Hopefully we haven't Band of Bugged you out yet because according to the UK Official Xbox Magazine the game is an astounding 8 out of 10. This score made it tied with Colin McRae's Dirt as the second best game this month only being beaten out by the European juggernaut of Forza Motorsport 2. The following is a list of the other arcade titles that were rated this month in addition to Band of Bugs:

Band of Bugs: 8/10
Centipede/Millipede: 5/10
Gyruss: 4/10
Luxor 2: 7/10

[Via Xbox Archive]

In other blogging news, NinjaBee has just setup a creator's blog for Band of Bugs over at IGN. So, if my previews haven't sated your need for everything Band of Bugs, head on over and give it a look-see.

It's NinjaBee's way of trying to get their game seen amongst the current flood of XBLA titles.

This game just cannot come soon enough.

[Update]: Apparently NinjaBee isn't content doing the whole marketing thing alone. Two exclusive screens have just popped up on GamingTalkHQ. Go here, see stuff. [Thanks, KC]

Now that I am drawing toward the final bits of my Band of Bugs Preview I would like to invite you, the XBLA community, to ask any Band of Bugs questions that might be pressing in your minds.

Of course, I have yet to cover a couple key topics (I know, I know, get to the Level Editor already) but I want to collect your questions in order to post a bunch of answers at once. So, anything that I did not cover that you are dying to know about (besides release date and price, of course)?

Post your questions here or at my blog and I will do my best to answer them (NDA willing) or get them answered!

Yet another update to my Band of Bugs Preview.

Two topics on the docket for today: Camera and DLC.

First, the Xbox Live Vision camera support. If you play other camera-enabled games this will all feel familiar to you. In multiplayer matches, when you arrive in the pre-game/post-game lobbies, you will see either a person's gamerpic or his/her camera stream. Once you are in the game, the streams and pics are relegated to a small section on the right side of the screen. Within the lobbies the video feeds add something fun (when is it not fun to witness the look of defeat on your enemy's face?), but in-game the windows are so small that they are barely interesting.

Read More for info on DLC.

After a long hiatus, I bring you the latest part of my Band of Bugs Preview:

Band of Bugs, in typical NinjaBee fashion, pushes the boundaries of Xbox Live Arcade. Even being on the cutting edge, NinjaBee still instills confidence in their ability to pull it off. After all, they had Outpost Kaloki X out for the Xbox 360 launch and helped pioneer full campaign DLC when they shipped expansions for it (some are even free!). But I digress.

Chief among their challenges and innovations in Band of Bugs was allowing user created maps into online multiplayer matches. BoB will be the first XBLA title to allow this. But the best part of this feature is how easily and quickly this happens in-game.

Read on for the rest.

Here's my blog post covering Multiplayer in Band of Bugs. Enjoy! There is still a couple more sections to come as well. To see all the visual aids, hit up my blog with the link at the bottom.

Tacked on? Not a chance. Multiplayer was clearly important to the design of this game from day one. When paired with the level editor (I haven't forgotten...I will cover the Level Editor in detail in my next section.), the multiplayer experience of Band of Bugs can extend into infinity. BoB's strong replay value results partly from said user created content and partly because the basic gameplay is simple but has enough variance and depth to make it interesting and new each time you play.

Let me (finally) explain more about the turn structure and its importance in multiplayer. Each game is divided into rounds. Each round is broken up into individual turns within which a player can move one unit. A full round is completed once all units have had the opportunity to move and perform an action (e.g., attack, switch weapons, cast a spell, use a skill, use an item, or just wait). The series of dots in the upper right hand corner (see picture) show you the turn order. The example here currently shows that it is Blue’s turn followed by Red's, then Purple's and so on. The dots are on two lines to denote the teams (Blue/Purple and Red/Black in this case). The number on the right is the round number. (Not important in Multiplayer really, but the number of rounds it takes to complete campaign levels factors heavily into your score and ranking.)

As part of BoB's casual-friendly philosophy, NinjaBee has avoided using a speed stat to determine the order in which units move. The onus falls to the players to decide when to move each unit within each round. The back and forth turn structure might be strange at first to those used to traditional turn-based strategy games like Advance Wars (It honestly confused me for a while because I was so stuck in the Advance Wars mindset). However, this seemingly small change brings a solid pace back to the genre. Pair that with the emphasis on combat (and not resource management, unit creation, etc.) and you get some really engaging and entertaining multiplayer. And most importantly, it does not drag on forever before you have some input into the outcome. (Click below to read on...)

Unfortunately I was not able to experience the full effect of the sound design in Band of Bugs as I was playing on a mono TV or a mono headset (blasted faulty headphone converters!) for most of the time.

Here’s what I can tell you: The character voices were fun in that Simlish way. (Where does NinjaBee come up with these fake mumble languages?) The music matched well with the style of the game and avoided becoming grating even after many hours of play.

As for sound effects: As I dug deeper into the game I got very used to the "Thwack" sound of hitting someone with a melee weapon but it never truly annoyed me. In fact, I felt a certain satisfaction in hearing that sound as I brought the smack down on some unsuspecting Warrior or Grunt. Maybe the satisfaction worked as counterpoint to the anger, confusion, and disappointment I felt when I heard the sad bubbling sound of a "Weak Hit". Damn those pitiful dice rolls! (Grr...that is another thing I forgot to mention in my Gameplay section...guess I will update the Addendum!)

Overall, I think the sound adds the appropriate dimensions to the game without ever overpowering or distracting from BoB's focus: combat, combat, and more combat. But I am warning you now, the NinjaBee's voice will cut through your soul like Hanzo steel.

[via Lunar's Duality]

This morning there are a few new Xbox Live Arcade related interviews on the net. The first is an [url=http://xbla-info.livejournal.com/1327.html]interview about Worms and Team 17[/url] over at XBLA Info. One of the interesting parts of this interview is that Martyn Brown mentions that they are working on other Xbox Live Arcade games, which hopefully points to a possible Lemmings release. Martyn also mentions that there will be no downloadable weapons for the game. Meanwhile on the otherside of the internet, Tales of the Rampant Coyote has an [url=http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2007/02/console-indie-interview-with-steve.html]interview with Steve Taylor of Ninja Bee[/url]. This interview itself is insightful due to it's back history into Ninjabee and Wahoo Studios. It's long so clear out a chunk of your afternoon for this one.

[b]Update:[/b] The [url=http://thexboxdomain.net/2007/02/09/an-interview-with-ninja-bee-band-of-bugs/]Xbox Domain also has a Band of Bugs interview[/url].

Xbox 360 Fanboy has an [url=http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/02/09/x360f-interview-ninjabees-band-of-bugs/]interview about Band of Bugs[/url] on their site. The interview itself touched on downloadable content, the 50 MB size limit, just what is Band of Buts, and the level editor. Below is the explanation on just what this game is all about.[quote]Band of Bugs is completely turn based, though we've really worked hard to eliminate much of the down time commonly associated with a turn based game. We have a wide variety of units, each represented by a different type of bug in our bug culture. Resource management isn't present in our game except for in the basest of forms - careful management of your troops and their skills - that sort of thing. We wanted to emphasize tactical combat over anything else. [/quote]Thanks to Measure for the tip on this news

Gamasutra has a new series called "[url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12630]Road to the IGF[/url]" in which developers whose titles are finalistists in the 2007 Independent Games Festival answer some questions about their game and current gaming habits. As you may recall, Band of Bugs is [url=http://xblarcade.com/taxonomy/term/92]finalist in the Technical Excellence category[/url].

[quote]We had a lot of wild ideas on how to approach the strategy genre, but the size of our staff and budget didn't support a lot of room for too much experimentation. This was especially the case with out decision to ship an editor with the game. The editor was a whole project in itself.

What we ended up doing was taking a lot of the staples of tactical strategy and stripping away any excess baggage. We took a hard look at a lot of the reasons a casual gamer would like or dislike a turn based strategy game and based a lot of our decisions on that. Encounters in our game aren't epic, they are kept to a small scale, and our turn order is very fast paced for a turn based game. The last thing we wanted was players sitting around and waiting for minutes on end for their turn to come around.

On the flip side, we didn't want players to feel they had to master the game right away to be competitive. We wanted to make sure they didn't loose that sense of security that comes with a turn based game, where you can strategize, plan your move, and go when you are ready.[/quote]

For the entire interview, check out the [url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12630]Road To The IGF: Band of Bugs' Jeremy Throckmorton feature at Gamasutra[/url].