Calling All Past and Present Xbox Live Indie Game Developers!

A week from tomorrow marks the third year anniversary of Indie Gamer Chick. I honestly can’t believe three years have already passed. My life has been enriched so much by this whole thing, it just made time fly by. I’ve played some incredible games, and met some of my dearest friends. And I owe it to one segment of the community in particular: the Xbox Live Indie Game development community. I knew nothing about game development when I started this blog on July 1, 2011. I simply wanted to play stuff that would be experimental or unconventional. Okay, so the indie scene isn’t always full of titles that qualify as either of those, but the endless supply of superb old-school homages, or creative new angles on old concepts, more than makes up for it.

Yes, there’s still people working on XBLIGs. But now, what little attention the platform once got is now generally focused on the new generation of game consoles. The once small but proud XBLIG community has grown apart. And that breaks my heart. The drifting away stuff, that’s part of nature. It happens after school, after college, after a job, after moving, after marriage, or after a death. And even though you know it’s coming some day, it always hurts when it happens. I stay in touch with a lot of developers, and some of them I treasure my relationships with. They’re precious to me. But the sense of community? It’s gone, and I suspect it won’t soon come back. At least not the same way. XBLIGs were the smallest of underdogs in a scene where everyone is, by definition, an underdog. But with that came a sense of passion, camaraderie, and kinship? I miss that. I think we all do.

I don’t make games. I’ll likely never make my own game. But, I was part of the scene. The XBLIG development scene. I was accepted, embraced, and even treated with reverence. Did I deserve it? Probably not. But I’ll never forget it. No matter where life takes any of us, I know I’ll always consider myself an XBLIG chick. And I know I’m not the only person who will always look back on my time in the XBLIG community with a sense of pride. So, I want to hear from you.

An Indie Gamer Chick tradition is a community-wide editorial on my site’s anniversary. This year, I want Xbox Live Indie Game developers, past and present, to tell me your best memories of the XBLIG development and the community that supported it. I want this to be all positive. No bitching about the lack of support from Microsoft, or developers you felt were lazy in their efforts, or the time your paycheck was late, or your lack of sales, or any of a hundred other problems. Nobody would ever accuse XBLIG of being a perfect platform. But the community? If not perfect, it was as close to perfect as it could be.

I’m looking for two to three paragraphs from each developer. If you feel the need to go longer, go for it. Just send me your memories and favorite moments in an unformated email by July 1, 2014 with the subject line “XBLIG Memories”. Make sure you include a list of the games you published to XBLIG in the email, and a link to your development site (if you’re still making games for XBLIG or elsewhere).

No, this isn’t me trying to bring the community back. This is me wanting to show the world that we had the best gaming community that ever existed. The memories of which will never fade. I’m an XBLIG chick and proud of it, and I want to show people what I had.