What can I do with an old XNA game?

Question

I have this little amusing game that I made in my second year of high school, and I'm rather impressed with it. It isn't anything that I could present in any style of major game conference or anything, it is simply a castle-defense I enjoyed creating greatly that got me through my programming course with highest grades. It is simply too small to do anything big with, I made the majority of it in a single week Easter holiday, but I still want to share it. It was made in C#, Visual Studio 2008, XNA 3.1. It can be played by either Xbox controller connected to the computer, or by keyboard. It relies heavily on XNA codes, I only thought of making things work so I saw it and not for everyone else. Now, my question.

If I want to share it, is this possible, where do I do it, and what should I expect for incidents? I am entirely new to the concept of sharing my game online, so I don't even know where to start. Is the game simply too old? Is there someplace similar to, like, Newgrounds except for XNA games? What could I possibly release the game for?

This kind of question must arise all the time, so I don't mind if I'm linked to some other question I've been unable to locate. All questions I've been able to find are asked before the people have even started the project, which is possibly smart. Me, I'm already done with this game and I'm wondering what I can do with it.

Anyone who can sate my curiosity?

Answer 1

With a few edits you could probably get it on the windows phone or xbox indie games store?

For the phone you would have to make sure the game follows the rules which have been set by microsoft for uploading games. I've never uploaded to the xbox indie games store before but I'm sure its not difficult!

EDIT:

http://create.msdn.com/en-US/home/about/how_it_works_submit

Answer 2

If you just want to share it and you don't want to set up your own website for that purpose, you could always use any file hosting service and share the link via gaming forums. It doesn't get much easier than that.

However, as people are wary (or at least should be) of downloading executables from an unknown source, you could always share the code itself through something like Sourceforge. You can quite easily set up an online repository, forum, wiki, all sorts of things, depending how much effort you want to put into it. That way, people can still download the executable, but can also verify the code that it contains nothing harmful/malicious. Also, if your game contains something that piques someone's interest, your game might, with your consent, get developed further into something even better.

Answer 3

You are in the catbird seat. You have a complete and working game. Your options are limited only by how much additional effort you'd like to put into this game. In my mind you have three basic options:

1. Publish to Microsoft Store (Windows Phone Indie / Xbox Indie)
2. Drop it on a file share somewhere and have people download it
3. Open source it on CodePlex or Github (or whatever you prefer)

For option #1 you'd probably need to modify it a bit to conform to the rules of the marketplace. Depending on how your game works, this could be a minimal effort or a huge task, but you have the opportunity to earn a bit of money (probably not much, but you might eventually buy yourself a very nice dinner, and maybe even more, without seeing your game its hard to say). If your game is really good, you could even try publishing it to Steam, but their requirements are much more strict than Xbox Live Indie games.

For option #2, you can just put it up there and link to it in some online forms (though not here, maybe in chat though).

For option #3, again you don't have to make any changes, you can just put it up as is.

Answer 4

have a look at indiecity, you never know you may make a few quid (dollars!)

depending on the game also, it shouldnt be too hard to release on WP7

Answer 5

You might get some added attention from the XNA community by uploading your project to CodePlex. It's Microsoft-hosted and thus you can expect a lot of C#/.NET stuff. A lot of open-source XNA games, engines and frameworks are easily found there.

Answer 6

Using monogame you could publish it to the Win8 store and even the Apple store. Perhaps you could make some money on it there.