XNA In The House

For those who have dreams of becoming the next Cliffy B, look no further. Microsoft releases XNA Game Studio Express as a free download. Don’t miss this opportunity to show your friends and the world what you are made of. Read more about the goings-on in the world of XNA.

Today, the XNA Game Studio Express Challenge teams, together with Microsoft, unveiled their completed games to the public at the Game Developers Conference in celebration of the launch of the “Dream-Build-Play” global game design contest. The “Dream-Build-Play” contest offers aspiring game developers the opportunity to showcase their game design ideas and talent to the world, as well as the chance to have the top game published on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Each XNA Game Studio Express Challenge team worked from Monday, March 5, to Thursday, March 8, at Windows Vista stations in the XNA Lobby Bar at the Game Developers Conference to bring their game to life.

The four games include:

“DungeonQuest,” a 3D action RPG from independent game developers Benjamin Nitschke and Christoph Rienaecker from exDream in Germany. Benjamin and Christoph managed to include two player co-op multiplayer in this expansive dungeon crawler.

“Simian Escape,” from independent game developers Jonathon Stevens and Patrick Glanville from the United States, is a 2D run-and-jump game in a prehistoric setting built with the help of Torque X.

“Damage Control” is a game created by hobbyist game developer Josh Butterworth from the United Kingdom with the remote assistance of Maher “m0dus” Al-Samkari and the NeoGAF community. “Damage Control” is a four player multiplayer siege game where you must defend your base from wave after wave of invading aliens.

“AbduX,” from graduate student game developer Andre Furtado from Brazil, is a zany action game that turns the tables on the classic humanity vs. aliens formula. This time, the player assumes the role of an alien and pilots a flying saucer through the countryside to abduct unsuspecting earthlings while trying to avoid detection. What’s impressive about “AbduX” is how it incorporates voice recognition commands to control functions of the spacecraft.

The games are now available for download by the public for free on http://creators.xna.com/ . Anyone with XNA Game Studio Express can play the games on a Windows PC. You can design your own game by downloading XNA Game Studio Express for free at msdn.xna.com.

For more information about the “Dream-Build-Play” game design contest, visit www.dreambuildplay.com.