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a post yesterday that had more to do with that, but then I got busy doing other stuff and now…well, it feels a bit outdated.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

…and granted you three or five or innumerous requests, features, brought to life in our upcoming racing game - what would they be?

Are there any fundamental parts that we can not afford to miss? What do you look forward to the most? And what super-cool options do you want to find in the game?

Stuff to do with, for instance,

the cars, the tracks, the modification, the individuality, the fun-factor, the reliability, the game modes, the cooperation, the community, the creativity, the handling, the speed, the predictability, the unexpected, the network, the rules, the economics, the environments…anything. Everything.

What is most important to YOU?

// cheerful greetings from your friendly spirit 

Like I said the other day I’d really like to show you all some new stuff. Preferably an in-game action film to let you know what Power Racing is all about. And it just might be on it’s way, just gotta get it done first. So fingers crossed and breath held and we might be able to get it out by next week.

In the meantime I can at least show you some screenshots.

// Linda

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