Going live!

Now we had Chime working it was time to look through the list of all the things you have to do to make a game work in Xbox Live Arcade. You must have certain things in the main menu such as help and options and control instructions, and then there is entering player’s scores onto leaderboards, saving games on the hard drive and memory units, awarding achievements, and so on.

Implementing all of this stuff was where most of the time was spent for us coders because by this point the artists and designers could pretty much add new levels on their own.

You wouldn’t think it, but it took weeks to make sure we were properly handling everything that could go wrong. What happens if the player signs out during a game, or another player signs in? Does the game work on all the controllers? What happens if the internet goes down during a game? All of these things need to be handled so that you, the player, never lose your high-score or get kicked out of a game when you’re just about to reach stage 4 for the first time. Not the most thrilling tasks but it has to be done.

Aren’t we good to you?

Barry Northern – Lead Programmer