If you write reviews for games then you are in the right place. If you write reviews for Xbox Live Indie Games then you are in an extra right place. Below you can find a few resources to get you started with your Lodestar 1000 review.
Review Code or Token
Need a review code or a token for Lodestar 1000? Send us an email and we'll get it taken care of. What do you do with it? This article has a good explanation of how you use the code to redeem your free copy of the game.
CCGame File
For those who can handle a .CCGame file we have made ours available - Lodestar1000.ccgame. This file enables you to test the game before release, but will require the XNA Game Studio version of MS Visual Studio and an Xbox360 hooked up to a creators club membership. If you are not yet comfortable with CCGame files, but are curious then you can find more information by checking out this MSDN article.
Lodestar 1000 Features
On the one hand reviewing games is probably one of the coolest jobs in the world. On the other hand it's hard work and after a while, or so we imagine, the games start to blur together. We'd like to help you out by listing a few items to look for when reviewing our stuff.
- Classic, wholesome memory game, but with a spin.
- 8 bit graphical theme.
- 8 bit sound. Many of the sound effects are sampled from a Commodore 64 SID chip.
- Original chiptune soundtrack.
- The music heard during gameplay dynamically builds by "leveling up" along side the player.
- The game costs 80 points, equal to 1 US dollar.
What about the gameplay?
What exactly is different about it? The original game mechanic for "Simon" used 4 buttons. You can find many other Simon clones on the Xbox Live service that also use those same 4 buttons. Our deviation is the way Lodestar progresses across the face of the Xbox controller.
Each time the player levels up, a new component from the controller is added to the mix. Admittedly, early on this is pretty confusing to the player because it's unexpected. However, as the player gets a feel for the game they come come to depend on it because they can "chunk" the button sequences.
It also opens the door for cooperative play. Try letting a friend be the thumbsticks. This too, is confusing at first, but soon becomes very fun first once you get the hang of it.
Fun Fact
The Lodestar Robot voice heard throughout the game, is actually John J Dick, the voice of "Sam" in the popular PC game, "Serious Sam". It has of course been heavily modified to sound like an 8bit robot from the 80s, but if you listen closely you can probably tell.
Press Kit
Our press kit contains all sorts of nifty images and documents that you can mine for data. Might be useful. Might not.
Contest
Please be advised that if you decide to play Lodestar 1000 for any length of time you might be in danger of winning our reviewer contest! What's the prize? Oh you know...just a Zune HD. How do you win? Take a picture of the main menu, with your high score clearly visible, include the picture in your review and email us a link. Highest one wins. Need more info about the contest? Here it is.
