Tomorrow, I’m excited to be going to the Wings Over Wairarapa Airshow. There was even going to be a Spitfire flying, but unfortunately it had a wee hiccup on the landing gear front and crash landed.

Anyway, I’m still really looking forward to it. I figured why not get a little local publicity for my game and made a Leaflet for my two awesome kids to proudly hand out at the event.

The more observant of you might notice it says “Coming soon” despite the fact “Air Legends” is actually already released on Xbox 360. That is because at present this new Community Games marketplace is still only available on Xbox 360’s in USA, UK, Canada, France, Italy & Spain. More countries will come online as Microsoft enables them.

So, now a message to anyone visiting after seeing one of the leaflets.

• Thanks for coming!
• The PC demo of “Air Legends” will be available for download here within the next couple of weeks. (the game itself is complete – I just need to build an installer)
• The Full PC game will be available also, for nothing more than a donation.
• The Xbox 360 version will be available in New Zealand, just as soon as Microsoft enables the new Community Games marketplace here. Hopefully soon – but this is out of my hands unfortunately.
• The Xbox 360 version of Air Legends topped the sales charts for the week of 5 Jan 2009!
• In the meantime, see more of the game here.

I’m thrilled to announce that Air Legends is published at last – on the Xbox 360 that is. (A windows version shouldn’t be far off)

It is available on Xbox 360 Community Games marketplace in US, UK, Canada, France, Spain & Italy. Other countries should follow as Microsoft enables them. (I’m guessing they’ll be schmoozing with a government near you to make it so.)

It’s a supremely satisfying moment, though it hasn’t really sunk in yet.

Even if you’re not in the supported countries, you can still check it out on the web marketplace here:

“Air Legends on the Marketplace”

Now to reflect on a little trivia…

• 2 years & 5 months in development. Just me tinkering away in my limited spare time.
• began as a tiny exercise to brush up on my .NET v2.0 skills at home – since my day job had me rotting in v1.1.
• the game is based on an unfinished game I attempted in BASIC back in the 80’s.
• the distinctive rotation of the planes was something I came up with back then. I wanted you to enjoy all angles of the plane rather than the traditional 2D side view.
• I started it as a 2D game. Became 3D when I quickly learned what a mammoth task it would be coming up with sprites for all angles. In the 80’s it was easy with only 16×16, 2 colour sprites.
• I started the game using Managed DirectX with .NET 2.0. I didn’t even know XNA was coming, so it was a very pleasant surprise when Beta 1 emerged late 2006
• the game had no name. The exe name was Legends.exe. David Weller that suggested “Sharky’s Air Legends” when Microsoft needed a title for the first XNA showcase video. The name stuck. Thanks Dave.
• the project was scuttled much of 2007 thanks to certain personal events that hit hard. With a whole new life ahead energy levels returned and I resumed with vigour and a serious goal to make the life dream a reality.
• I dropped the “Sharky’s” prefix one day in 2008, when it dawned on me I could actually publish this thing one day!

That’ll do for now. Bound to be more trivia – but I can blog that later.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!