Monday, December 21, 2009

Desura, mods and indie digital distribution

Desura is a digital distribution platform that allows easy and automatic download/installation/updating of mods, aswell as an forum for the modding community and a place to promote high quality completed mods.

Introducing Desura
Desura Facts Q&A
Desura @ Twitter

Monday, December 07, 2009

Alien Breed Evolution

Team 17 Talk Alien Breed Evolution

Perfect Dark for XBLA!

"Play the original full game beautifully restored and back in full HD, 1080p at 60 frames per second!"
2 player co-op, and 4 player versus over Xbox Live! :)

Black Mesa: Source, gets delayed

"We come to you once again with an update. It's now the end of 2009, and we know many of you have literally counted the days down until this fateful month. We are floored by the level of support you have given us and are very excited we're so close to reaching our goal.

Unfortunately, to our great disappointment, Black Mesa will not make a 2009 release."
Black Mesa: Source before the end of the year!
Black Mesa - Half-Life 2
Black Mesa: Source trailer

Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery

Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery

Sunday, December 06, 2009

#Machinima Collaboration - Part 1


This footage was created two years ago, and since it never got completed, it never got released.

Credits:
Part 1: Olibith
Part 2: Nyhm
Part 3: Ian Beckamn
Part 4: teh_taco
Part 5: Telemora
Part 6: Dopefish
Part 7: BaronSoosdon

Visit #machinima@quakenet

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Tekkon Kinkreet AMV (Goodnight, goodbye)

Anyone knows what song this is? It has been replaced on YouTube since the original song was apparently copyrighted, and I can't find it anywhere on the Tekkon Kinkreet soundtrack.

Overgrowth modding tools

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Cooking Skill +1ish (so what if it was burnt?)

Fewk, it was a long time ago since I actually burnt food the last time. Atleast it tasted really good once we cut away the "crust" ;)

Soya fileets in tomato sauce, and spinach between layers of rich short pastry (translation failed?), with a little side of sour cream.

A Reckless Disregard for Gravity

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Visiting Fatshark, and trying out Lead & Gold

Just got back from visiting Fatshark in Stockholm, where I got the chance to play 2 on 2 in Lead & Gold. It's impressive how far they've managed to get while they've only been working on it for half a year.

It's using GRIN's Diesel engine and is a team multiplayer game, that also have a single player coop mode (guess it's possible to play completely solo aswell). There was four character classes, a big guy with a double barreled shotgun and dynamites, a deputy with a mid-range rifle and the ability to tag people (so everyone on your team gets wallhack on that guy), some guy with a powerful revolver that he could fire rapidly as his specialty, and lastly, my favorite, the lady with a sniper rifle and the ability to put out traps that makes people get stuck and unable to do anything for like 5 seconds or something.

Everyone had a pistol as a secondary weapon, except the revolver guy that only had that weapon. The netcode seemed really reliable, and you hit where you shot at without any bullet latency, but I don't know how it would be with more players or on the consoles.

Player physics were good aswell, and it was easy to navigate around and jump up on things (better too easy than too hard). The game is played in a third person perspective, and each team has a flag in their base, that one team member can bring with him, and it will then act as a respawn point for the rest of the team.

So to prevent the other team from progressing you really needed to take out the flag carrier, and then walk over their flag to return it to their base (I think it auto-returned if no one touched it after a certain amount of time). Didn't really figure out the delay before respawning after you died, but it was mostly around 10 seconds I believe, which worked quite well.

We played four different game modes. The first one was about a sack of gold in the middle of the level, where you need to bring it back to base (like capture the flag with only one flag), and the one carrying it can't run or use any weapons. But he can throw the sack and then fight as usual to later pick it up again.

The sack is always shown as an indication for all players, so everyone knows where it is or if it's on the move. It was about teamplay, to be able to protect the guy carrying the sack, or helping out and ambushing the other team.

Second game mode was about gunpowder kegs that you needed to carry to the designated area and then blow up, while the other team tried to prevent you from doing so. If they shot the keg, it would lit the fuse and it would blow up in 3-5 seconds, so you needed to throw it away quickly, and then return to base to get a new one. After half-time, the teams switched sides.

Third game mode was a combination of the previous two, where one team would use gunpowder kegs to blow their way to the gold sacks (for example, blow up a vault), and then try returning them to base, while the other team would protect the gold. And as the previous game mode, the teams switched sides after half-time.

Fourth game mode was a territorial one, where there were four different areas you could capture, and I believe you got points aslong as you had a captured area, and more points obviously if you captured more. To take over an area, you had to stand in it's proximity until it's been overtaken.

If the other team already owned that area, you first needed to stand there until it became neutral before capturing it (twice the amount of time). I also think that if the enemies started capturing your area, it wouldn't regenerate, and they could continue where they left off if you didn't stand in its proximity to recapture it.

The player could also do dodge rolls, which were a quick roll which was really good if you needed to get away from someones shotgun blast for example. If you loose all your health points, you fall down bleeding and only have a pistol, so you can still shoot at the enemies, but not move.

Unless a teammate comes and revives you, you'll bleed to death after a fixed duration of time. The enemies could also finish you off completely. Reminded me of a combination between Gears of War, and the "last stand" Call of Duty 4 perk.

All in all, I had lots of fun kicking girlie butt (girls vs guys), and I look forward to when it's coming out next year, after it's been polished and bug fixed a little bit more. It will have hard time competing with the bigger titles on the PC (Team Fortress 2, Modern Warfare), but it got great potential for XBLA and PSN.

What I really did miss though was a knife, or some other way to ridicule players that I was able to sneak up on from the behind ;)

Oh, and for some reason they had lots of GRIN mugs in the kitchen.

Friday, November 06, 2009

What ever happened to the remains of GRIN?

The brothers and founders of GRIN, Bo and Ulf Andersson started up Supersledge. Not much more information about that company is currently available, but they will probably be very similar to GRIN, except that they aim to have a smaller studio of around 40 people instead. Located in Stockholm.


Outbreak Studios, located in Gothenburg, founded by Peter Björklund. Around 25 people and growing, they to believe in a smaller developer team. Future projects will be for XBLA, PSN, Windows Live, PSP Go. Currently working on the second episode of Dark Nebula for iPhone, and Planeto that will be a Facebook game.



Fatshark, located near Globen, Stockholm. They're currently working on Lead & Gold for PC, PSN and XBLA. They've also been working on Sir Hamiltoon´s Great Adventure, a puzzle game who hasn't announced which platform it's going to be released for, but will most likely be for handhelds. They previously did outsourcing for Terminator Salvation.



BitSquid, founded Tobias Persson and Niklas Frykholm, who were lead developers and tech directors at Grin for over six years. They seem to be the two lone members working from their office in Stockholm, and are working on the high-end BitSquid engine that they intend to showcase at GDC 2010.


GRIN Indonesia, turned into Jakarta QA Studio.

BitSquid
Fatshark
Outbreak Studios
Supersledge
GRIN worked on Final Fantasy and Wanted 2?
GRIN goes belly up and is no more
Update on the Swedish Game Industry

The Ball UDK Stand-alone Demo

"Over the past few months we have been working on porting The Ball over to Epic Games' Unreal Development Kit. That means a stand alone build of The Ball, running on the very latest version of the Unreal Engine!"
The Ball UDK Demo

Unreal Engine 3 free for independent devs

"However while it may be free to develop and release a non-commercial game, should you wish to profit from your hard work the current UDK license states that 25% of all revenue earnt beyond $5,000 will be paid to Epic as your licensing cost."
Unreal Engine 3 Free to Indies
Unity engine becomes free for independent devs

Unigine "Heaven" DirectX 11 benchmark


Unigine downloads

sayCet



Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Unity engine becomes free for independent devs

"The Unity engine is becoming even more affordable to independent and hobbyist developers, as Unity Technologies has retired the $200 "Unity Indie" offering and replaced it with a free license, simply called Unity.

Developer Unity Technologies is keeping the full-fledged Unity Pro license priced at $1500. Alongside the new pricing shift, Unity is moving from version 2.5 to version 2.6, adding new graphics and pipeline capabilities. And Unity CEO David Helgason tells Gamasutra the company has Xbox 360 support in the works as well."
Unity Launches Free Option, Announces Xbox 360 Support

Cooking Skill +1 feat. mysterious hand

And the culinary blog updates continues. This time we have a lovely pasta gratin to showcase.

Bacon, pork, champignons, onions, paprika, stewed in cooking cream. Spiced with black pepper, pasta spice, parmesan. Layered ontop of fresh tomato pasta, gratinated with shredded Wästgöta Kloster cheese.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Cooking Skill +4 feat. Devil Stew

Warning: Not for pregnant people or those with heart conditions

Devil Stew feat. jalapeños, green chili pepper, red chili pepper, chili olives, habanero, yellow paprika, red paprika, feta cheese, green tabasco, chili sauce, sambal oelek, olive pesto, ajvar relish, beef falukorv, Ejmunds meatballs, noodles and an egg yolk.

With sour cream by the side for those who prefers it.

Spices; white pepper, cayenne pepper and curry.

Didn't turn out to be that legendary spicy as the last one (two years ago), but made up for it in flavor instead. The four victi... cough... gourmets all took seconds, which speaks lengths about the tastyness of this treat. It still should work great against swineflu, and I do enjoy food that bites back when you devour it.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

DotA developer IceFrog joins Valve

"I am now leading a team at Valve! I finally have all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love. I look forward to revealing more specific details when the time is right.

My goal and top priority in the future is to solve the surrounding issues that affect the DotA experience in order to allow it to reach new heights."
Great News For DotA Fans
IceFrog Announces Working with VALVE?

Spector exposes Epic Mickey

Spector exposes Epic Mickey
Warren Spector goes "Epic Mickey" on the Wii

Monday, September 28, 2009

Among Fables and Men - Atopic Film Festival

We are glad to inform you that your movie "Among Fables & Men" has been selected by Phil Rice for the Atopic Machinima Film Festival and will be screened during the “Carte Blanche to Machiniplex”.

The festival will take place at the Cité des Sciences in Paris, between October the 27^th of October, and November the 4^th . The festival website is http://www.atopicfestival.com/.
To think a short video made in under 5 days, 2 years ago, would still be of any interest today. Thanks a bunch for the pitch Phil! :)

Overman's Blog (Phil Rice)
Among Fables and Men
Among Fables and Men Features

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Cooking Skill +1

Minced moose meat, with chili marinated garlic, drenched in a mix of egg and dried breadcrumbs, then formed as beefs and served with potato gratin, and an brown sauce made from the meat gravy and soy sauce.

Friday, August 21, 2009

GRIN worked on Final Fantasy and Wanted 2?

"During 2009 I’ve been working on the preproduction for an unannounced, and now canceled project with the production name “Fortress” for Square Enix. It mainly included documentation and design of new game play systems and art production guidelines as well as research into how to solve the graphical scenes presented in the game design document."

"I worked on Bionic Commando, Terminator and a unannounced Final Fantasy project."
Fortress (Most likely the Final Fantasy project)

Cult (Wanted 2?)
Seems like Square Enix wasn't satisfied with Fortress for some reason, and delayed payments for the project while knowing or hoping that GRIN wouldn't be able to suffice for long without them.

Thus forcing them into bankruptcy and the cancellation of the project, contract and the need to pay them in the first place. This is just my unconfirmed guess of how events played out, and shouldn't be taken as fact for the least.

superannuation
Bram Eulaers - Portfolio
Tomislav Spajic - Portfolio
Tomislav Spajic - Linkedin
Erik Lindqvist - Linkedin
GRIN Was Working on an Unannounced Final Fantasy Project
GRIN goes belly up and is no more