Last week, we ran a story discussing the problems indie development studios deal with when it comes to Xbox Live. Speaking with indie development team, Binary Tweed, developers of upcoming Xbox Live Community Game Clover, we heard about how costly and time consuming an arcade title can be. Since then, we have had many responses to the story but one stood out from the rest. We received some interesting information that could save independent development studios time and money when publishing their games onto XBLA.

This powerful tool is called Blade3D. Blade3D is a brand new game engine built on the XNA Game Studio framework that helps indie developers in all areas. Why would this engine help indie developers you may ask? Well for starters, unlike many other game engines out there that want a piece of the pie (in the form of royalties) when the title is published on XBLA, Blade 3D just requires a small monthly fee and then the engine is all yours. Also, since it’s built on the XNA framework, it’s easy to publish onto Windows or Xbox Live Arcade. Yes they will still have to go through certification, but with this new engine, indie developers may be able to save time and money.

The great thing about this engine is that it can be used by beginners as well. There are many templates that upcoming game designers can get a hold of through the online marketplace that they can use to start their gaming expertise on. Considering the current climate in the financial world at the moment, developers need all the help they can get to keep a float and create great games. With engines like Blade3D, indie developers could get their games fully published on XBLA without costing them too much money. Let’s face it, if indie developers go down, where’s the future of gaming going?