Dust: An Elysian Tail, an entry in Microsoft’s XNA Dream Build Play competition, is not only the best looking video game we’ve seen from the contest, it might be the best looking downloadable Xbox 360 title ever.

In fact, I’m having a hard time believing it’s playable. But considering Dust: An Elysian Tail appears to be based on the animated film Elysian Tail, likely giving the developers access to top notch animation, I’m willing to suspend disbelief.

Watch this gorgeous teaser. Don’t let the XNA thing frighten you.

Released to minimal fanfare last year as a set of templates upon which people could build games with little or no programming experience, Popfly never really caught on. Which is why, come August 24, it’ll be shut down, with users asked to direct their efforts towards XNA or, for those with less time for coding, Kodu.

Kodu Game Lab isn’t a video game, per se, but a lot of the pre-packaged worlds that come with the Game Lab certainly count. There’s a Frogger recreation, a bumper boat style game, and even an odd take on air hockey with really awesome controls. Also, since Kodu players can upload their own worlds, you’re basically buying an eternal ticket to whatever games other users can come up with.

And if you don’t like what they come up with, you can always make your own games.

Loved
Myriad Options: Kodu lets users change everything in the game world from the sky colour to the topography of the terrain, as well as character behaviour to game conditions for winning and losing. Far from being a simple exercise in matching colours and textures, or teaching a Kodu to move forward, the options lets users create a multitude of environments and game types. You could spend hours inventing your own environments—like the inside of a computer, a planet in deep space, etc.—or, like me, two hours trying to recreate the opening world from the original Super Mario Bros.

Cute Kodus: The default objects (apples, clouds, trees, etc.) and creatures (Kodus and Bots) are easily recognisable and very cute. The simplicity of the design makes it easier to come up with ideas for worlds. My first attempt was an adventure in which a motorcycle falls in love with a blimp on top of a castle and has to collect gold coins from a forest to enter the castle and reach the blimp. It was awesome—and by awesome, I mean ridiculously cute.

Hated
Lousy Interface: There are two primary interfaces users need to master to build worlds. The first is a drop-down listing of what the 360 controller buttons do that remains on screen whenever you go into Edit mode; the second is a side-scrolling menu where you can select all your world-editing tools. The two menus don’t match up with each other stylistically and sometimes the side-scrolling menu will cover up the drop-down menu. This can make it especially tough for first-timers to figure out where to go in one menu and what to press once they get there to make the editing go. The interface can also make it hard for users to figure out what’s breaking their world when they go to run it since there’s no way to tell if it’s the trees spitting coins or a mistake in the blimp’s “express love” behaviour programming that’s ruining the frame rate.

Kodu Game Lab is a pretty spiffy tool for anyone with aspirations of game design. For anyone else, though, the myriad options and clunky interface might be overwhelming. Even if that’s the case, I still think Kodu might be worth a look a week or two after its release, just to see what kind of games people have come up with.

Like I said, don’t think of it as a one-time purchase kind of game – think of it as a ticket to the minds of fledgling game developers.

Kodu Game Lab was developed by Microsoft Research for Xbox Live Community Games on June 30. Retails for 400 Microsoft Points ($5). Played all tutorial and pre-packaged worlds and created one complete and one partial world of my own.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

We know that the Xbox 360’s Community Games don’t sell and don’t make any money. Aussie developer Halfbrick has a solution.

The biggest problem for the Community Games channel – other than we can’t access it here in Australia – is that Microsoft only highlight new releases. Speaking to Kotaku earlier today, Phil Larsen from Queensland studio Halfbrick, reckons they could be doing a lot more to promote the games.

“The Microsoft team is keen to support the community with technical advice and software updates, but a few key issues are severely limiting the consumer response. Namely the lack of any ratings system which gives the more acclaimed games better exposure. After a game is pushed from the New Arrivals section, it’s lost in the archives forever. Gamers don’t want to dig through the catalogue because they assume most, if not all of the XNA games are lousy, and without a rating system to show them that many are actually really good, there’s no reason for them to think otherwise.”

It’s hard to argue with that. Community Games already has a peer review system in place to ensure all games available for purchase are free of bugs, glitches and offensive or copyrighted content. Why not add a simple 5-star rating system that let users help each out in identifying the best the service has to offer? Come on, Microsoft, it can’t be that hard.

Much was made of Microsoft’s attempt at gestating a user-created gaming platform on the 360 with their Community Games service. But six months on from launch, how well is it faring?

Here’s a hint: not very.

Statistics for the service’s games have been made available (and then collected by GamerBytes), showing how many times a game has been trialled, how many times it’s been bought, and how much money it’s made, both as total revenue then as how much the developer earned after Microsoft took a cut.

And those statistics are none too healthy. The “conversion rate” (ie the ratio of demos to purchases) is low, revenues for low sales are low, and earnings for the developer are even lower. Only three games cleared $5000.

Sure, this isn’t a business. It’s not meant as a rival to Xbox Live Arcade, nor as a means for these developers to make a living. But still, $5000 (at most) for a game that would have taken months to put together is a pretty poor return. And not a single game breaking the 4000-sale barrier, even at discount prices, is pretty poor as well.

What do you think’s wrong with it? Pointless service, or just a poorly advertised one?

GamerBytes Analysis: XNA Community Games Sales Data Revealed [GamerBytes]

A year and a half of drooling comes to fruition this Wednesday, as The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai rides a blood-soaked guitar riff onto Xbox Live Arcade.

The Dishwasher has come quite a long way since it won Microsoft’s 2007 Dream-Build-Play competition, but its core values remain intact. It’s still a bloody good mess of sexy, stylish 2D action. Co-operative multiplayer using an Xbox 360 guitar controller only sweetens the deal.

The Dishwasher has arcade co-op, drop-in solo campaign co-op, and drop-in solo phantom guitar co-op using the guitar peripheral. Phantom guitar players can unload electric death by playing wicked solos, perform basic movement, and use the guitar’s motion control to rip through enemies with a razor-sharp headstock.

All this, and another reason to drag the plastic guitar out of my closet? Sold.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai goes on sale April 1st (no really) for 800 Microsoft points.

Microsoft’s CES announcement of Kodu, its LittleBigPlanet rip-off take on the whole user-generated content craze, looks really cool. (Almost as cool as two hot chicks playing Xbox together.) Thing is, Kodu is part of the XNA Community Games Channel, which isn’t actually available in Australia. Also at CES, Microsoft revealed a launch date for Primetime, the Xbox Live game show channel where players compete with each other for real prizes in formats like 1 vs 100.
Will we be getting any of these features in Australia? I put this question to Microsoft…I asked if we’ll be getting Primetime at the same time it rolls out in the US, i.e. their Spring?

To which Microsoft replied, “We’ve not yet announced when Primetime will be available in Australia although we can confirm that the global team is currently working on expanding the service’s worldwide footprint.”

Undeterred, I pressed on. So how about Kodu? Will we be getting that as part of the Community Games Channel?

To which Microsoft replied, “We’ve not yet announced when the Community Games Channel will be available. The global and local teams are working on bringing the channel to Australia.”

Hmm. Fair enough, if there’s no launch date decided then what else can they really say? But when we still don’t have access to Video Marketplace, let alone Netflix, it’s easy to be pessimistic about the prospect of seeing Primetime and Community Games any time soon. Sigh.

Until now this XNA developing lark was confined to coders from the United States, Canada, England, France, Italy and Spain and the Nordic regions (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden & associated territories). All great, but all very northern hemisphere.

From December 15th, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand will be added to the roster, allowing independent developers from warmer climes to contribute their games to the network.

Microsoft to Offer Community Games in New Regions [Team Xbox]

We have mentioned In The Pit before – back when it was a 3-level Xbox 360 demo.

Described as “An ‘audio-only’ stealth action game”, you are a monster hunting down unfortunate victims hurled into your pit by an evil king. It’s a Grue simulator, basically.

The demo has been expanded into a full game, which will be one of the NXE Community Games launch titles. Check out the trailer. With your eyes closed.

In the Pit [XNA]