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So, I’m actually working on the official Press Release, but since it’s been a long and tiring week, I’m going to have to finish it up tomorrow. Nevertheless, I promised myself (yeah that’s right, me) an announcement on UBS of some sort tonight, so here we go.

Ugly Baby Studios (that’s us) is pleased to announce the development of Exhumed: Kickin’ Ass & Takin’ Brains, a brand new Zombie game for Xbox 360’s Community Games Service, built on the XNA framework with a custom 2.5(ish)D game engine. Unlike the traditional Zombie fair in which hordes of the Undead stagger and/or leap after your human protagonist as he desperately struggles to survive, Exhumed will have players taking on the role of a Zombie protagonist with a damn simple goal: Kick butt, tear stuff up, and eat some juicy human brains.

There will be no attempts to save the world from aliens. There are no desires to turn other humans into zombie friends who’ll come over on Fridays for poker night (not even pai gow). There will be no saving of anyone, unless it’s for a midnight snack.

And that, my friends, is all you get until the full press release has been…released.

I’ll be updating the site with impressions of what I’ve seen today, but one thing is crystal clear: motion controls are in: WAY in. Both Microsoft and Sony showed off new motion controllers, with MS by far taking the lead in a “next gen” motion control system. Sony’s by comparison is more of a “wiimote evolved” scenario, which is all well and good. I’m a fan of the wiimote, after all, so Sony’s approach feels like a natural extension of that, at least from what we’ve seen.

Beyond that, we also have the new Tony Hawk skateboard controller, which from what I saw is very impressive. Not to be forgotten, of course, is Nintendo’s own Wii motion plus, which finally brings true 1:1 control to that platform.

For me, this sudden flood of motion controllers is in many ways Nintendo’s vindication; yes, they shipped a system with less horsepower than Sony or MS, but they took a gamble with motion control that paid off so well that they have now redirected the efforts of Microsoft, Sony and the entire games industry. Love or hate the Wii, there’s no longer any way to deny it: Nintendo was right.

So we got here and got checked in, but what have we learned? That the press room is hotter than hell (games journalists don’t need air conditioning!), the show floor is eerily closed until noon and the wifi sucks so bad that I’m actually better off posting from my iPhone.

So as you might be able to tell from the relative lack of activity on the site of late, we’re pretty busy with something? What is it, you ask? Well, we’re not quite ready to spill the full set of beans yet, but it’s a game. Yes, a video game. For a console. Ah, but which console, you ask? The answer should be fairly obvious, of course, since only one console offers official support for Indie games: Xbox 360, specifically the Community Games service. More details to come later.

Beyond that, however, I have to tell you that the process to date has been incredibly educational. While we’re making excellent progress to date we’ve had a few hurdles, not the least of which was simply finding enough time in everyone’s busy schedule (all of us have lives and jobs that don’t include this process, an unfortunate by-product of the need to eat). Among some other challenges, though, are things you wouldn’t necessarily realize are as difficult as they are. For starters, defining an appropriate art style was incredibly difficult, and our very talented art crew has worked really hard to come up with a look that is both unique and interesting while still being very professional. We’ve looked to some great classic titles for reference, but we’ve also been very inspired by a lot of the hand painted “retro” stylings of upcoming titles like the A Boy and His Blob remake for the Nintendo Wii.

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