Major Nelson has posted the lastest list of marketplace content and it definately is a bountiful harvest today for XBLArcaders. Content, pictures and themes are available for 3D Ultra Minigolf (content), Alien Hominid (content, pictures), Band of Bugs (content), Mad Tracks (content, theme), and Soltrio Solitaire (content).

Marketplace users in Japan will be able to finally pick up a copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on their native Marketplace.

Full details of this content is available on Major Nelson's website.

Unscripted 360 has available two copies of Band of Bugs available for winners of a new contest. The Band of Bugs title really is one of the more solid, quality titles available on live and one of the personal favorite titles of many of the XBLArcade.com community. The contest simply requires you to name the NinjaBee games that are available on Xbox Live Arcade and the NinjaBee games reviewed by Unscripted 360.

More information can be found on the Unscripted 360 website.

Major Nelson's podcast this week features a bunch of interesting interviews (and plenty of mindless chit chat). Of direct significance to us though is his interview of Steve Taylor (President of NinjaBee and all around nice guy).

Steve gets a chance to talk Band of Bugs, dole out level editor tips, and even mentions the uber forumites over at the NinjaBee forums (Okay, that was a shameless plug for myself and my comrades from over there, I admit it.)

For those who can't stand to listen to nearly two hours of talking (yes, it's nearly two hours long this week) the interview in question goes from about 56:03 to 1:17:16. Okay, not "about" -- precisely between those times.

Oh, and in case you are interested, he's giving away a free copy of Band of Bugs on the show. Enjoy!

[via Major Nelson]

What could be better than NinjaBee's new strategy game, Band of Bugs? How about a free copy of said game.If you still haven't picked up Band of Bugs, you should head over to x360a.org to enter their new contest. By designing you very own "Band of Bugs", you can enter the contest to win one of three copies of the game.

If you happen to win the contest (or if you've already bought the game), and are looking for some easy victories, add Tomacco to your friends list and send me an invite.

Here's the link to the contest

After today's welcome announcement, I thought it appropriate to post up the responses to all the questions I got from everyone. So, hopefully this answers your questions, and if not, post some more. [Reprinted from Lunar's Duality]

Well, thanks to everyone that sent in questions. Here are all the answers I could scrounge up. If there is still something on your mind, feel free to comment and I'll try to answer as new ones come up. All answers are from me unless noted as being directly from Steve Taylor (President, Wahoo Studios/NinjaBee).

On with the show:

Q from AC91: Release date and price please...

A: As if my NDA allowed me talk about such things... [Update]: Well, the cat's out of the bag now so get it on 6/20/2007 for 800 MS Points!

I am personally beside myself with glee. It's official and I can finally talk about it.

Band of Bugs is coming this Wednesday (6/20/2007) and will be available for 800 pts.

Details after the break.

In what should be a surprise to nobody, Xbox360Achievements.org has beaten everyone else to the punch in gathering the Achievements for the upcoming Band of Bugs. Just in case this is the very first post you've ever read at XBLArcade, BoB is one of the most anticipated XBLA titles for us.

Check them out here.

Here is part 2 of my Level Editor breakdown with two new exclusive screens. Part 1 can be found on XBLArcade here. [All parts reprinted from Lunar's Duality]

Creating maps hooked me right away because the maps did not require a crazy amount of detail to be fun. I could easily test an interesting idea and if it sucked I had not wasted hours working on a bad idea. I just scrapped it and started a new one. However, with some advanced editing techniques you can often turn a bad design into a great one.

Much more after the break.

Finally, everyone can see what I have been talking about for weeks. Steve Taylor (aka stay) of Wahoo Studios/NinjaBee has posted up a Band of Bugs gameplay video on YouTube. Check it out.

It starts with the level editor and also shows some gameplay from Maal's Story (the campaign mode).

I just got a total Pavlovian response from hearing that music -- I am officially way too excited. I sure hope we are getting close to the release because I cannot take this waiting any longer.

[via NinjaBee forums]

[Update]: After some diligent work by staticwrap over at the forums, there is now a hi-res version available at GameVideos. Enjoy!

[thanks staticwrap]

The long wait is finally over. Here is the first part of my breakdown of the Level Editor which is, in my mind, the best part of a great game.

NinjaBee has said that they used their editor to layout all the levels in the single player campaign and I absolutely believe them. It takes a little while to get used to using the editor, but the slight learning curve is only a result of the editor’s robustness.

Every available button is used in the editor. The d-pad allows you to switch between the following: tiles, doo-dads, units, and items. The left thumbstick handles moving around the map itself, and the right thumbstick handles choosing the specific piece you want to place in or on the map (in the top picture, all the different tile choices are shown at the top).

(More after the break)