Just a quote. Great advice from Robert Boyd of Zeboyd Games, the indie game developer behind Breath of Death VII, one of the top rated Xbox LIVE Indie Games in the United States*.

As for the debate between doing quick and easy games or better long games that take forever to develop, why does it have to be an either/or? Breath of Death VII only took the two of us 3 months to make and it's considered to be one of the best games on the service. Get a partner to help cover your weaknesses (I can't draw worth anything, but Bill is great at that retro style) and to help motivate you. Build your code with reusability in mind (sure, it might have taken a week or two to figure out save/loading with BoDVII, but with future games, it'll probably take a few hours at all since I can just copy/paste a lot) and you're well on your way to make great games that don't take forever to develop.

One thing that really helped us was to have a plan going in to development. We took a good hard look at what we wanted to accomplish and in what kind of time frame. It would have been very easy to have turned our game into a development nightmare that would have taken years to complete (late SNES era graphics, 20 hour quest, etc.), but since we had a goal for how long we wanted to take making it, we were able to go through and cut out those features that weren't essential for fun that would have taken us forever to implement. And hey, with our next game, we can start adding features that we weren't able to implement in our first game since we're more experienced and have a bunch of code to start us off with.

- Robert Boyd,  http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/28044/320480.aspx#320480

Here's a trailer of Breath of Death VII:

Breath of Death VII: Retro Parody for Xbox LIVE Indie Games (80 Microsoft Points)

*We are proud that our own Decimation X is the #1 top rated Xbox LIVE Indie Games in Japan.

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• Duality ZF #2 in Canada #7 in World in Dream Build Play 2009 (Top 20 Video Trailers)

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About the Author:  I am Matthew Doucette of Xona Games, an award-winning, indie game studio I run with my twin brother. We concentrate on nostalgic game concepts with modern-day gameplay and intensity. Our company, our games, and our technology have all won prestigious awards and received worldwide press. Our games have ranked from #1 in Canada to #1 in Japan, as well as become #1 best sellers in multiple countries. Read about our story and our blog.