WAPCP. Not as cool as WASP, I know, but still.

Thorbjörn a.k.a. Powdersnow - or Powsterboy - came up with the brilliant idea of a Power Challenge crew presentation thred!

Because let’s face it. Not all crew members are as hooked on going on and on and on about themselves as I am. Well, noone, actually, except maybe Powdersnow himself. (and Sipwell, but although he’s our prime time all star philosopher, he’s still not “crew” as such. plus everyone already know who he is)

So for those of you who have been reading the blog and desperately wanted me to shut up, and let the others speak - today is your lucky day! An entire thread filled with PC crew information and personal details…

Enjoy!

p.s. if anyone manages to solve the 2 cats-mystery…please let me know!

It strikes me ever so often: I love my job. I feel genuinly happy coming in to the office, seeing the people, the weird drawings, pictures, messages everywhere (we sort of collect those and tape them to walls and desks), my best friend: the coffee machine, the small talk, the news, the community, the games. It feels like home.

Today’s release made me feel more proud than ever working at Power Challenge. And it’s not so much to do with the graphics or AI, goalkeeper improvements or career mode.

It’s all about the people.

The ones I work with every day, as well as the ones out there: our fabulous community.

I think it’s safe to say this was our best update and most spectacular release so far - and that’s great. But even greater is how unbelievably fantastic I feel when I’m surrounded by the Power Challenge People, all helping out, pulling together. Friends and colleagues, as Patrick would have put it.

Do I sound religious? That’s ok. Who wouldn’t be a believer on a day like this?

/ Linda - more coffee heading her way

People. If you’re trying to log on to the site right about now, you’ll see something completely different - and need I point out fabulous/gleaming/fresh/stunning/beautiful/superb - from what you’ve ever seen on Power Soccer before.

The biggest update ever is taking place at this very moment. If you were here, at the office, you’d feel the excitement in the air. Exhausted but optimistic game developers everywhere, whos bodies are filled with  Management by Milkshake milkshakes, code around the clock coffee and please-stay-awake-cake. Everyone has done everything within their power to make this a successful release, to make this the biggest day yet in the history of Power Soccer.

So stay tuned. It’s going to be a great day.

/ shaolinda, heading for another cup of coffee

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.

All of you somewhat familiar with Power Soccer know that there is a guy called Frogodo. We’ve all heard his name but not all of us actually knew HIM. Well that’s about to change. Cause as of today, and for the next ten weeks, he’ll be part of the development team here in Linköping.

Frogodo - or Jake as he also may be referred to - will join forces with Magnus and Krzysztof, performing some heavy technical operations stuff.

So, let’s give Frogodo a warm welcome to Linköping and the magnificent headquarters of Power Challenge. And, of course, a big congrats to the contributor account on this blog…

/ L

So the latest news is out (btw - would you say “news” in this context is plural or singular? tricky.) Power Challenge has a new CEO.

Frank Sagnier, previously with Double Fusion and EA amongst others, comes into the company with great experience from the games industry.

“I’m very excited with the Power Challenge opportunity,” said Mr. Sagnier. “We have a very unique, high-quality in browser soccer game, a number of amazing partnerships such FOX Sports, Miniclip and Spill Group, all contributing to a fast growing consumer base and revenues coming from a mix of subscriptions, item sales and advertising.”

this is Frank —–>

We’ve only known him for a couple of weeks, but everyone at Power Challenge feel that he’s the right person to bring the company forward. With Frank in charge we’re getting closer by the minute to making the dream come true… complete and utter world domination!

Kidding (?) aside, we’re all very happy about Frank joining us. These are very exciting times and we’re looking forward to being guided by Frank’s wisdom, absorbing some of his great knowledge of the online gaming universe we call home.

Ok, so I shouldn’t read too much into this, I mean, I’m fundamentally crap at PS, I never fix any bugs, I don’t produce any hot graphics, I’ve never created, started or killed a demon, never once programmed a game server… so basically I’m not essential to this game at all.

Still…some people consider me being their favourite crew… ME!?

look how shocked I am:

I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But look for yourself, the truth is out there. In the forum.

But we DO have the content. However, I think it’s time to change the style of this blog. I’ve never hung on to anything as long as to this theme. Let’s welcome the winds of change.

Me and Magnus Z looked through the wordpress theme treasure, but couldn’t really decide which one we should go with. Of course we might modify it slightly and give it a touch of Power Challenge.

What do you think? Ideas? Colours, columns and general feel… Opinions?

Have a look at these wordpress themes and get back to me - thanks!

// 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