I'm so glad you covered these! I now work in gaming at Microsoft and this platform is what got my foot in the door. I was REALLY involved in this community, first as a journalist (Armless Ocotpus), then as a publisher (Indie Game Summer Uprising), and later as a game dev. I have a silly pong clone on there called Piz-Ong. There was an incredible community of people behind this. So friendly, welcoming, and always happy to help others. There were many strict rules we had to adhere to when creating these games, but this was the BEST time to get involved with game dev, as Microsoft truly lowered the barrier to releasing on a console. Prior to this there was a huge wall to get past to publish on a console. Since then, this program had largely morphed into ID@Xbox, which is still going strong, and we still have the Creator's Club, which is comparable to XBLIG.
Hell yeah. I've heard that a LOT of people got their start making stuff on XBLIG before eventually making larger games on XBLA, PSN, and Steam. XBLIG wasn't just cheap looking flash games, there were some really solidly made games too that were always at the top of most downloaded or highest rated. I haven't touched ID@Xbox (I'm not a developer), but I do wonder if they'll ever be as wacky as the old days.
Man I remember knowing about Really Scary and Flappy Monkey on the XBLIG marketplace around 2014 or so. Haven’t thought about those games in a hot minute. There is something about XBLIG games which makes them very charming and I hope there ends up being more coverage about them.
When I was like 11-12 and was just getting into my "so bad it's good" phase of media consumption, I was so jealous as a PS3 owner seeing that Xbox players got all of this super weird shit lmao
Mount Your Friends is definitely one of the best on there (and now there's a sequel, Mount Your Friends 3D!). I hope you also review No Luca No and One Finger Death Punch.
I remember playing some of the Xbox Live Indie titles whenever I visited my cousins. I had a Playstation 3 while they had an Xbox 360. I personally enjoyed arcade-like and party games such as "20 Games" and "Avatar Showdown" along with Total Miner. My cousin and younger brother enjoyed more horror and FPS titles on the service. But they would always play this game called "Scare Me" which was a compilation of "Scary Maze" like prank games.
If I can recall, Joel from Vinesauce made a video about Xbox Live Indie Games, and featured one of these games, most notably "Really Scary". Since then, its pretty odd seeing the game being played by other people when my first exposure to it was that of a swedish livestreamer.
A hidden gem in the Xbla indie games was Arcade Craft which was an arcade tycoon game. Pretty much the only one that wasn't made within a minute in Power Point.
the amount of xblig titles released (over 3400) is larger than a good amount of consoles full catalogs, which is hilariously insane to think about going by the archives it recieved titles up until the end of 2016, so thats a strong and plentiful 8 years!
A few indie games I remember actually being worth playing were: creed arena, it was a top down and third person, shooter with king of the hill, and objective based game, bones and multiplayer! And all of the avatar games like avatar, drop jet pack, assault and avatar paintball. This video has sparked memories that I have not thought of in well over a decade.
My favorite indi game was Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp. As the name implies its a platformer and adam good one at that. What the name doesn't tell you is that it's a DS game so it only take up the center of the screen (like a vertical scrolling shooters). The sequal Johnny Platform Saves Christmas was on the 360. You can still download the PC version for free so thats cool.
Oh...boy. I remember a few of these from back in the day. Really Scary is unique and kinda cool, Baby maker I played and got pretty far in surprisingly lol. The Minecraft clone I played was "Total Miner: Forge" also on Steam. I played one called "Candyman" where you floated around as a ragdoll T-posing in a cube room, it was terrible.
You need to review Johnny Crush from the Xbox live indie games! It is literally KNOCKOFF SERIOUS SAM! I can’t think of a better fit for this channel. It’s not great but it’s an interesting video. As a kid with no access to serious Sam (until HD came out) it was … ok. One singular map with alien bug enemies, felt ahead of it’s time as a steam asset flip.
FR, you really should do an episode on THE INDEPEDANT CHARLES SHOW which was a weekly show on XBOX live that showcased XBOX indie games. It was heavily inspired by the humour of Tim and Eric and was written and performed by Robert Florence (he did and still does Consolevania, one of the first ever videogame review shows made exclusively for the Internet, even before RUclips existed) The show is luckily archived on RUclips and was an offbeat yet wonderful way of showcasing some lesser known xboxlive indie games. I think the reason the segment didn't get popular was because the humour was a little too surreal which people weren't used to. People took the series at face value and didn't realize it was meant to be a somewhat psychotic and awfully made show. I still have fond memories of waiting every Wednesday for it to be uploaded (as I was already familiar with Roberts work and style of humour)
Huh, sounds a lot like Nintendo Week, which was a similar thing for Wii games. Love how the big 3 used to show off new games in more wacky, short form ways, instead of dumping out a huge seasonal direct.
Ah man XBLIG takes me back, made a weird platformer called Chester back in the day for it. Was super bummed when they took the market down and ended XNA. Love to see the XBLIG coverage!
@@DaveVoyles Whoa, now that's a name I haven't seen in a long time! Thanks, hope you're doing well man. Planning on getting back to some indie game dev projects someday soon, have a few mapped out but always a matter of finding the time.
@@SkellyPacks I'm doing good -- working in games publishing at Microsoft. I was in the same boat: Do I make games or play them? In the last few years I realized my time was better spent playing them :D Looking forward to what you put out!
@@DaveVoyles Awesome, congrats on the Microsoft gig! Publishing seems like it would be a fun field and definitely seems like a good fit based on how helpful you were in the community back then. As for future projects keep an eye out for Sugar Stardust, a robot space pirate (not-so)epic.
Holy fuck Baby Maker Extreme was one of the few XBLIG games I actually bought back in the day and I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing it and trying to beat my high scores. I completely forgot about it till now.
I remember Fortress Craft and how popular it briefly was before CastleMiner Z and Minecraft. Also Babymaker Extreme and Mount your Friends both were fodder for popular youtubers way back, so this is pretty nostalgic
I used to play Cuddle Bear as a kid on my Xbox 360, completely forgot the name and practically everything about it and have been searching for years and I have finally accidentally stumbled upon this video and found it. Thank you so much
Thanks for showing off this weird little corner of history! Most of these games aren't that bizarre or shocking to me compared to the similarly crazy stuff you'd find on Newgrounds years earlier, but just seeing some kind of "official homebrew" like this on a console was wild to me, and made me wish I had a 360 of my own back then to dig through the indie trash bin. Really Scary was especially inspiring to me, to see that any kid with a camera and some basic coding skill could make a Myst-like horror game and share it with the world. PS, any chance that Baby Maker Extreme was inspired by Xbox's infamous "Life is Short" commercial?
I loved the XBLIG market. A lot of it was trash, but as a young teen it was such a cool feeling finding the occasional diamond in the rough. I remember there was a game called Unbound that I actually ended up buying after the trial, just a super chill vibes exploration type game.
I'm so glad I still have some of the old XBL Indie games downloaded. I always loved surfing the store front to see what was new in terms of generic Avatar Shooters, and minecraft clones.
Man, I loved FortressCraft back in the day. I remember spending hours digging everywhere just to find all the relics for that sweet sweet jetpack. Also the copy/paste and auto-build tools are genius and it's baffling how minecraft to this day doesn't have something like it. (console commands don't count)
We had one of these, it was this very bare basic trivia game, called academy trivia, but it was fun, ive been trying to see if theres any footage on RUclips but there seems to be none
I'm not even a content creator but constantly hearing you guys say "sorry I can't show this or I'll get demonetized" It's actually pissing me off cause then my curiosity wins out and I have to go and search for a different video that shows what I wanted to see.
@@jonbourgoin182I know, RUclips is so damn draconian and a giant joke. A discussion in a comments section started talking about Hostess F R oooooT Pies and they kept on removing every comment. Like I understand it can be used as a slur but c'mon, context is everything. Louis Rossman has mentioned it before how comments he makes on his own channel are removed by YT and it seems like half of my comments on this site are removed even when I'm just trying to have a civil discussion/help someone. Sometimes I really wonder just what was "bad" or wrong about what I typed. YT will also remove anything mentioning one of their competitors, one that starts with A and has a service/streaming that rhymes with lime. This type of censorship is a giant joke but doxxing people, acting like an AHole and spam is A OK.
the minecraft clones remind me of downloading minecraft clones on iOS because of how limited the offical pocket edition was at the time compared to on PC
The Xbox indie games were always pretty cool. I always enjoyed just browsing and seeing what people made. I remember just downloading the weirdest demos and just seeing the weirdest crap I could find.
When I was a pre teen / early teen and only had a few bucks to my name at a time, I rarely ever had money to buy full priced games. It was always fun gambling with your $3 and hoping one of these indie games would be good. Lol
my friend told me to buy cuddle bear when i was a kid and i was very disturbed by the opening scene but i ended up getting all of the best gear i think. i kept playing it because i thought it was so bad that it was good. it was just funny and felt like a fever dream and somehow that appealed to me. would show it to my friend who came over and we'd laugh at the gameplay together. now that i'm way older i really see how bad it actually was though
At least xbox kept it to the "indie" section they made Now it's all bundled in with triple A or small but professional dev studios Hard to filter the crap out but the gaming industry is a mess itself
Can you explain how you got these working? I have a Modded Xbox 360 with an aurora dashboard, and I downloaded a ton of these Indie games, but none of them seem to work. Do you have to download like specific title updates for them or something? Or are you using an emulator for this? I can really use some help to get these working for myself I've got like a thousand of them
Damn this brings back memories I remember viewing the Xbox Indie market in 2012. I looked at most of the games and be like…”Wow most of these are garbage.” However there are some games i did found that are legitimately good. Like Bleed 1&2 and my personal favorite NO LUCAH! NO!
"As of late 2008, if you were to open the xbox live marketplace." Nope, sold my 360 by then. Didn't even know they ever got an indie section, cause I was so sick of the crappy hardware not working. I was on PS3 by the time the ugly "New Xbox Live Experience" dropped. Hideous compared to the nice clean Blades dashboard. ... looks like I didn't miss anything
Offensive these days is just a dog whistle for weak minded individuals who had their feelings hurt. Fuck their feelings. Offense is almost always NEVER given, but it almost always IS taken.
What I've noticed spending time with many groups is that everyone gets offended by something, some are just silent about it. Ultimately it depends on your experiences and what demographic you fit into. I've heard people say getting offended is weakness but hear the same people being wildly upset by other, less expected things. There's no outlier or age group exception, not that I've seen.
@@FrameRater Perhaps you are surrounded by drama queens who just LOVE to clutch their pearls about "the latest thing"? I RARELY get offended, nor take offence. When I do it's about things like those maniacs out there promoting things like having sex with minors. You know, things that ACTUALLY matter.
I've hung around westerners, easterners, southerners, the whole lot. Majority of my close friends hate "the latest thing", but I won't go into detail for obvious reasons. I agree the world is becoming overly sensitive as of recent, but there's justification to certain bits and pieces of it.
I'm so glad you covered these! I now work in gaming at Microsoft and this platform is what got my foot in the door.
I was REALLY involved in this community, first as a journalist (Armless Ocotpus), then as a publisher (Indie Game Summer Uprising), and later as a game dev. I have a silly pong clone on there called Piz-Ong.
There was an incredible community of people behind this. So friendly, welcoming, and always happy to help others.
There were many strict rules we had to adhere to when creating these games, but this was the BEST time to get involved with game dev, as Microsoft truly lowered the barrier to releasing on a console. Prior to this there was a huge wall to get past to publish on a console.
Since then, this program had largely morphed into ID@Xbox, which is still going strong, and we still have the Creator's Club, which is comparable to XBLIG.
Thanks for pointing me to this!!
I knew you’d love it
Hell yeah. I've heard that a LOT of people got their start making stuff on XBLIG before eventually making larger games on XBLA, PSN, and Steam. XBLIG wasn't just cheap looking flash games, there were some really solidly made games too that were always at the top of most downloaded or highest rated. I haven't touched ID@Xbox (I'm not a developer), but I do wonder if they'll ever be as wacky as the old days.
I remember there were a ton of massage simulators that would just activate the rumble on multiple controllers
Man I remember knowing about Really Scary and Flappy Monkey on the XBLIG marketplace around 2014 or so. Haven’t thought about those games in a hot minute. There is something about XBLIG games which makes them very charming and I hope there ends up being more coverage about them.
Hello there
When I was like 11-12 and was just getting into my "so bad it's good" phase of media consumption, I was so jealous as a PS3 owner seeing that Xbox players got all of this super weird shit lmao
Mount Your Friends is definitely one of the best on there (and now there's a sequel, Mount Your Friends 3D!). I hope you also review No Luca No and One Finger Death Punch.
I remember playing some of the Xbox Live Indie titles whenever I visited my cousins. I had a Playstation 3 while they had an Xbox 360. I personally enjoyed arcade-like and party games such as "20 Games" and "Avatar Showdown" along with Total Miner. My cousin and younger brother enjoyed more horror and FPS titles on the service. But they would always play this game called "Scare Me" which was a compilation of "Scary Maze" like prank games.
If I can recall, Joel from Vinesauce made a video about Xbox Live Indie Games, and featured one of these games, most notably "Really Scary".
Since then, its pretty odd seeing the game being played by other people when my first exposure to it was that of a swedish livestreamer.
A hidden gem in the Xbla indie games was Arcade Craft which was an arcade tycoon game. Pretty much the only one that wasn't made within a minute in Power Point.
I loved that one! Spent a decent amount of time with it
Arcade craft was a blast!
One of the devs is now working on film in Vancouver
the amount of xblig titles released (over 3400) is larger than a good amount of consoles full catalogs, which is hilariously insane to think about
going by the archives it recieved titles up until the end of 2016, so thats a strong and plentiful 8 years!
A few indie games I remember actually being worth playing were: creed arena, it was a top down and third person, shooter with king of the hill, and objective based game, bones and multiplayer! And all of the avatar games like avatar, drop jet pack, assault and avatar paintball. This video has sparked memories that I have not thought of in well over a decade.
My favorite indi game was Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp. As the name implies its a platformer and adam good one at that. What the name doesn't tell you is that it's a DS game so it only take up the center of the screen (like a vertical scrolling shooters).
The sequal Johnny Platform Saves Christmas was on the 360. You can still download the PC version for free so thats cool.
Oh...boy. I remember a few of these from back in the day. Really Scary is unique and kinda cool, Baby maker I played and got pretty far in surprisingly lol.
The Minecraft clone I played was "Total Miner: Forge" also on Steam. I played one called "Candyman" where you floated around as a ragdoll T-posing in a cube room, it was terrible.
You need to review Johnny Crush from the Xbox live indie games! It is literally KNOCKOFF SERIOUS SAM! I can’t think of a better fit for this channel. It’s not great but it’s an interesting video. As a kid with no access to serious Sam (until HD came out) it was … ok. One singular map with alien bug enemies, felt ahead of it’s time as a steam asset flip.
Ah, I hope to see part 2 of this video, I always like the theme of independent Xbox 360 games.
Cool seeing I made a game with Zombies in It at the end. I feel like thats the quintessential Indie XBLA game
FR, you really should do an episode on THE INDEPEDANT CHARLES SHOW which was a weekly show on XBOX live that showcased XBOX indie games. It was heavily inspired by the humour of Tim and Eric and was written and performed by Robert Florence (he did and still does Consolevania, one of the first ever videogame review shows made exclusively for the Internet, even before RUclips existed)
The show is luckily archived on RUclips and was an offbeat yet wonderful way of showcasing some lesser known xboxlive indie games.
I think the reason the segment didn't get popular was because the humour was a little too surreal which people weren't used to. People took the series at face value and didn't realize it was meant to be a somewhat psychotic and awfully made show.
I still have fond memories of waiting every Wednesday for it to be uploaded (as I was already familiar with Roberts work and style of humour)
Huh, sounds a lot like Nintendo Week, which was a similar thing for Wii games. Love how the big 3 used to show off new games in more wacky, short form ways, instead of dumping out a huge seasonal direct.
Ah man XBLIG takes me back, made a weird platformer called Chester back in the day for it. Was super bummed when they took the market down and ended XNA. Love to see the XBLIG coverage!
Hey hey! Good to see you guys again on here! You guys always had awesome art
@@DaveVoyles Whoa, now that's a name I haven't seen in a long time! Thanks, hope you're doing well man.
Planning on getting back to some indie game dev projects someday soon, have a few mapped out but always a matter of finding the time.
@@SkellyPacks I'm doing good -- working in games publishing at Microsoft.
I was in the same boat: Do I make games or play them? In the last few years I realized my time was better spent playing them :D
Looking forward to what you put out!
@@DaveVoyles Awesome, congrats on the Microsoft gig! Publishing seems like it would be a fun field and definitely seems like a good fit based on how helpful you were in the community back then.
As for future projects keep an eye out for Sugar Stardust, a robot space pirate (not-so)epic.
Holy fuck Baby Maker Extreme was one of the few XBLIG games I actually bought back in the day and I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing it and trying to beat my high scores. I completely forgot about it till now.
I remember Fortress Craft and how popular it briefly was before CastleMiner Z and Minecraft. Also Babymaker Extreme and Mount your Friends both were fodder for popular youtubers way back, so this is pretty nostalgic
I used to play Cuddle Bear as a kid on my Xbox 360, completely forgot the name and practically everything about it and have been searching for years and I have finally accidentally stumbled upon this video and found it. Thank you so much
Baby Maker Extreme was likely made as a reference to that one banned Xbox advert.
Those massagers that used the 360 rumble were hilarious!
7:01 uncommon? ive never seen a non-pc game ever use these!
Thanks for showing off this weird little corner of history! Most of these games aren't that bizarre or shocking to me compared to the similarly crazy stuff you'd find on Newgrounds years earlier, but just seeing some kind of "official homebrew" like this on a console was wild to me, and made me wish I had a 360 of my own back then to dig through the indie trash bin. Really Scary was especially inspiring to me, to see that any kid with a camera and some basic coding skill could make a Myst-like horror game and share it with the world.
PS, any chance that Baby Maker Extreme was inspired by Xbox's infamous "Life is Short" commercial?
I was thinking the same, it's definitely gotta be a reference to that ad.
you gotta love that each 360 bios just got worse and worse
Spider wants:
snacks
Was that kid Butters?
Yeah looks like it lol
The Minecraft XBLIG clones were "Minecraft but minus 100% of the budget", in otherwords a "No-Budget" clone.
No clue that Monut Your Friends was a 360 game initially.
I loved the XBLIG market. A lot of it was trash, but as a young teen it was such a cool feeling finding the occasional diamond in the rough. I remember there was a game called Unbound that I actually ended up buying after the trial, just a super chill vibes exploration type game.
I'm so glad I still have some of the old XBL Indie games downloaded. I always loved surfing the store front to see what was new in terms of generic Avatar Shooters, and minecraft clones.
Man, I loved FortressCraft back in the day. I remember spending hours digging everywhere just to find all the relics for that sweet sweet jetpack. Also the copy/paste and auto-build tools are genius and it's baffling how minecraft to this day doesn't have something like it. (console commands don't count)
The freddy sound at 4:28 made me laugh my ass off. Excellent detail
We had one of these, it was this very bare basic trivia game, called academy trivia, but it was fun, ive been trying to see if theres any footage on RUclips but there seems to be none
Just found some,
Contrary to what some might think, there were some well made XBLIG games out there that bordered on being full blown XBLA games.
I'm not even a content creator but constantly hearing you guys say "sorry I can't show this or I'll get demonetized"
It's actually pissing me off cause then my curiosity wins out and I have to go and search for a different video that shows what I wanted to see.
If you have a better idea let me know. 🤷♂️
@@FrameRater i didn't mean that as a slight towards you, it was aimed at RUclips itself
@@jonbourgoin182 I know, it irritates me as well. Sadly gotta make do with what we can.
@@jonbourgoin182I know, RUclips is so damn draconian and a giant joke. A discussion in a comments section started talking about Hostess F R oooooT Pies and they kept on removing every comment. Like I understand it can be used as a slur but c'mon, context is everything. Louis Rossman has mentioned it before how comments he makes on his own channel are removed by YT and it seems like half of my comments on this site are removed even when I'm just trying to have a civil discussion/help someone. Sometimes I really wonder just what was "bad" or wrong about what I typed.
YT will also remove anything mentioning one of their competitors, one that starts with A and has a service/streaming that rhymes with lime.
This type of censorship is a giant joke but doxxing people, acting like an AHole and spam is A OK.
the minecraft clones remind me of downloading minecraft clones on iOS because of how limited the offical pocket edition was at the time compared to on PC
The Xbox indie games were always pretty cool. I always enjoyed just browsing and seeing what people made. I remember just downloading the weirdest demos and just seeing the weirdest crap I could find.
I’m a simple man, I see frame rater uploading a video and I click
This an awesome video, I love seeing stuff like this
There was a game desined to make the controller vibrate so you could "play" with your partner across Xbox Live.
Anybody remember Don’t Be Nervous Talking to Girls?
What was that game in the very ending clip? I remember playing it soooo long ago n can't remember what it was?
cuddles bear is basically your mom say we have naughty bear at home, naughty bear at home
i remember playing really scary and i used to be so scared of it i didnt wanna play it
When I was a pre teen / early teen and only had a few bucks to my name at a time, I rarely ever had money to buy full priced games. It was always fun gambling with your $3 and hoping one of these indie games would be good. Lol
my friend told me to buy cuddle bear when i was a kid and i was very disturbed by the opening scene but i ended up getting all of the best gear i think. i kept playing it because i thought it was so bad that it was good. it was just funny and felt like a fever dream and somehow that appealed to me. would show it to my friend who came over and we'd laugh at the gameplay together.
now that i'm way older i really see how bad it actually was though
If you can get it, Super Amazing Wagon Adventure is a good laugh.
Yo what happend to your Willy's Wonderland video, I tried looking for it but could not find it.
Oh wow that's an old one, yeah maybe I'll archive it at some point. Can't remember why it was removed.
Xenominer is awesome was just playing it, such a nostalgia trip
At least xbox kept it to the "indie" section they made
Now it's all bundled in with triple A or small but professional dev studios
Hard to filter the crap out but the gaming industry is a mess itself
Can you explain how you got these working? I have a Modded Xbox 360 with an aurora dashboard, and I downloaded a ton of these Indie games, but none of them seem to work. Do you have to download like specific title updates for them or something? Or are you using an emulator for this? I can really use some help to get these working for myself I've got like a thousand of them
This works ruclips.net/video/cuefuarMXa4/видео.html
@@FrameRater tysm, FR!
Really Scary's a classic.
Damn this brings back memories I remember viewing the Xbox Indie market in 2012. I looked at most of the games and be like…”Wow most of these are garbage.” However there are some games i did found that are legitimately good. Like Bleed 1&2 and my personal favorite NO LUCAH! NO!
YEAH FRAME RATER
"As of late 2008, if you were to open the xbox live marketplace." Nope, sold my 360 by then. Didn't even know they ever got an indie section, cause I was so sick of the crappy hardware not working.
I was on PS3 by the time the ugly "New Xbox Live Experience" dropped. Hideous compared to the nice clean Blades dashboard.
... looks like I didn't miss anything
I don't think that was Microsoft's best idea, this thing was kinda like Newgrounds in 2000s with no moderating tbh, so that's bad
107k thumbs up, 3.9k views?
I'm seeing 408, it's probably a leftover from the last video you watched. I've seen that happen.
Had me at indie games ❤
MADE A GAME IWTH ZOMBIES IN IT HELL YEAH i cant wait
Your voice sounds different : )
_really scary :)_
Neat.
Offensive these days is just a dog whistle for weak minded individuals who had their feelings hurt. Fuck their feelings. Offense is almost always NEVER given, but it almost always IS taken.
What I've noticed spending time with many groups is that everyone gets offended by something, some are just silent about it. Ultimately it depends on your experiences and what demographic you fit into. I've heard people say getting offended is weakness but hear the same people being wildly upset by other, less expected things. There's no outlier or age group exception, not that I've seen.
@@FrameRater Perhaps you are surrounded by drama queens who just LOVE to clutch their pearls about "the latest thing"? I RARELY get offended, nor take offence. When I do it's about things like those maniacs out there promoting things like having sex with minors. You know, things that ACTUALLY matter.
I've hung around westerners, easterners, southerners, the whole lot. Majority of my close friends hate "the latest thing", but I won't go into detail for obvious reasons. I agree the world is becoming overly sensitive as of recent, but there's justification to certain bits and pieces of it.
@@FrameRater So long as "justification to certain bits and pieces of it" means freedom to say what you think, then we're in agreement.
wtf lol :D imagine paying for this game.