Several friends and I work together to write “indie” video games under the brand Ganksoft Entertainment.  You may recall that for Maker Faire 2007, we created a very simple rhythm-based music game (think Rock Band or Dance Dance Revolution) using XNA called Head Banger.

With Microsoft’s official release of Xbox LIVE Community Games with the New Xbox Experience, we decided to blow the dust off of Head Banger, add a couple songs, integrate it bit more with Community Games and XNA 3.0 and release it.  It is now available for purchase for 200 Microsoft Points (or, as with all Arcade and Community games, there’s a free trial) straight from the Community Games section of the Games Marketplace on your Xbox 360.  It will be listed under New Releases for a little while, otherwise you can go to All Games and then the letter H to find it.  Additionally, you can view the official Marketplace page on the new web-based Xbox LIVE Marketplace site.

Please give the trial a go and …

Back in May, I posted about my involvement in Maker Faire 2007.  For one of my projects, myself and several friends, collectively known as Ganksoft Entertainment, created a game from scratch using the Microsoft XNA Framework and Game Studio Express called Head Banger.  It's a rhythm-based music game in the vein of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Guitar Hero.  If you are a fan of either game, or the genre in general, you'll likely enjoy what we've created.  I have posted the game up to our website in both Windows and Xbox 360 flavors.  Sometime soon I will be writing an article that will appear on Coding4Fun on how the game was created along with the full source code of the game.

But, in the mean time, try out the game and enjoy!

I will be attending this year's Maker Faire with the Coding4Fun gang.  We will have a variety of spiffy projects to play around with, including two I have done:  several "Wiimote-controlled" cars using my Managed Wiimote Library and Microsoft Robotics Studio, and a game written with my Ganksoft Entertainment cronies using Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express.  So if you're in the San Mateo area, stop by May 19th and 20th and have a gander.  At only $15 for admission, there's plenty to see and do...

More details at (also linked above):

• http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/pages/MakerFaire2007.aspx
• http://www.makerfaire.com/