Adding Achievements with XLAST

Titles use achievements to reward gamers for significant accomplishments within a game. Accomplishments can be fairly generic, such as having the highest number of kills on a competitive map, having the fastest lap time for a specific track, or simply completing the game title. Achievements can be awarded for very specific and custom accomplishments, such as killing 3 enemies within 4 seconds of one another in a ranked free for all playlist in Halo 3. The Xbox 360 and LIVE Authoring and Submission Tool (XLAST) provides an easy way to create achievements for your game configuration.

For a more in depth overview on achievements, see Achievements Overview.

This overview discusses the following topics:

• XLAST Achievement Property Page
• Creating Achievements
• Deleting Achievements
• Editing Achievements
• Related Topics

XLAST Achievement Property Page

Figure1.The XLAST Achievement pane with example achievements

Creating Achievements

To create an achievement:

1. Load an existing game configuration package into the XLAST tool.
2. On the Action menu, click New Achievement.
3. In the dialog box that appears, enter a name for the achievement. The name must consist solely of alphanumeric characters and spaces.

Note You can also right-click the project node, or an existing Achievements node, to display the New Achievement command.

Deleting Achievements

To delete an achievement:

• Right-click the achievement and then select Delete from the shortcut menu.

Editing Achievements

Figure2. Achievements have several attributes that can be edited or modified. To modify a specific achievement, select it in the navigation pane and then modify the values displayed in the results pane.

Achievement Image

Image displayed when viewed from the Xbox 360 console. For information about image requirements of the LIVE service, see Image Requirements.

Display String

Character string displayed with the achievement image. The maximum length is 32 characters. The list of available strings is taken from the Localized Strings list.

Description String

Character string shown when the trophy is displayed in the trophy case. This string is a description of the achievement and has a maximum length of 100 characters. The list of available strings is taken from the Localized Strings list.

How-To String

Character string displayed with the trophy when the gamer has not yet attained this achievement. This string describes the activity required to attain this achievement and has a maximum length of 100 characters.

NoteJapanese characters use three bytes, taking the maximum length of the string down to 84.

The list of available strings is taken from the Localized Strings list. If "Display Achievement before it is earned?" is unchecked, this string is optional.

Display Achievement before it is earned?

Select this check box to show the achievement, before it is earned, in the list of available achievements.

When this check box is cleared, the achievement and its details are not shown until the achievement is earned. These 'secret' achievements are listed at the bottom of the Achievements list and are labeled 'Secret'.

Type

Type of achievement. Can be one of the types in the following table.

Type Description

Checkpoint	The player has reached a certain point or completed a specific portion of the game. For example, completing the 3rd level of the game.
Completion	The player has completed a game. For example, finishing the single-player campaign or finishing Dynasty Mode.
Event	The player has completed a special goal in the game. For example, scoring 3 goals in a single soccer match.
Leveling	The player has increased their level. For example, becoming an Expert in a multiplayer game.
Other	The player has done something that falls outside the other achievement types.
Tournament	The player has gained an award in a tournament-level event. For example, winning 3rd place in the FIFA World Cup.
Unlock	The player has unlocked a new game feature. For example, unlocking a new map or weapon type.

Gamerscore

Gamerscore represents a normalized, service-wide system of tracking and displaying a player's progress and experience. When a player unlocks an achievement, the player's gamerscore is incremented by the Achievement Score value configured here.

Note The type of title (Arcade, demo, retail disk, and so on) determines the available achievement and gamerscore allotments. For information about the amount of gamerscore and achievements required for different title types, see Achievements Overview.

Related Topics

For more information regarding achievements, see:

Achievements Overview

Implementing Features with Gamer Configuration and Gamer Profile Data

Achievements and Gamerscore: Best Practices

Adding Gamer Pictures

See Also

Creating Game Configurations Using XLAST, Creating XLAST Content Packages, Creating XLAST Title Updates, Xbox 360 and LIVE Authoring Submission Tool (XLAST)