Cooking skill, level up - Stunt bonus!

No meat stunt bonus, low fat bonus, spicy food bonus

Who is Dopefish now?

Every so often, it's important to post a poser picture of yourself.
Why it's important?
Don't ask me... it just is...

Top Ten Game Weapons

Although, this isn't my prefered list (except for the Cerebral Bore, Railgun and Gravity Gun), it's still a nice feature of the ten most known weapons in games.

Nogg-aholic the Movie - 100k Downloads

Nogg-aholic the Movie reached 100 000 downloads tonight on Warcraftmovies :)

Nogg-aholic the Movie

Cooking skill, level up!

Kyle Cease 8-bit Standup

Cooking skill +0.5

Chorizo, chili & paprika creamé fraich with rice, cucumber and iceberg lettuce

Spore Pwnage

Maxis, and the developers of Spore, appreciated VG Cats comic strip "Wright to Life" soo much, that they actually replaced all characters in it with creatures created in Spore.

Before

After

This post don't tell you anything about anything

I'm still involved in the secret project for school that I can't talk about, or semi-involved due to I'm inactive while awaiting the response of wether I should continue to work for them or not.

Today I finally got atleast a mail (after waiting three weeks) that gave me some feedback, and stated that they would probably discuss it tomorrow, wether I should continue with them or not.

Excitement, is what I feel towards the oppurtinity, to be contracted for real, and work for an actual game studio. Let's hope that for once, I'll be fortunate and the answer will be in my favour.

Half-Life 2: Episode One Stats

Half-Life 2: Episode One Stats

New PS3 controller, maybe not soo new...

Metronome is seeking publisher

I read this yesterday on the Metronome website:

"If you are a publisher interested in learning more about Metronome and Team Tarsier, please contact Andreas Johnsson."

How long its been there, I don't know, but I mailed him and told him to forward their concept to Paradox Interactive (swedish publisher that was here on a conference). They appreciated the help and my care for them, so we'll see if they'll be able to sign a deal and start a full-scale production of the game soon.

Metronome

I just got my eyes up for the swedish developed game Metronome, by the independent developer Team Tarsier. I can't help but to fall in love with the surreal design of the game, and I would just like to stroll around the landscape for the environment alone, and to add a game onto that, will only make it better.

EDIT: I just read their press release:

Venture into the city of Metronome, a sprawling mass of haphazardly built houses and makeshift machinery where the outlandish inhabitants are carrying out their chores day and night.

A city where the life of every citizen is dictated by the Corporation, a single bureaucratic entity that owns all the land, the entire infrastructure and all the industries.

Filled with a strange desire to work, nobody seems to find time to pause and question the actual purpose of the city.

Explore winding alleys, skewed rooftops and crowded apartment buildings as you search for proof of the Corporations secret agenda. Listen out for sounds to record that will help you manipulate your surroundings and your enemies, as you slowly uncover a mystery that reaches out from the borders of the game and into reality itself.

This idea is somewhat similiar to Total Totalitarian, and I actually like this one alot better. Guess I'll just have to try harder with my game ideas next time ;)

Metronome Concept Trailer
Metronome website

Game Idea #1: Total Totalitarian

(Alright, I think I'll do a Curry here, and start writing game ideas each week, to train my game concept skills)

Game Idea #1: Total Totalitarian
They want to control the people, but they couldn't control you...

High Concept:
Total Totalitarian is a open-ended urban landscape, where you as the protagonist, is about to be opressed, and does everything in your might to prevent totalitarian reigm and convince the people to act against the government.

Platform:
Consoles

Why it needs to be made:
By taking a look at the present state of politics today, this is a possible future and hence the game is as actual as it can be. You aren't just playing the game, you take a wider look at the modern society.

Description:
A society that's slowly turning into a totalitarian reigm, where you, as one of the young inhabitants of the city, is fed up with just standing there and watch it slowly decay. You set out to convince the citizens of the city to act against the government before it's too late.

As you spread flyers, demonstrate and create followers for your cause, the government get its eyes up for you and spread malicious propaganda that tricks everyone into believing that you're a terrorist. Being a terrorist and all, with your face on posters and TV screens across the city, you're becoming chased by both citizens and the police.

The only way to redeem yourself, is to state the truth and open up the eyes for the people, by sneaking into the heavily guarded Arena (similiar to Super Bowl, and being marked as a terrorist, that's going to be hard) and to speak in live broadcast.

Why it will be fun:
This game isn't about shooting things, going from point A to B or even completing missions. The game moves at the same pace as you do. This time, strength won't help you, but if you got the wits and know the right words to convince people, you'll make a lasting impact on the people you speak to.

Final thougths:
This idea is a story I dreamt about tonight, and thougth it would fit good as a game. But it contains a few flaws in the story right now, mostly how is the protagonist supposed to be able to convince the people, what proof does he have of this dystopian future?

Actually, there is no proof of this really, he's just a good speaker and intelligent enough to see the connections of the acts by the government in the past and in the present. He's just a ordinary student that studies civics and history at a university, and hence, have a great knowledge of the society.

IRL HDR + PIZZA

So today, I've folded 150 pizza boxes under a hour, and read my Post Mortems while sitting on a balcony in the southern parts of Gotland. Heed this, because I'll only say it once in my lifetime, but the dude over at gameproducer.net actually got a point when he wrote that one computer free day of the week, will do you good.

I've been stressed and annoyed with several computer related stuff lately, so when relaxing in the sun (ohh, my poor light-sensitive eyes) and eating pizza, it felt like a relief (well, actually I'm on the computer now, but in total it's 24h without a computer). Also, I enjoyed yesterday with playing Zombies Ate My Neighbours for the SNES together with a friend and eating all kind of unhealthy stuff. So how did you spend your midsummer?

Immersion in the actual gameplay experience

Cool, they've included my response to the question of the week, on the Gamasutra website :)

Answer to Gamasutra question of the week
Question of the Week Responses

I can't help but wonder where the system has failed

"Well, didn't you ever play cops and robbers when you was young? My response to that was, yes, we did play cops and robbers, but the game plan was to shoot the robbers, not the robbers shooting the cops and getting all excited, and you know, and thinking about doing it again and again."

Only a hitman or a gamer would make a headshot

Zelda under your armpit

The goggles... they do nothing!

Prey

Narrow, linear, Doom 3:ish... although I really like the portals.

Cooking skill, level up!

Didn't over-boil the rice, didn't burn the sausage, didn't use too much of any spice. It even got salad! I consider it a level up :)

Spice up your thougths with Curry

Patrick Curry (Stubbs the Zombie) made a new years eve resolution, to come up with 52 unique, fun, creative and new game ideas. A good practice for his game designing skills. Each week, throughout the entire 2006, he'll reveal a new game concept on his blog.

So far, there's two game ideas I thougth was really interesting:
Game Idea #9: Snow Day
Game Idea #14: Soapbox Grand Prix

I've always been a fan of piecing together stuff and freedom within games :)

Patrick Curry’s Thoughts on Game Design

Troubled times continued...

Does anyone know what could be causing the trouble?

Troubled times

Current life situation

Some factory made chicken soup, with brocolli

Lately, I've been following the political fuss about game violence legislations, net neutrality and file sharing legislations. I've been reading alot from my two newest books, Postmortems from Game Developer and Syntethic Worlds (by Edward Castronova).

Summer vacation (sort of) is here now, and I'm (sort of) free from the university currently, but I'm still occupied because I need to finish the programming courses I didn't complete this term (I'm a lousy programmer after all). I've also started writing my first real game design document, just for the fun of it.

"A global corporation and governmental political struggle, MMO, set in a dystopian sci-fi fantasy setting, with concentration on world and player interactions."

Along with that, I've been watching every episode from seasion 1 of The Twilight Zone from 1985-1986. Consuming Magic energy drinks that expired two years ago, have also become something of the common here, and we've even started making bets of them now. No weird side effects yet though.

I have to get around to finish my Motion Capture course I took last summer to. All that's left for me to do, is basicly to put the MoCap animation data onto a model and then make a short clip out of it. Andrei, I trust in you. We're starting to wrap up my "Secret Project" (the one about WoW) and it will hopefully be completed somewhat by the end of this month. My other secret project (the one I'm doing in school) has sort of expired by now, and I've contacted my employees to see if they'll need any additional work during the summer (pizza money for me).

Recently, I've had this creative urge, to express myself somehow. This is part of the reason I've started writing on a game design document, and I've also wanted to create something to be used in a game, or create a mod for a game. I guess this is partly because I had nothing to show up for Gotlands Game Convention 2006 that my university arranged, nor do I really have anything worthy to show up from my two years of studying at the school.

Well, hopefully I'll finish enough missed courses during the summer so I can continue study next term to, and I'll probably use my last year at the school to search for jobs. Currently I'm most notorious for my ability to find bugs and exploits in games, but I also consider myself to qualify as a level designer, community manager, preview/teaser movie maker and as a game designer (although that requires a bit more buisness experience).

Now I need to go back to my watching, reading and writing. Thanks for all the fish!

Game Design Document Template
How you feel after a couple of Magic energy drinks

Answer to Gamasutra question of the week

This Week's Question:
What examples of innovation (in design, business, or other areas) do you think disprove the notion that the game industry is not evolving as quickly as it should be? Or is Chris Crawford right?

In a sense, Chris Crawford takes up a very important point about the industry, that we're in fact producing sequals on a conveyor belt, and that every "new" title is a copy of a copy. But in the same time, he fails to see the small innovations that's being carefully embedded into each new game. Yes, we're evolving slowly, where the main sales point for each new game is the "improved graphics", and not "improved gameplay". We need to take a step away from that and realize that the game industry needs risk takers, and not a statistically correct formula for producing good sales.

During GDC'05 Will Wright spoke about player created content, and noted that player stories will always be more powerful than scripted stories we try to tell the players. I find this very important and the more we allow the gamers to make their own choices, and allow them a much broader interaction within the game itself, the more they'll feel immersed in the actual gameplay experience.

Warren Spector summed up my point with excellence when he said this in a recent interview:
"The key for me is not to preplan every step of the player's experience. Putting players on rails, even if it does result in an emotionally compelling experience, seems like kind of a waste of time. To my mind, if we CAN offer players a choice, if we can let players make a decision, we should always do so. And then we have an obligation to show players the consequences of their choices and decisions. The game should unfold differently depending on how you play, how you solve problems."

Finally, before I stop my ranting, I would like to point out that Chris Crawford isn't really creating a game here. He himself states that it's misleading to refer to it as a game, and that the kind of people who like games will most likely not enjoy his "interactive storytelling". Hence, his complaints about the game industry as large, seems like misdirected, because he hasn't taken part of the industry for over a decade, and will most likely not take another part in it ever again.

Interview disected of an industry pessimist

Chinese speaking space pirates

"The first day of EVE Online’s open Beta in China resulted in a new world record for the number of simultaneous users playing in the same game world, as more than 30,000 users logged into the game server just hours after opening. CCP Games, an independent producer of massively multiplayer online games and producer of EVE Online, also announced that over 200,000 players from China registered for the game during the first day of the of the open Beta .

“It was quite amazing to see the population of EVE China exceed the population of Iceland in the second day of open Beta testing.” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games. “EVE China has been an exciting collaboration project and continues to be so, as we continue to refine the experience to accommodate for the steep growth rate of both our English and Chinese worlds.”

Optic Communications—the licensing partner of CCP Games in China—is operating the fully localized cluster, which runs separately from the Western variant of EVE Online. CCP Games states that maintaining two independent clusters is necessary because of the unique operating environment in China and the steep growth trends of both gaming markets. EVE Online continues to maintain exceptional growth in the United States and Europe, where the combined regional demand forecasts emphasize the strategic need for cluster isolation.

“The enthusiastic response of the Chinese player community to EVE Online is rewarding,” said Kjartan Pierre Emilsson, Managing Director of CCP Asia. “We believe that our unique ‘one world’ design, great flexibility in character advancement, and social game play are a perfect fit for the highly dedicated and knowledgeable Chinese player base.”"

-Shanghai, China – June 13, 2006

Eve Online Goes Live in China

Eatpoo - 8BITCH

More...
Even more...

Uwe Boll: "Bring it on!"

Hahaha, this is absolutely marvelous. Uwe Boll finally got soo fed up with all the critiscm he's recieved that he actually told the critics to “TO PUT UP OR SHUT UP!”. He now challanges his most notorious critics to go Battle Royale with him in the boxing ring, and he will then feature the fights in his upcoming movie Postal.

"Towards the end of the filming of the “Postal” the 5 most outspoken critics will be flown into Vancouver and supplied with hotel rooms. As a guest of Uwe Boll they will be given the chance to be an extra / stand-in in “Postal” and have the opportunity to put on boxing gloves and enter a BOXING RING to fight Uwe Boll. Each critic will have the opportunity to bring down Uwe in a 10 bout match. There will be 5 matches planned over the last two days of the movie. Certain scenes from these boxing matches will become part of the Postal movie. All 5 fights will be televised on the internet and will be covered by international press.

To be eligible you must be a critic who has posted on the internet or have written in magazines / newspapers at least two extremely negative articles in the year 2005. Critics of 2006 will not be considered. Please submit proof of your negative reviews & comments via e-mail to:

info@boll-kg.de

All challengers must be healthy males, weighing between 64 kilograms (140 lbs.) and 86 kilograms (190 lbs.). You will require to be physically examined by a doctor and sign the necessary release forms for liability, etc. You will not be paid or entitled to any residuals or fees. Your transportation & hotel costs will be covered.

Dr. Uwe Boll’s invitation to fight and / or appear in his film is extended to all his harshest critics. Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino are among the most eligible candidates."

This sounds too much of a joke, so GameSpot went ahead and seeked confirmation for this, and it turns out, it's real. The odds are slightly in Uwe's favour, as he gets the chance to select his foes, but on the other hand, boxing against five people in only two days sounds a bit tough. No matter what the outcome will be, this is something I would definetly pay to watch for. I repeat people, this is not a drill, get in shape and box the Boll.

Boll to brawl critics onscreen in Postal movie?
Uwe Boll Challanges Tarantino and his critics.

Gamers gone astray

I love pizza, I hate mosquitos

Crysis versus Real Life (tm)

I don't expect this game to be good, but I can't deny that it certainly looks good :)

Only a hitman or a gamer would make a headshot

"There exists short-term studies that proves that kids and teenager become more aggressive by playing violent computer- and video-games."

Quote from Birgitta Sellén, a member of the swedish parliament. She's also pitching it to exactly the right guy, Thomas Bodström, whom is already being investigated by swedens constitutional committee, for the raid against The Pirate Bay. On the question about if a new law would be able to solve the problems, she simply replied:

"We can't solve every problem in the world with laws, but it's nice to have something to lean against."

In more news about violent games legislations, both Louisiana and the LA Senate just recently approved of such a bill, that will now be forwarded the governor Kathleen Blanco for final approval before it's legislated.

"Well, didn't you ever play cops and robbers when you was young? My response to that was, yes, we did play cops and robbers, but the game plan was to shoot the robbers, not the robbers shooting the cops and getting all excited, and you know, and thinking about doing it again and again."

LA Senate Passes Violent Game Bill 35-0
Louisiana Senate debate about the Violent Game Bill (mp3)
Birgitta Sellén kräver lag om åldersgräns på tv-spel
Interpellation av Birgitta Sellén till Thomas Bodström

Gotland Game Converntion 2006, Pictures

Save the Internet

Save the Internet

"Jag är Pirat!"

This video is from the Pirate demonstration that was held last Saturday, June 3.

Något luktar ruttet i Sverige

The Pirate Party member list leaked

The swedish "Piratpartiet" (Pirate Party) have had their entire member list leaked, reports one of swedens biggest news papers. It's unknown how they've got their hands on the list, but they've confirmed it's authenticity by calling up few of the names from the list.

It's possible that the list was found on one of the computers that got confiscated during the house searches that was conducted along with the raid against The Pirate Bay a few days ago, and then somehow leaked from there. The idea of hacker attacks or a member of the Pirate Party would've leaked it, seems far-fetched, because it's working against their ideals.

The member numbers is growing steadily for the Pirate Party, and they're currently 5877 members. For the most recent and accurate number, check their webiste from the link below.

Piratpartiets medlemsantal
Lista med piratpartiets medlemmar avslöjad

Security film from The Pirate Bay raid

Övervakningskameror fångade tillslaget mot Pirate Bay

Suit retrieval

"Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer"

You get one single guess on who actually said that quote...

Louisiana Cops Search, Seize Games

Interview with Warren Spector

The german gaming site working-title has conducted a short interview with industry veteran Warren Spector. The interview is in english, so you don't have to worry. The questions varies from appealing to target groups, casual or hardcore gamers, to what Warren have been up the last 1.5 years and the future of the industry.

"The key for me is not to preplan every step of the player's experience. Putting players on rails, even if it does result in an emotionally compelling experience, seems like kind of a waste of time. To my mind, if we CAN offer players a choice, if we can let players make a decision, we should always do so. And then we have an obligation to show players the consequences of their choices and decisions. The game should unfold differently depending on how you play, how you solve problems."

An interview with Warren Spector

Pictures from the pirate demonstration

Approximately 500 people in Stockholm and 200 people in Gothenburg, gathered yesterday for the demonstration against the ongoing witch hunt after millions of young people, the so called pirates of the modern age.

Just 48 hours after the raid against The Pirate Bay, the Pirat Partiet (Pirate Party) gained over 2000 new members and is up to a number beyond 5000 members today, and is steadily growing more.

Another denial of service-attack has been directed towards regeringen.se (government), and it's as of now, still down. Media is calling it "Piratkriget" (Pirate War). The laws of a country should be based on what the majority of the population feels is morally right, and the majority in this case is in favour for copying and distributing files over the internet

I don't consider it "stealing", when the original isn't lost, we're simply copying it. It's like taking a picture of a picture and then mass produce it and give it away for free. Although, I'm in favour for laws against earning money on someone else creation.

The music and movie industry wants payback for lost revenues, money that's never existed in the first place. We haven't taken their merchandise away from them, we didn't steal the produced cd-cases with the printed covers on them, they're still there, sitting overly priced on the store shelves, full of contagious Digital Rights Management software.

We don't want you guys to secretly plant hidden backdoors, stealing our cpu power, and installing adware on our computers. We don't want to be forced to play our music through your badly coded players that results in system failures. We want to be able to share with our friends.

What's the difference between me asking some friends over to my house to watch a movie, or sending them each a copy of it so they can watch it from their homes instead? Either way, they'll have watched the movie.

What's the difference from me lending a music cd to my friend, or making a copy of the cd and send it to him instead? Either way, he'll have listened to it.

What's the difference from recording a song from the radio, or download it from the internet? Either way, I would've acquired it.

No money is generated from us copying and spreading digital media, and nothing is actually lost from the companies (their products actually recieve more promotion instead). So where's this magical money coming from that the movie and music companies are suing people for? They're craving money from thin air and ruining young peoples lives by suing them for sums they'll never be able to payback.

Just recently, John G. Malcolm (a deputy assistant attorney at the US Department of Justice), stated that P2P-file sharing is a organized crime, and even went so far to claim that "Organised crime syndicates are frequently engaged in many types of criminal enterprises, including supporting terrorist activities".

When asked for a single case of when this would've happened, he couldn't state any from the top of his head, but "it would surprise me greatly if the number were not large". How nice, now we're even being labeled as terrorists.

Pirates of the intraweb

• We're the pirates of the modern age,
  sailing the vast seas of the intraweb.
• Now heed this eye-patch wearing teenage,
  or you shall fear us with dread.
  
  
• The bay might have gotten raided,
  but for no favor in your vendette.
• Bodström was too easily persuaded,
  pity hollywoods little marionette.
  
  
• Guillotinate our head,
  and two new ones will grow out instead.
• Your minds has grown old and tired,
  we would like to see Henrik Pontén retired.
  
  
• Motion Picture Association of Avarice,
  you probably already own the bank.
• Beacuse on us you can't gluttonize,
  we'll make you all walk the plank.
  
  
• We're the pirates of the modern age,
  sailing the vast seas of the intraweb.

Demonstrationsbilder