Lazy Raiders’ Post-Mortem

It is part of the game production process to do a post-mortem of every project in order to highlight the goods and the bads of its development. It’s a good way to learn from our mistakes and, more importantly, to learn from each other across the game industry.
In February, Sarbakan, the company I work for, launched its very first XBLA title. Obviously, every time you do a “first”, you learn a lot. The game producer, Ann Gauthier, wrote a wonderful post-mortem that ended up featured on Gamasutra, one of the well-renowned website about and for the game industry.
You can read it all here. It’s an interesting read for anyone interested in the making of games.

My own comment about Lazy Raiders, now that a few months have passed, are quite simple:

1. We completed it. Despite the harshness of an adventure in uncharted territory and the general bad luck we had, we completed it.
2. We successfully made two statements: we can make good console games (as our 79% Metacritic states) and we know the casual gamer.
3. We are ready for more.

The team that worked on that project put their heart and sweat into the development, and now their efforts opened us new, exciting doors.
Keep an eye on us because you’ll hear from us again! 😉

Lazy Raiders & Fireworks

I’ve been meaning to do that last Wednesday. It’s been delayed for various personal reasons but better late than never. Instead of having a “Lazy Raiders – Two Weeks Later”, I’ll just add an “ish” somewhere in the timeline and it’ll be just fine.

I don’t know if we finally got the sales numbers for Microsoft and I’m not sure I would be allowed to publish them even if we had. I do know that we’ve received some awesome reviews that I would like to share with you guys.

Let’s start by the big guy: Metacritic. It regroups a bunch of renowned review sites to make up a general note. Ours? 79%
A little bird told me it’s the better note for a game produced in Quebec city so far. I haven’t verified the veracity of that affirmation, though. It sure rocks anyway.

Here are notable reviews. The seven first make up our Metacritic’s note. The other ones are in no particular order.
XBox Addict: 87%
GameFocus: 81%
Totally360: 80%
IGN: 80% (which was already in my previous post)
Team Xbox Review: 80% (which was already in my previous post)
GameSpot: 75%
My Gamer: 67% (This one brings us down because of motion sickness which we knew would be a problem. We tried to solve it as best as we could.)

Capsule Computers: 9/10
Joystick Division: 4/5
Platform Nation: No numerical value
GoGamingGiant: 9/10
XXLGaming: 86% (and an Editor’s Choice!)
XBox Evolved: 82%
Abstact 360: 85%

There is also an interview with my boss and my lead game designer that you might want to check out on GamerBytes and an interview with the lead game designer only on Asbtract 360.

Disney’s Fireworks
In other news, our first DSiWare game is now available for download! We developed it for Disney and are very proud of it.
I haven’t worked on this one but it doesn’t make it any less great and addictive!
EDIT: Little mistake: the game will be available March 31st. Sorry guys!

Go ahead and enjoy it!
And don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted as soon as I can talk about my upcoming game. 😉

Lazy Raiders Launching Today!

Today is an important day for Sarbakan, the company where I work. Today, we launch our first Xbox Live Arcade game. Yeah!

I’ve talked about it here and there but now it’s time for Lazy Raiders to take the center stage on my blog.
Lazy Raiders is an original concept by Maxime Carrier who is a former teacher of mine and now a colleague. It was developed by a huge team of very talented people all within our walls.
I did the research to figure out which relics would be used in the game and wrote some of the jokes for the loading screens. I was also the internship supervisor of Maxime Babin who ended up doing the level design.
Besides being a game designer, I am also the president of Sarbakan social club. Thus, I am organizing the launch party!
Basically, my implication with the game is limited but I still hold it in my heart for various reasons.  I needed to talk about it. Plus, it’s a great game so it deserves to be talked about.

In Lazy Raiders, you help Dr. Diggabone pile up money for his retirement plan. He is way too lazy to hunt for treasures himself so you’ll have to turn and flip the environment around him to steer him toward the golden goodness. And avoid the various traps. And keep thiefs from getting the gems first. Damn! This explorer life is hard!

Here is the trailer!

You can  also play the game just the same using your Avatar. Isn’t it cool?

Seriously, now. The game is really easy to control. We are a casual gaming studio afterall.
Reaching the perfect times, however, requires a high level of mastery. The Xbox is hardcore gamers oriented afterall.
So there is plenty to go around for all types of gamers and, if I’m not mistaken, it’s something like ten bucks.

For those of you who won’t buy a game unless they have read a review, one is already up and I’ll make sure to update this page as other reviews show up.
IGN’s review: 8/10
Team Xbox Review: (Overall score unavailable at this time)
Capsule Computers: 9/10

Owners of an Xbox 360, go download the trial (at least) or buy the game (way better).
Residents of Quebec city, stroll in Le Boudoir this Friday 7 PM to have a beer with the development team. We’ll have the game running on 5 TVs so you can play it with us and try to beat the main programmer and testers (good luck with that).