Xona Games is featured in Develop magazine, the second largest video game development magazine in the world (behind Game Developer), in Novemeber 2009 Issue #100.

Xona Games featured in Develop magazine, issue #100.
(Download PDF, Read online)

Canada Feature:

The Canadian game developers listed include Ubisoft (Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, and Vancouver), Funcom, Trapdoor, Frima, Davis, Enzyme Labs, Autodesk, Audiokinetic, Bedlam Games, Huminah Huminah, Silverback Games, and Xona Games!  We rang in as the smallest game studio featured with a number of staff of just two!

Canada featured in Develop magazine, starting page 35.
(Download PDF, Read online)

Xona Games Feature:

Xona Games feature in Develop magazine, page 52.
(Download PDF, Read online)

It reads:

XONA

Number of staff: 2
Year founded: 2008
Location: Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
Current projects: Xbox Live Indie title Duality ZF
http://xona.com/

PROUDLY INDEPENDENT, Xona founders Jason and Matthew Doucette have been making games since their elementary school days. It was Xbox Live Arcade that helped them turn a hobby into a profession.

“We had plans of developing games for XBLA for years and Microsoft’s Dream Build Play 2008 Challenge convinced us to drop everything and enter,” reveals Matthew. Despite a government-funded MIT team winning the competition, Xona persisted, thanks to what they describe as ‘a healthy disregard for the impossible’.

As soon as Dream Build Play ended, Xona turned its attention Xbox Live’s Indie Games channel as a release platform for its distinct shoot ‘em up Duality ZF. A year later a more polished version of the game was entered into Dream Build Play 2009, placing second in Canada and seventh in the world.

Tax breaks are something are something Xona sees as secondary to what makes a studio succeed. “After many entrepreneurial projects, it always feels like the system is setup against you. There’s always 1,001 ways to fail at any given endeavour,” admits Matthew. “The point is: success comes from succeeding anyway. We pay little attention to taxes, the government, the industry – those things are out of our immediate control, and become nothing more than excuses to fail.”

The two are based in Nova Scotia out of convenience than anything – that’s where their families live. But, ”we want to prove that making games even in a small based such as Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, is possible,” they say.

“I am most proud of the fact we stayed true to our childhood dreams and passions and decided to take a risk,” Matthew adds. “A year ago this was nothing more than an idea, and now we are being published in magazines, interviewed on TV, and placed seventh in a global Microsoft contest; all because we decided to follow our heart. That’s the true story that most interviews miss. Following dreams and passions can lead to your greatest rewards.”

Thanks to NSBI and Develop:

Thanks to Jayson Hilchie and Chris Richards of Nova Scotia Business Inc. for their help in awarding us this amazing feature!  And thanks to Will Freeman of Develop for the write-up!

2009-Nov-27 Update:

Read the above article online, as a feature on Develop's main website: CANADA SPECIAL: The Nova Scotia studios.

Also See:

• Duality ZF (official developer site)
• CBC News (TV, radio, website)
• Duality ZF Dream Build Play 2009 Top 20 Finalist (2nd in Canada, 7th in the world)
• Interviews (Xona Games, Duality ZF)
• Duality ZF Promo Materials

External Links:

• Duality ZF (official game site)
• Duality ZF Forums (hosted on xbox.com)
• Xona Games (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo)
• Dream Build Play (Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Contest)
• Xbox LIVE Indie Games* (xbox.com, Xbox Forums)
• Imphenzia Music (creator of the Duality ZF soundtrack)
• Develop (magazine)
• Nova Scotia Business Inc.  

*Xbox LIVE Indie Games formerly known as Xbox LIVE Community Games.

About the Author:  I am Matthew Doucette of Xona Games, an award-winning, team-of-two indie studio concentrating on "intense retro" games (Xbox LIVE, PSN, WiiWare, and Windows PC). We've released Decimation X (XBLIG), a 1-4 player shmup, #1 best selling and #1 top rated XBLIG in Japan. We're working on Duality ZF (XBLA), a groundbreaking 1-4 player shmup, which placed #1 in Canada and #5 in the world in Microsoft's Dream Build Play 2010 contest. It features dual play, the ability to control two fighters at once, and a massively upgradable 32-stage spread/laser weapon system. 4 player dual play allows up to eight fighters at once.  Many of these features are never before seen shoot'em up firsts. Both games feature beautiful electronic Imphenzia soundtracks.  Help spread the word with our official dualityzf.com and decimationx.com websites.

P.S. Watch out for Score Rush (official website scorerush.com), another 1-4 player shmup. Coming soon to XBLIG.

*Shmup also known as: shoot'em up, 2D shooter, scrolling shooter, space shooter, spaceship shooter, retro shooter, etc.