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Heres the exclusive Interview with the developers of the fantastic Ezmuze+ Hamst3r Edition on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel - The Hamster Alliance & Mad Ninja Skillz. Hit Read More to check it out.

Hi there guys,

Thanks alot for taking the time out to answer a few questions, we really appreciate it. It's great to be able to get both of your opinions. Please answer the following questions in your own time :

1. So what were both of your roles on the project?

THA: My role in the ezmuze+ project changed significantly during it's development. I think the music loops, the loop names, the loop pack images were the only things I was explicitly tasked with. I ended up helping out with the graphics, the interface and overall feature set of ezmuze though. That kind of work was a mostly 50/50 split between us.  I also just sort of assumed the role of marketing and video guy too.

MNS: Im the code monkey. Initial design was mine, but hamster being a more experience and skilled musician than me meant that he could make suggestions i wouldnt have considered. I made a few of the loops, but i think we can tell from the first ezmuze, my style is a little cheesy so luckily my musical influence was minimal

THA: He is the code master. Never shall I touch the code, for it burns my flesh.

2. EzMuze+ has been on the Community Games channel for a good few weeks now, are you happy with the response from players?

MNS: happy? its mental! seriously - we knew we had a good product but the response has been 100x better than we expected. I cant actually keep up with the number of friend requests and congrats live messages i get - its seriously up to 30 a day!

THA: Yeah! There are quite a lot of ezmuze+ players who are completely fanatical about it. I'm not sure how many more times I can hear, "Best Community Game Ever" before my head is too large to fit through doorways.

3. How about the critical response you have recieved?

THA: What critical response? Haha. Very few gaming websites have shown any interest in ezmuze+. I'm assuming this is because it's a Community Game, which seems to be synonymous with crap to a lot of people. That said though, the sites that have shown interest have really enjoyed ezmuze+ a lot and thus they are awesome people!

MNS:
I havent seen one proper 'this sucks' from anyone that has actually used it. there were some naysayers before release (stating things like a pc is better suited etc) but actually users wise, theres been requests for improvements - but always to improve not because they dislike whats already there.

4. Is there anything you wanted to implement into the game but didn't manage to due to time/resources, and if so what are these?

MNS: More automation controls - like for panning - this was considered but we decided that it wasnt gonna happen in the time frame

THA: More loops. Loop packs would be cool.

MNS: Christ yeh. more loops. seriously. i could have kept creating loops forever.

THA: ...and real-time effects.

MNS: yeh - we moved to xact right at the end of the project and discovered its realtime effects but didnt have time to utilise them. 

THA: ...and exotic dancers.

MNS: i was hoping for the time to put in a dancing hamster.

5. Since developing and working on EzMuze have you had any interest from larger developers/publishers on your work?

THA: Nothing on my end. I am making a sad face.

MNS: *says nothing*

6. How has it been to work on a Community Game?

MNS:I used to love coding when i was a kid but lost that joy. xna brought it back. the language is amazing, the community awesomes - and uve got so much power with the 360 - ill be perfectly honest - you can do some stuff the quick and dirty way and the 360 just gets on and does it. optimising is dull - xna means you dont have to do that much. 

THA: It was a lot of fun and a mostly painless experience. It's nice just to have something out there too. I can put this on my resume and it'll look awesome.

7. Is it something you would like to do again?

THA: Definitely.

MNS: I already am!

8. What are your opinions on the Xbox Live Community Games channel as a whole?

MNS: The ability for people for me to bring games to the living room is just amazing. that said - it needs fixing. theres a lot of dross out there, its hard to navigate and its hidden away. i know they are doing some stuff to fix it and im excited about that.

THA: Not quite there yet, not quite a polished service.  There's a lot that could be done to improve the platform, starting with making the Community Games available worldwide and giving developers full access to the XBOX 360's feature set. It's not just the Community Games channel itself that has issues though, assuming you can find it...buried deep in the NXE interface.  I think the XBOX 360 needs a better interface for browsing games by genre. Something similar to how browsing by genre works on Netflix, cause right now it's way too cumbersome to look through the games on XBOX Live.

9. Are there any features you would like to see MS implement into the next version of XNA for the XBLCG's?

MNS: sound buffer access (read and write), some form of server interaction (maybe a special program you can run on a dedicated server or some kinda SOAP thing) and some USB support. oh, and headset access.

10. What are you guys working on next?

MNS: An automatic baby head firing cannon. alternatively - theres ezmuze+ dnb edition which weve pretty much drawn up the plans for (lots of new features over ham edition) and goes full steam ahead once ezmuze+ hamster edition update 1 comes out. after that its ezmuze pro - thats the big dream one. i hope i can manage to make that one good enough to use in a real music studio. its a different demographic that one so we will still make ezmuze+'s - ezmuze pro will be for those that find ezmuze+ a bit too basic.

THA: That.

Thanks again guys we really appreciate it. If there are any hidden features/codes you would like to throw our way that would be fantastic.

Heres the code for our readers (honestly) - NINJADEATHSQUADFROMMYANUS

Dont forget to check out our review right here