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/

XNA Development:

• Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week!
  • http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/
  • http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/
  • http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/
  • http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/
• Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...)
  • http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560
• Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder
  • http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424
  • http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/
• Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know!
  • http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864
• New Sunburn Video Tutorials released
  • http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx
• Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0
  • http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/
• XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input
  • http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html