So it has been a whirlwind week for me…left North Carolina on Thursday morning, arrived at Arlanda Airport (20 minutes out of Stockholm by train) on Friday morning, and then on to Linköping Saturday morning.  You don’t want to hear about travel though, you want to hear about Power Challenge, so I will start with my arrival in Linköping.

Saturday-Arrived in Linköping at 16:00, stepped off the train and was greeted with open arms (ok…figuratively) by Mr. Powdersnow himself.  From there I got to do what ever Power Soccer player has dreamed of doing since first starting to play the game…Grocery shopping with Powdersnow!  Then I was treated to a traditional Swedish dish, Tacos, at the holy shrine of Power Soccer, Pow’s home (too be fair they WERE Swedish tacos, which are actually quite a bit different from American tacos).  Of course dinner turned into a three hour discussion about Power Soccer and all things related to it.  Eventually it was time to go home and get some sleep, one more day until my first day of work.

Sunday-Went for a scenic bike ride around Linköping (A Beautiful day and a beautiful city) with my Dad for the Summer, one Mr. Magnus Z.  In Linköping you get around by bike, any other way is just inferior.  Bikes dominate the roads and provides a pleasant break from the SUV hogged streets of the US.  Had some dinner at Magnus’ and then proved US supremacy in Table Tennis by winning a hard fought match against the Swedish representative 11-9 9-11 11-9.  Tough life so far.

Monday-WORK…bright and early, well bright doesn’t really mean much here in the land of eternal sunlight, but early anyway.  The PC office is in the heart of Linköping’s downtown and it is a very nice little office.  While I adjusted to my new work place, I got my feet wet by writing some test cases to ensure that all the different parts of the Power Soccer webpage are working and if they weren’t that we would know immediately what the problem was and could fix it before anyone even notices!  Surprise, surprise, the rest of the crew that you don’t see so much turns out to be some pretty nice people.

Tuesday-SIICCCKK grr…anyway…More Work!  Did all sorts of things for all sorts of people, many of them work related!  Sadly I had to leave work early for a very important meeting in Norrköping (~40km north of Linköping).  This meeting involved paintball guns and took play in a field outside in the beautiful rain, also it was a rather competitive meeting, pitting Power Challenge against Opera.  Power Challenge won the meeting 4-3 and remains undefeated in these very work intensive company meetings.  Also, don’t ever drive in Norrköping is you don’t have to, just trust me on this one.

Wednesday-STILL SICCCKK…grr…work work work…More work on improvements for the next patch.  However I am having trouble working due to the terrible sounds coming from the common room.  Those sounds would be some of the crew trying, and failing, to play Guitar Hero.  As you guessed, all work and no play for us here in Linköping =)  It is OK though, we are all working overtime today!  Outside…at a BBQ.

I apologize for lack of pictures, I didn’t bring my camera cable to work, but don’t despair, I will have some up soon!

One thing I have yet to figure out is why the crew seems to make these weird noises all the time.  Sometimes it seems like they are making them at each other, very odd, I hope I find out what is wrong with the crew soon!  I don’t want to catch whatever it is they have.

/Frogodo

I think I’ll have to make this into a series, giving you daily updates regarding our favourite temporary Tech Op’s dude, Jake.

I’d say Frogodo has settled in pretty nicely. As much as can be expected in a couple of days any way. He doesn’t look the slightest bit lost or afraid - that must be a good sign? I mean, the PC HQ can be a rather spooky place. But we’re trying to play nicely, and to make him feel even more welcome we ordered - especially for him of course - super fine weather! Blue skies and that special Nordic light.

(…well that’s another kind of light, but never mind…still Nordic!)

On days like this, not only does everyone you meet outside look rather cool and interesting thanks to the sunglasses they wear, the sunshine actually make you happier. Something to do with…hormones? Endorphins?

Look, a few pics of Linköping in the summer:

the park “Trädgårdsföreningen” (= “The Garden Association” if translated in a Babelfish kind of way)

you know what they say: when in doubt - go swimming!

One place you actually HAVE to visit when in Linköping, Bosses glassbar (Bosse = the name of the owner, glassbar = ice cream bar).

Curious about what Frogodo might get up to for the next couple of weeks? Besides the obvious Jolt drinking and programming of course.  Have a look, check out Linköping from a tourist guide perspective.

Lewis just phoned me, to complain about having to go on the bus for half an hour to get home from school… about how much it sucks having to walk a kilometer from the bus to our house…and about the fact that he missed the last bus today and has to go home with me. In the car. After I’ve finished working. Poor poor industrialized country children of today. The horrors. The dreadful circumstances they have to put up with! (major irony taking place here)

While on the phone he asked if he could borrow my laptop once he gets here. “No, cause I’m working”. Oh, but the other one? (spoiled! - there’s always another computer lurking around the corner) “Yes fine, you can use that” Have you released that racing game yet? “No, it’s not out yet” But you could play it on the internet? “Yes, but it’s not OUT yet. It’s just for us, it’s not for everyone. It’s still being developed” Right, you need like a code or something. “Sort of, yeah”. It was fun, I want to play it…

And that’s when I get a sort of warm fuzzy feeling inside… My gaming child likes our game. He wants to play it. He’s not into sports of any kind - he doesn’t play PS at all - he just really likes games. And he really liked PR… That’s a good sign. And right now, looking out, I definetely need a good warm fuzzy feeling.

Imagine “Great Britain Grey” as if there was such a colour. Then add drizzling rain. Then through in a bit of snow, nicely blending with the rain. And ta-taaa! That’s Linköping today. (update: now it’s actually snowing, like Santa is coming to town…what happened to spring and birds singing and those daffodils finding their way through the frozen ground?)

Looking forward to that lit fire that will be burning in our living room later this evening…

So there was a Christmas party yesterday. We drank, we played, we Spotified, we cheered, we ate, we drank some more, we danced… And here we are, looking awfully bright and perky if I might say so myself. (thank God there is Helena Rubinstein Magic Concealer to cover up the tiredness. makeup is my best friend)

One of the events was a PS cup that Powdersnow - of course - won.

(Sipwell might claim he would have won had he only been invited, but that’s a different story.)

Proud winner of the office Power Racing tournament was… Erik H! Power to the racingteam! My guys truly are the best… And they’re happy too!

(notice the mega cool five of a kind t-shirt that Per S m-a-d-e for the event)

Then there was some Guitar Hero action and for the first time ever I beat Erik in a game, something I guess will never happen again.

(I actually beat Josef too, come to think of it…)

Here follows some random evidence of friendship, joy and beer:

Then we left the office and went to Platå, a restaurant/night club in Linköping where we had some food,  glögg, beer and cocktails.

Quality dude meets code dude.

Code dude happened to grab Emperor of Fun’s nose

Chancellor of Surreal vs. Per “Tropic Thunder” L.

From all of us, to all of you - a very, merry Christmas!

So, it’s vacation time in Sweden. The office is half empty (am I a pessimist for saying that? could I just as well have said that the office is half full?) and although it’s still business as usual it’s definetely more quiet.

A big difference for me is that I’m sort of managing the soccer teams while Michael, their producer, is off doing…whateverPower he’s doing while on holiday. It’s a bit like how it was a year ago, when I’d just started working at Power Challenge. Except that the game is so much better now and there are four times as many people working here. So at the moment I’m trying to stay on top of things, being updated on all the features and slices, making sure everybody is happy and focused and trying to remember who’s actually on holiday and who’s not (sorry Erik, I’ll try not to be surprised everytime I see you).

It’s been a truly exciting journey so far, seeing what’s become of Power Soccer in just 12 months or so. And I know there will be other, even better and greater things in the near future… curious? Can hardly wait?

It’s gonna be a great summer and fall for all you Power Soccer players. Trust me. So have fun in the sun (?) until I see you next time.

And all of you desperately waiting for Power Racing - go through your old toys, dig out the Matchbox cars and set up a race in the playground for all your racing freak buddies. Or, if that fails, settle for Power Soccer in the meantime :). It’s the second best thing.

/ Linda, reporting from a rainy Linköping

The headline of today’s post is not my own. I found it on another blog while searching for some notes out there about one of the roundtables at GDC, one called “Play for free! Pay for item!”. That one line just came across as very striking. It’s an interesting thought, as the life and existence of games might be slightly changing. Many people out there consider online gaming, free of charge but with plenty of stuff to buy within the game, to be the future. The very bright shining way ahead for the gaming industry.”Free to play/micro transactions will be king!” as I quote one of the speakers at this years GDC conference.

Anyhow. Today I’ve been trying to put together my scattered notes from all the lectures. It’s nice to read them and get inspired and filled with enthusiasm all over again! There’s so much generosity and greatness within this industry. I consider myself very lucky to work in the middle of it. Oh ok, in the outskirts… Linköping, Sweden might still not be considered the “middle” of anything.

Now: back to the notebook.

/ Linda

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the tiny little detail about us going to GDC… The mighty Game Developers Conference, this year taking place in San Fancisco. We leave from Linköping on Monday morning and arrive in San Francisco…some thousand hours later. Today I’m off work early to:

1) buy camera for snapshot and blog purposes

2) getting things organized in general (like find passport and tickets, hug the kids etc)

But no worries, the blogging will continue through our journey to the west. We have lots of meetings planned, important and interesting people to meet and tons of valueable information to take in. I’m attending as many lectures as possible, most of them on production but hopefully also some on game design and business & management.

Our pre launch site will be up and running on Tuesday - very exciting! The guys on the team have done such a great job with all the material for it and it will ROCK! There’s a great game coming your way folks…

Anyhow, time to roll out of here. I’ll be back with some travel updates after the weekend.

/ Linda