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…

If I could ask for just one car…just the one, today it would most definetely be one of those. And just maybe a light blue one. Fine, British racing green is a classic, I know, but I have a weakness for tiny well shaped light blue cars.

When I have enough money I’ll buy me one of those. Never mind the insurance. Or the fact that the kids won’t fit in it. Or the safety aspect. Never mind a lot of things. That’s not a car you NEED, it’s a car you WANT.

…and some of us just like to read our own words. I’m up-to-my-head buried in meetings and discussions and lots of other stuff that’s all to do with racing. So far so good. But there hasn’t been any time for blogging. I’m so sorry. Will try to make up for it somehow by actually being able to give you more substantial news on racing in the very near future.

Now - other stuff is begging for my attention. See you later. Play nicely kids.

When you look out through my window, by my desk, this is what you see

(no photoshopping done here, I swear, this is as damp grey dystopian sad it really looks!)

What can I say? Look up “dull” in the dictionary and there you have it! The back of our office building in early December.

But inside the office things are really cooking. Oh yeah. Per is being his usual creative self and suddenly I’m not the only one doing manual work, using scissors and scotch tape! Excellent! But what is he doing?

Any takers? Oh come on, just one guess? No? He’s rearranging the backlog of course! Like hello!? Just gotta love that out-of-the-computer-thinking. Why keep it in Excel if it doesn’t feel right for you? Free your backlog! Let’s do it old school.

And on my way back from the kitchen (with like the 8th cup of tea today, spiked with honey) I found Pow who’s wearing green today! That just had to be documented. Green is such a perky color.

And to the left of Pow, there are some clever people trying to get some work done (he just bugs them):

Stroll on, move on, keep going. Behind that 90’s shade of blue wall you find Per, now busy with more manual work. Very refreshing! But there’s a terrible story behind this picture. You wanna hear it? Well, Tomas U, the man ripping out the sensitive parts of Per’s computer, is up to his neck in some Very Important Stuff, like making inspirational material for Power Racing. The problem is, he needed more memory. Well, not him, his computer. So he simply hijacked Per’s. “The RAM or your Jolt” he said. Of course Per let him take the memory.

So there you have it, even the nice ones go a bit crazy when the computer runs slow.

Our very great executive producer and Scrum Officer, Richard, is holding 3 times 2 hour scrum sessions with everyone. Very good initiative! We all need to be on the same level with things, especially something as fundamental as our production/development method. Thank you Richard! (and look, aren’t the racing team just the cutest?)

// office blogger No 1

Here’s a question for you: what kind of music, what genre, would you prefer in a racing game?

If someone says “Need for speed” or “GT 4″ or “Burnout” - do you get an imaginary soundtrack in your head? Mozart or Iron Maiden, ABBA or Refused? Something else? In sports we sort of draw parallells between basketball and hiphop, skate(board) with (skate)punk etc etc. But how does that work in games? Is there such a thing as a perfect fit: music genre -> game genre?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

// Linda

This weekend (as you can also read in Richards post) there was an intense event at Barkaby Airfield - a couple of the guys from the office and Max from Pole Position teamed up with some total racing maniacs for an entire day filled with fun and games = wicked Japanese cars, skid marks, smoking tires and what have you… I’ve seen the pictures and it looks awesome. Max and the rest of the guys were more than happy with the recordings (and the driving).

Don’t you just want their job?

So, what else is new? Well, this week we’ve had a really interesting and impressive meeting with some guys from Donya that create polygon reduction and optimization miracles. Of course, highly relevant to an online gaming company that certainly think that size matters! And people, let’s face it. Less is as a matter of fact less, not more, no matter what someone might try to tell you. It’s less. Littler. Not so much.

On the scrum side of things I can tell you that the burndown chart is looking great for the racing team this sprint! (and for those of you that aren’t familiar with the terminology - just follow the links to the Scrum Alliance’s glossary) My boys have worked really focused and estimated their slices well so the burndown looks splendid! I told them to take an hour off Friday afternoon but as usual they didn’t pay any attention to me.

Everybody seem to really enjoy working in a scrum environment. More power to the people that actually build the stuff, less talk about things that aren’t gonna happen anyway and more insight in what everbody is actually working on.

If you’ve ever thought of trying out agile development, read “Scrum and XP from the trenches” by Henrik Kniberg (or some other book on the subject - but Henriks book is very to the point without being to “heavy” for a beginner) After that - give it a try. Just do it, like som famous sports company usually says.

Have a great midsummer everyone!

I don’t know if you remember, but I said something about our great sound guys at Pole Position and their next recording session on an air field… Well, it takes place on Sunday, it’s gonna be great and there will be three seriously cool Japanese cars making some serious noise. And yes, I’m gonna miss out completely.

There is a certain birthday party I have to attend to. My son’s. I guess it would be pretty rotten to just abandon ship and break a 13-year old’s heart. Even though we all know they’re only in it for the presents.

Best of luck to Max, Bernhard and Mats at Pole Position - I hope you’ll have a great day. Don’t forget the snap shots!

/ Linda