Indie Devs Weigh In About Developing for Kinect

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Following Microsoft's recent announcement that they'd be making Kinect development tools available to those making XNA-developed titles for the Xbox Live Indie Games Channel, Eurogamer has gathered some reactions to the announcement from a few indie game developers themselves.

Dutch developer Ronimo Games (Swords and Sandles - WiiWare), sees Kinect's potential, but won't likely be jumping on the development bandwagon anytime soon. "Kinect is extremely cool technology, with lots of potential to bring about new game experiences and get new audiences to start gaming," said co-founder Fabian Akker, before clarifying that the studio's next game won't be utilizing the controller-less peripheral. "For the long term, I'm not sure. I think it requires a lot of work for a small studio like us to make motion games feel really solid and responsive. But if we think of something awesome, I'm sure we'll build it."

Introversion's CEO, Mark Morris, also sees Kinect's potential, but the Darwinia+ developer won't be developing controller-free games in the near future. "Kinect does look interesting, however, given Darwinia+'s poor performance I don't think we'll be working with Microsoft for a while," he said. Morris cited higher development costs as a barrier to developing console titles, especially when compared to PC development costs and post-release promotional options. Though the responses from indie developers haven't been overwhelmingly positive so far (or negative, for that matter), Trials HD developer RedLynx seems slightly more intrigued by Kinect's potential, provided that makes sense for the game in question.

RedLynx CEO, Tero Virtala, shared his cautiously optimistic thoughts about the possibility of developing Kinect-ready games:

As with every platform and technology, they all have their strengths and limitations and their own target audience. The right game has to be a perfect fit for all that. So probably, as an example, a game like Trials HD, with very precise controls and timing, with related gradual player skill development, might not be the best fit.

But coming up with something new and creative in the RedLynx way? Something that fits the Kinect platform and is really fun? Yes, we could definitely consider doing something like that.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 23, 2010 2:25 PM

    awww.. looks like MS are trying really hard to get a few developers and ender themselves to them..
    what a shame that this has happened after Lionhead put their plans for Milo on hold...

    i personally give Kinect 2 years before it wraps up it's show... unless their marketing might comes to the rescue..

    • reply
      September 23, 2010 2:53 PM

      That's the thing. I just don't see ANYTHING worthwhile coming out of Kinect. Nothing Fun, Deep or rewarding, just the same crapware I expected them to put out (Fitness games, party garbage and animal games). At least PSMove has things like "The Fight", Time Crisis, and different games for all markets. While it might be early, at least PSmove came out swinging with cool looking games. Kinect...not so much.

      Kinect wont have lasting appeal sticking to one market.

      • reply
        September 23, 2010 3:14 PM

        i agree man.. and to top it all when MS announced an exclusive deal with a Japanese dev, all the 4 or 5 games they are going to develop are similar to the fighting or dance-fitness mould.. we need variety.. the concept of Kinect may be really cool and different than other motion controllers.. but as gamers we need to see proper games on it rather than kiddie-family party style games which you play once as a novelty and then quickly get bored of it..

        and i think Move has "The Shoot" not "Fight" :)
        but i tried the demo for that. and it feels liek a really good arcady game to have.... and Sports Champions is so darn accurate.. i keep playing the Table Tennis demo on it :P

    • reply
      September 23, 2010 4:30 PM

      I have to disagree.

      Panzer Dragoon is coming out for Kinect. That's going to be awesome.
      If someone did some kind of kung fu hero game (think dance central but with martial arts moves), that would be incredible.

      We're all pretty jaded because we saw so much potential in motion control... and then nintendo screwed over the core gamers (who all pretty much went out and bought it day one). But I think it's mainly because our imaginations were so wrong about the Wii that we refuse to give kinect a chance.

      I guess the best way to explain it is... where the hell is my lightsaber game?! Instead we got fitness and sports games...

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