My second game for Xbox was Night of Doom, which is still my best selling. Night of doom is a simple first person shooter in which you try to survive on one of three levels for 10 minutes.
The zombies have very simple AI, where they would wander randomly unless the player was within a certain radius.

The main weapon is meant to be a stake gun however nobody seemed to realise due to my poor art.

Night of Doom on Xbox Marketplace

 Pro's

  • 8 minute trial
Due to the fact that people could download and play the trial for 8 minutes I designed it so that you cannot complete a level in trial mode. This meant that people might be willing to pay the $1 entry fee just to finish what they were doing.

  • Release time
The timing of the release couldn't have been better. In Xbox Indie games you have no say over the release date, you submit then wait for it to pass peer review which can take up to a month. Night of Doom went onto market one week before Halloween, meaning it held the top selling game spot on the night of Halloween.
This is probably why the game sold so well.

  • Atmosphere
While the graphics of the game were poor, the gameplay was solid. Due to the fact that you were surrounded by zombies you could never relax. I also made it so the only indicator that a zombie was behind you was them moaning which lead to panic if you suddenly heard a moan behind your head.

 Con's

  • Weapons
The game shipped with only a single weapon and grenades, this meant that it got a little repetitive as there was only two ways to kill zombies.

  • Animation
When I was working on Night of Doom I had no access to any animations for the zombie, which lead to the very stiff floating effect.

  • Level design
Designing graphics for my levels was difficult as it's not something i'm good at.
 
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