Hello,

I’m Oliver and I’m mostly responsible for keeping the programmer section together and also write some code from time to time. Today I’d like to talk a bit about the challenges of our awards system. Be prepared for some insights

As you may have already noticed, the game features 36 awards which can be unlocked. Because we’re not allowed to use the name “achievement” inside XBOX360 Indie Games, the decision was to name them “Awards”. Basically they’re both the same thing: They’re unlocked when you reach specific goals. Some of them are easy to unlock, others require some work or time and will only be awarded to them who do best!

Another downside of the XBOX360 Indie Games is that the game basically lives in a sandbox and we don’t have any means to connect to a central server to save the award progression for everyone of you. But we’ve been prepared for this shortcoming. It’s not as comfortable as the central server approach, but you’ll be able to compare your progress with your friends & foes!

How it normally works

When you start the game and choose the menu option “Awards”, you can press the Y button. This will open a popup where a special code is displayed. This code contains your gamertag and your award progress. You can write it down and go to awards.solarstruggle.com, where a input box is shown to you. Type the code into the field and, voilà, the code gets converted back into your gamertag and award progress and is saved into the database. Now you can compare your progress with other players and see which rank you’re in compared to other gamers!

How our system has to work

Of course we have secured the code generation, so you won’t have to fear fake entries. Also, the system is only available to LIVE accounts. Sorry, no support for local profiles, but the names of local profiles are not unique and we can’t gurantee to distinguish different players this way.

Feel free to leave a comment about what you think about the system! Is it a good choice? Too uncomfortable?

See you in the game,
Oliver