Came across this, by tragic coincidence, Onechanbara™: Bikini Samurai Squad™. Cheesus. Weren’t there really enough half dressed titles on the shelves already? We actually needed another “let’s show an unjustified amount of naked female skin” game?

Listen to this:

The sexy sister duo Aya and Saki use their swords and their hotness to defend their city against a legion of killer zombies.

“Oh. I gotta play this game. I really relate to this. Cause if I were a lethal killer facing a flock of flesheating walking deads, I’d definetely dress as if I were going to the beach. Hell yeah.”

I will never take this lightly. The never-ending objectifying of women, in any context, seriously makes me doubt the evolution altogether. Is this as far as we’ve come? To me it will never be just innocent fun. It’s a constant reminder of how women, to a much greater extent than men, are being diminished to eye candy. And always in the same stereotype manner.

And the really sad part? It sells.

Take a look at this —–>

Doesn’t it look awesome? A bun, cut into two, with a hole digged into it where there’s “almond icing” (is that even a word in English?) And then whipped cream and a lid with some icing sugar dusted on top. Semla. There are five of them with my name on, in the PC office fridge. My kids will love me today. Who said you can’t buy love? Wrong!

And as usual this has little or nothing to do with game development. I actually started writing a post yesterday that had more to do with that, but then I got busy doing other stuff and now…well, it feels a bit outdated. So instead of a Monday-post I had to write a Tuesday-post and as it’s Fat Tuesday in Sweden I felt the need to say something about semlor (semla in plural).

Moving on. I found another thread in the PS forum on the upcoming release of Power Racing, and the teaser film I was talking about the other day. Someone apparently interpreted my post as if the game itself was ready for release this week. And of course it isn’t. So, I’m sorry if some of you were disappointed when realising I was talking about the film, not the game. Tomas U is working on the film even as we speak, while working on some mockups and the HUD… And they say men can’t do more than one thing at the same time!? I say beluga!

Other things going in here at the moment… We have a master thesis/project student with us - Christian. He started his 15 week Power Challenge project period yesterday and he seems to fit in just nicely. His main focus will be the PR tracks, probably with some special attention to object placement and how to improve that process. He’s more than welcome to the team.

On the scrum boards this week we find stories like “single player: speed race”, “edit badge”, “font for power racing web”, “graphics: race flow”, “default badge”, “be able to save replay data”, “create legend”, “Nice: create curbs” - just to mention a few. The stories are not always split up with a complete sense of logic. For instance, sometimes we lift out the graphical components, making that a story on it’s own. Sometimes that is included in a larger, more all inclusive kind of story. Like “single player: speed race”. That includes everything from data base structure, saving the data, launching the client, starting the race, the HUD etc etc. It varies.

Well, maybe I should go and try to fetch some coffee or stare at an excel file or…something. Or do some laps on Drahmeldorf..?

See you soon. Maybe with some sneak peaks of our super fun game (it all depends on how Tomas’ multi tasking skills are doing)

/ L

Anyway, I realise we have to work on ours. Some of the comments made here sort of put Power Racing next to Bigfoot, Shangri-La, El Dorado, Nessie and other believe-it-when-I-see-it objects of our imagination of belief.

However, Power Racing is very much less mythological. I’d say it’s about one hundred percent real.

The reason you haven’t heard from me (or anyone else on the team) in ages is this: we’re constantly working on building the game. And I mean CONSTANTLY, all day, every day, all the time. Believe me, the game is there and it will be released. At this stage there’s a huge amount of time spent on meetings, planning, estimation, retrospections and what have you. I know the guys on the team much rather just get to work, get the code written, the problems solved, the details nailed… bascially do their job. Still they need to put quite a lot of effort into the plan-and-design-process, to come up with some preliminary scope and dates. And if I wasn’t there myself I would never believe how difficult it is and how long it takes.

There are several reasons we haven’t been communicating more regarding release dates, development status etc.

One is uncertainty. We can’t be sure exactly what to release on a certain date. Either the scope or the date has to be flexible. We can’t make any promises, we can just provide estimates based on reality so far.

Another is politics, or marketing strategies. When would be the best time to release this game? Why? How? Business, pure and simple, which is not my cup of tea and someone else’s decision to make.

As this game, product, is being built from scratch we face problems that we don’t have to deal with in Power Soccer. The children’s diseases that only strikes while you’re young. Growing pains, if you’d like. Power Racing doesn’t exist as a product yet, but the game itself does. The people working on it are extremely dedicated and passionate about this becoming the best online racing game ever. This means having opinions on design, how features should be implemented, what solutions would be the best… Discussions and decisions. An entire game has to be thought through, nothing left out. The product managers have to tell us enough but not too much.

Information is a tricky thing. If you have too much it limits you and restrain the creative process. If you don’t have enough you can’t really move forward either.

So, in trying to get the right game out in as short amount of time as possible, we’re walking a thin line that takes us from our product manager’s vision, the producer’s interpretation of it and the developer’s final creation.

And as always I ended up lightyears from the initial subject: is Power Racing just a PR stunt? No people, it’s very much real, happening and coming your way.

It would be nice to show you some new screenshots or an in-game video or something soon. And I know the team would really like to show you our work in progress as well. It’s just a matter of time. So, let’s see shall we, if I can get one of the guys to put together some PR pics or videos soon. But - no promises, just my most sincere intentions.

Do what George Michael would have done, have some faith…

Sincerely yours

/ Linda

So - if Santa only brings you ONE thing this year - what would it be? And yes, I know you all wish for peace on earth more than anything, but apart from that. If we stay true to that material soul of ours…what game/thing/gadget/car/jewellery/clothes/ is on top of your list this merry season?

And what is your favourite give-away-gift this year? Have you managed to come up with that totally awesome, perfect present for someone? I love it when that happens. Personally, I’m still very much behind on my Christmas shopping. I was clever enough to order as much as possible from t-h-e- I-n-t-e-r-n-e-t which saves me some time and mental health.

And as the year is almost ending, we have to contemplate, look back, review the past 12 months. Some game critic/reviewer/journalist came up with her top three list for 2008:

1. Metal Gear Solid 4
2. Grand Theft Auto 4
3. Fallout 3

Do you agree? Do you consider her being a simpleton? What would YOUR top three list look like, games or otherwise?

What was the (three) coolest thing(s) to hit you in 2008?

We have daily drink-coffe-catch-up-talk-about-anything-get-togethers at 10. And at 15. (that’s 3 p.m. for those of you who speak a.m./p.m. language). I don’t always have coffee and I don’t always make it to the kitchen at all, but when I do there’s always a conversation taking place that fits nicely on the blog. And mostly that’s the case with the lunch discussions as well.

Most people here might be programmers, tech dudes and men - but they sure offer a great variety of hanging-by-the-coffee-machine-talk topics. You never know it you’re gonna spend the next half an hour learning about sharks, corduroy pants or sheep. Or maybe just some random ramblings on the upside of goldfish, dangers of daffodils and potential joy of getting a new haircut. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.

Of course, a lot of times it has something to do with games. Computers. Pixels. Resolution. Graphics. Technology. Bandwidth. Internet. Movies. Tv series. Avatars. Music. Gender.

Aaaah. There’s an interesting topic, let’s focus on that for a minute. It all started with Anders showing us a picture in his phone, taken at a game shop the other day. How about this for gender neutrality?

Well I don’t know about you guys, but I sure feel like we treat our kids equally and really do our best to eliminate that prejudiced gender burden…right?

At this 10 o’ clock gender-around-the-coffe-discussion we came to the conclusion that it’s all about the money. Surprise. Share holders and boards want to improve account balances, they care less for making the world a better (more genderly equal) place. Game studios will do basically any game in order to be the “next big thing” or basically just pay the rent. Noone takes the chance of breaking the habit and be brave enough to go where hardly anyone has gone before.

But seriously oh dear God almighty - how many versions of World War II are we gonna have to endure? How many shades of grey is there? How many oversized killing machines stuck in a dystopian city is gonna look down on me from the shelves at the game store?

I wish money didn’t rule. I wish independent developers got loads of money for making those innovative and cool games that, today, most people miss out on ’cause they don’t know they exist. I wish game developers weren’t such cowards. I wish more people took bigger interest in finding out what the key elements of difference in “male” and “female” gaming is really all about. I wish there were no such thing as a “boys” or “girls” section in the clothes, or toy, store. I wish my only clothing option in Test Drive Unlimited wasn’t “miniskirt” and “sexy top”.

Well well, I can sit here all day, keep wishing for things to change. I guess I have to start with doing everything in my power to stop crap like that entering the Power Racing zone. And keep telling Ruben there’s no such thing as a girl’s color… and buy him pink socks.

Soon it’s you-know-what… FREDAGSFIKA! Have to pop out for some drink. As in Coke. Not vodka, no no no…

Take care, have a good one.

/ L

In less than an hour I’ve received nine medals and tried out ten different tracks. So far so good. But the process of getting to the starting line was far from simple. Let me put it like this. My mum couldn’t have downloaded and installed this game. Probably not even my sister, who’s not an entirely idiotic person when it comes to sort-of-techy stuff. Then again, maybe my family isn’t exactly the TrackMania prime target group?

Ok, so using STEAM is not the end of the world. But it’s not common knowledge either. And ok, there was probably another, much easier way, to get hold of TrackMania then the STEAm one… but if so, it’s very well hidden.

It’s not just about the actual gaming experience, the race itself. It’s also about the accessibility.

Still, they’ve definetely done a few things right.

• the tracks are rather short - this in combination with smooth restart/respawn functionality gives you the strength to actually bother trying to improve again and again without wanting to strangle yourself out of boredom
• instant replays after every race (not so funny every time, but they’re easy to escape. litterally.)
• extremely easy-to-grasp-and-use controls
• easy-to-understand menu system
• instant feedback/ratification - “New Personal Record” in a popup window after pretty much each race (this could also, on the contrary, be very annoying for a non newbie who is confident in him/herself)
• very quick loading of tracks

On the downside of things…

• graphics are “dead” - no real feeling in the environment
• extremely complicated, non intuitive, download and installation process
• no obvious social context or community activity next to the game  (ok, so I played single player races… but still - the game didn’t shout “social activites” or “forum” at me…no sir…)

And after I’ve played this game for more than like… 40 minutes I’m sure I will have much more to say about the depth, the gameplay, the physics, the controls, the game modes, the fps rates, the track designs, the cars, the community functionality etc etc etc forever and ever. Is it realistic enough? Challenging enough? Is it good looking enough? Does it provide me with enough variety? You know, all these things that put together decides if this is game for you, or not.

Will play some more tomorrow. Time to hop out of the office.

// L

Well, if you know me at all, you know the answer to that. There won’t be any completely un-related eye candy in this game. Eye candy as in cool exhaust pipes or shiny rims or super high tech tuning parts - of course. That’s what it’s all about. Cars. Engines. Driving.

But no one has to this point been able to explain to me, the connection between half naked girls - only there for the show, eye candy material - and racing. At least not in a very persuasive way.

“It’s just the way it is” “It’s always been like that” “There are always grid girls at racing tracks” etc etc.

So fine, I get it. They exist. But WHY?

Let’s say racing games and car sports are considered a male area of interest. It’s for men only. What could be considered “female” areas of interest? Kitchen appliances? Washing machines? How often do you see semi naked men posing next to those, to enhance sales? Like…never?

Why do guys need stereotype images of women to focus on something? Why aren’t we seeing an upgraded version of the “typical male” and “typical female” concept? Why are we still living in the 19th century - or worse - when it comes to these things?

I know men/boys/guys who definetely aren’t like this. Who aren’t afraid of real women. Who don’t buy stupid magazines where page 3 girls take their top off to get ahead in the world. Who see through the artificial layer we seem to cover women in (you know what I mean, mini skirts, huge boobs, unbuttoned shirts, flawless skin, neverending legs and a waist so thin she’ll snap if you touch her).

But where are these men when games are being developed? Is the game industry really such an old fashioned environment, with such gutless creatures, that women in games are destined to be no more than cute props on the sideline? Who is gonna take that step forward, refusing to accept “reality” and change the way we portray women?

Stop hiding behind “we’re just giving people what they want”. Change what people want! Show them an alternative. Find another target group, dare to be different.

God these things make me mad… I’m so annoyed I even missed the PS demo which is now taking place in the conference room. Gotta go.

Happy weekend. Be brave. Think differently. Challenge yourself. Play games. Eat fruit. Read a book. And remember, be nice…

// L

No no no - I’m not gonna announce the release date. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. No. You have to wait a while longer.

But I have fantastic news. We have a new Product Manager! A very talented and dedicated person who’s gonna be in charge of setting, and maintaining, the vision of the game. Scoping, prioritizing, high level design… Basically being Power Racing’s dad. From a Product Managers perspective he’ll point out the direction and I’ll try to keep the team moving that way, avoiding the every day obsticles of game development.

And who is he, you ask? Well, let me introduce… (drum roll) Tomas Dunard! 

Isn’t there a certain…je ne sais quoi, just oozing around him? A certain air of divinity, one could say.

Tomas has been in the company for some time but has very recently (like…yesterday) taken over the PM role for Power Racing. I’m very glad to have him on board and I think Tomas is going to do a great job with Power Racing.

Welcome to the family!

I read an interesting post in the Power Soccer forum about how much time people spend here, playing the game or just hanging around, talking to friends, posting in the forum…  After that quick look I’d say the average is somewhere around 1-2 hours a day. Most of our players seem to have a limit on school days and play more in the weekend.

And I’m thinking… is this an issue at home, for those of you still living with your parents? Do you have to fight for your right to play Power Soccer, or any other online game? Do you pay for it yourself? Are they at all concerned with your Internet habits, are they involved, do they want to know what you’re up to..?

Just curious what the adult, parental view of Power Soccer might be like.

// Linda

The iPhone’s technology can be used in clever ways, like controling this racing game for example. Check out the demo Nothing fancy, but nice enough.

One thing that comes to mind though. Or two.

1. Why is there a Barbie looking police officer in the start up sequence? (I’m not genuinly surprised, just need you to explain the need of female semi-nudity in a game that is all about being a good driver..?)

2. The person performing the demo - doesn’t her (it’s definetely a she) hands look totally photoshoped? Have you ever seen such gleaming, shiny nails!? And her entire hands are like…ultra soft.

These details are, I’m sure, meant to be appealing. I’m supposed to be comforted by the clean polished look and poultion free environment. The truth is, it’s superficiality annoys me. The game’s average user don’t look like that. No hands looks like that!

Be real please!