I can try being helpful, but without your code, it is not that easy...

That said, are you sure the game tag is not <game name="chess" players="3" /> (with a slash instead of a backslash)? In that case it doesn't need a closing tag. The / before the closing angle bracket means that the tag is empty and should be treated as both an opening and a closing tag. As far as an XML parser is concerned <game name="chess" players="3" /> is equivalent to <game name="chess" players="3"></game>, so the XML you are generating should be OK (did you try checking it with an XML parser?).