Lewis, the 14-year old at home, finished playing Shadow of the colossus the other day and I watched him slay the final colossus and sat through the end sequence and once again I was struck by the graphics, the beauty, the effect the scenery and the characters have on me. That world, that is so similar to that in Ico, filles me with sadness, solitutde, longing.

And - It. Is. So. Cool. Every person who has ever enjoyed a book or a movie should (have the right to) try out at least one game (based on their preference of genre etc) and have that experience… being completely immersed, drawn into a world, a fight, an adventure, a feeling that you - YOU - can actually participate in. You can affect the outcome of that story. The destiny of that person depends on you.

A good story does that to you, it brings you far away from where you really are and puts you in the middle of another world, another life. And it all just might depend on you…the weight of the entire world temporary on your shoulders. Heavy. And you forget that you could actually just turn it off, that would be such a betrayal…such a failure…

It is the very essence of games and old news, I know…but it still strikes me sometimes and then I get really excited and have to write something about it

/ L

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a post yesterday that had more to do with that, but then I got busy doing other stuff and now…well, it feels a bit outdated.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

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

I went game shopping the other day as I already wrote in the post below. I was looking for some exciting and un-expensive (used) games for either the xbox 360 or the Sony PSP. Besides getting games that the guys on the team might like - Grid for instance - I also bought Burnout (PSP) and - HotWheels (360)! Yes! The most colourful game I’ve laid my eyes on in a long time. I haven’t played it yet, but as we all can guess it seems that you race around playful surroundings (kids rooms basically..?) filled with toys. Racing up and down furniture, through a universe of nothing but fun. I have no idea what the actual story and gameplay is at all like, but I felt like being swept away into a whirlwind of un-seriousness for a minute or two. Taking a closer look at something innovative, totally different from our game, trying to learn from it. Picking up some little pices of crazy solutions and weird ideas.

Sometimes I think we look too much at what people around us are doing. In life and in games. Of course you turn to those you admire for inspiration, you want to look like them, make games or write books like they do. But maybe we’d learn more if we looked in another direction, somewhere we had no intention of going. Instead of making new versions of what is already out there, maybe we could come up with something completely unique?

Or is everything already invented? Have all the great thoughts already come up in someone elses mind?

What games would you like to see on the shelves in the store? Or rather, what elements, what ideas or missions or graphical innovations do you miss?

Give me some great ideas

/ Linda

…try building a near console quality game in about nine monts and 15 MB! Now that’s what I call a real challenge.

Last week’s Power Soccer release made me think about what the pre-launch frenzie will be like in the racing team. Maybe non existent. Maybe hilarious. Can we make it without crunch or will we work our way through June, hardly ever leaving the office at all? Will our families forget us cause we never have time to see them? Maybe the kids can actually move in here with me..? Interesting thoughts.

We’ve had some great talks lately within the team about the feeling, the atmosphere in the game. What are we’re aiming for? This is the right time to have these discussions, because at this point there’s still time to make some changes and slightly change course. So, to synchronize our vision and goal we sat down looking at reference material, checking out other games and decided what the tone of colour, realism and graphics should be like in our game. Of course we’ve done this before and we constantly talk about it, but sometimes it’s necessary to take a moment and gather around, making sure we’re still on the same level. It wasn’t my idea this time, the initiative was Anders’, and the whole team got to sit down and really focus on what we want our users, those people that play our game, to experience.

The result? We are aiming for 6,1. What that means? Well, wait and see…

Today is a day of joy, celebration and Carlsberg. We’re having a party at the office to celebrate…well, ourselves basically, and the fact that the soccer release went well. We figured that the people deserve beer and sock sliding contests after doing such a great job. Our CEO Johan is joining us, and some other people from the Karlskrona and Stockholm offices. So there’s a subtle feeling of great expectations in the air this morning…

Now it’s almost time for the daily team meeting, at 9.15 sharp. It’s part of the scrum procedure and a great (and quick) way of keeping track of what everyones doing. It’s supposed to take 10-15 minutes and you should answer three questiones: what have I done since the last meeting, what am I going to do today and is there anything blocking my work?

Ok, signing out now.

// Linda