In Memoriam - Ophidian Wars

With the release of Ophidian Wars: Opac's Journey recently, it came to my attention that I could do the XNA community a better service by playtesting and peer reviewing. It's like reviewing, but helps developers make their games better and get them online. There are a ton of other indie review sites out there (check sidebar for some) and quite frankly they were doing a better job than I was staying up to date and offering more features. This blog is going to become space for company and industry relevant news and updates (and the Ophidian Wars dev blog will stay devoted to Opac's Journey and the upcoming Legend of Kilflame development).

And I'm back with a healthy Xbox. So back to highlighting some of the best games on XBLIG. This week we look at a notable tower defense game, and an enjoyable shmup. Stop the Woodcutter! (240 MP) If you like wood and furry animals, then have I got a game for you. That might not have come out correctly, but "Stop the Woodcutter!" (by Bidibidip ) is a nicely done tower defense game where your small army of woodland critters takes down invading lumberjacks (and other anti-tree threats). It's a lighthearted theme that works well for a tower defense style game. You use 'oxygen' (I might have used 'honey' if it were up to me) to summon animals such as bears, moles, bees, owls, and snails that offer different attacks and abilities. For example the skunk has a huge attack radius and launches stink bombs that can damage multiple enemies over time. The drawback is that they are bit inaccurate and come at a high oxygen cost. One element I liked from the getgo was...