Through the Looking Glass

F-STOP and Two Bots, One Wrench

2011-07-20T10:50:00.000+02:00

The text below is taken from here.

Please note that I removed some paragraphs (for example about the prequel idea with the Cave Johnson antagonist - that was leaked to the press) from the original text:

Valve has the blessing of being in the catbird seal — or the curse. Privately owned by Newell and the employees, there are no outside shareholders or a board of directors to please. The invisible hand of curiosity is what guides the company. That is, until what employees dub the "Gabe Fiat" is invoked to shake things up.

November 2007 was one of those times. Concerned that Valve was spending far too much time making games and not enough time pushing its designs in bold new directions, Newell showed up one morning with a radical idea: What if he effectively shut down Valve's production pipeline for a few months and turned the company into one big creative playground? There would be no deadlines, no milestones, and little accountability. And most important, the entire process would be a secret to the outside world.

Newell assembled the team in the main conference room and outlined his plan. The "Directed Design Experiments" as he called them would hopefully lead to a creative renaissance. Employees were told to assemble small groups and try whatever they thought was cool or interesting. A spectacular failure would be just as important as the next big thing.

Brainstorming commenced. Days, weeks, and months began to pass. With little news out of Valve headquarters, fans on message boards incessantly speculated about what the almighty Valve was working on. Was it Half-Life 2: Episode 3? Portal 2? Counter-Strike 2? Not exactly. Two Bols, One Wrench was deep into production.

It's mid-afternoon in February 2008 and the employees of Valve are filing into a local movie theater in Bellevue, Washington. But they aren't here to see a movie. They're here for an internal science fair of the design experiments. Within these four walls, Valve will showcase more innovation in 60 minutes than most game companies will see in a lifetime.

Team Shirley Temple is one of the first to present Ken Birdwell, the man credited with the lifelike facial-expression technology for the female character Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2, has focused this team on the idea of introducing liquid simulation into the Half Life 2 engine.

The "blobulator" demo as it's now known isn't just about technology. It has a real impact on gameplay. Birdwell and the team showcase blobs of a mercury-like substance that can procedurally attack the player, run over and drown enemies, and re-assemble like the T-1000 in Terminator 2.

Next, longtime Valve employees John Guthrie, Tom Leonard, and Steve Bond demonstrate their idea of modular artificial intelligence. The premise is that Combine soldiers from Half-Life have different chips on their uniforms that activate abilities like flying and super-speed. A player shoots an enemy, who's blown to pieces. But there is a twist: Another enemy can then run over, find stray ability chips other soldiers have dropped, and upgrade their abilities on the spot.

After this demonstration, The Elders of Zion take the stage. Named as such because the group is largely comprised of Jewish employees, Eric Wolpaw and his team flip on the first slide of their experiment. Titled Two Bots, One Wrench, the name is a play on the vulgar video "2 Girls, 1 Cup" that swept the Internet in late 2007. You, as the player, are the wrench-wielding hero. Along for the ride are two AI-driven robots, one rough and gruff (voiced by Valve artist Richard Lord) and the other a proper hot with a proclivity for wearing hats. It's a funny concept, but this design experiment's goal is to push in-game storytelling in a new direction. Here, the two artificial-intelligence characters react in real time to events around them and play oil"each other's antics.

As the demo video begins to roll, employees see the robots and the hero walking through various Half-Life environments, such as a prison. The bumbling bots get stuck in a toilet. They play with each other: the proper bot puts a watermelon on his head and the other knocks it off. The bot sequences are hilarious and inspiring, and demonstrate procedural narrative where in-game dialogue is driven by player action, not a pre-determined script.

Coming off the tremendous success of Portal, Kim Swift and her team were inspired to run a more practical experiment and sec where portal technology might go in the future. Though no one was saying it, the Swift team design experiment had Portal 2 written all over it.

The concept was to add a new dimension to portals: Time. Imagine, for instance, playing a Portal level where, the first time through, you fire portals to push a box off a ledge. Normally, that box would fall into a pit of lava. But with the addition of time, you could record yourself doing that first action and then, the second time through, you might lling yourself across the lava at the exact right second to catch that box.

Swift and her team thought they had cracked the code of what could potentially become Portal 2. Newell was initially optimistic and, going into the event, thought this was the experiment most likely to become a full game. But after the demo, he realized it wasn't going to work. "It totally failed," he remembers. "It just wasn't fun. There was too much state the player had to keep in mind." (Swift, who left Valve in 2009 to lead a new development team at Airtight Games, still thinks the concept could work).

Most of the experiments were inspiring. Some were funny. A few didn't pan out. Then there was one that completely enraptured the audience. Upon seeing it, Newell remembers thinking, "**** yeah!" This one experiment had been worth stalling everything else at Valve for over three months.

Named FSTOP, this never-before-disclosed project was headed by a team including producer Joshua Weier. Using the cartoon visual style of Team Fortress 2, Weier and his team mocked up a completely new, non-violent, puzzle-based mechanic for a game. It was fun, it was memorable, and most important it was fresh and completely unexpected. Driving home that night from the theater, Newell kept thinking F-STOP might just be the big, unexpected idea that Valve needed for a sequel to Portal.

A few days later, Newell summoned Weier and the team to his office to ask them if they'd be willing to look into making F-STOP a sequel to Portal. Weier, a boy wonder who got his first industry job at age 16 and joined Valve before he was even legal to drink, was a little shocked. Portal was such a sensation, such an outright phenomenon, no one wanted to be responsible for trying to one-up it.

"When Gabe asked us to take on Portal 2; there was this huge sense of dread," Weier admits. "It was sort of like asking us to take lightning and put it in a bottle again." As the story sometimes goes, lightning didn't strike twice. F-STOP would not ultimately become Portal 2. But it would take Valve nearly a year of intense development before it figured that out.

The Portal gun was absent from the F-STOP concept. The new ideas were fun and exciting, but surely this wasn't Portal 2. The team was sent into a tailspin, questioning each and every decision they'd made over the past year. It was time for everyone to sit down and take stock. As soon as Left 4 Dead was finished in October of 2008, Gabe brought the Portal team together for a meeting. What had started as one of the most exciting experiments in Valve history had suddenly become deeply divisive even inside the company.

As one employee remembers, Newell looked around the room and slowly acknowledged the obvious. "We are making Portal 2 without portals," he said before slamming his head against the desk in defeat. As the old saying goes, the obvious is only obvious in retrospect. Still, many team members loved the F-STOP game mechanic and didn't want to let it go. (Valve has asked that specific details of the F-STOP mechanic not be included in this story, as it is likely to be used in a future Valve product).

But at the end of the day. Valve is a company driven by its customers and fan feedback. The vox populi had spoken. Portal 2 needed portals. Walking out of the meeting, the team knew it had to correct course. Portals needed to come back, and portal technology was not going to be compatible with the ideas behind F-STOP. In addition, the return of GLaDOS would necessitate a move away from the prequel storyline and the Cave Johnson character.

Portal 2 was still alive, but barely. It needed a complete creative reboot. Everyone still wanted to make the game, but no one knew exactly what game they could make that would live up to Portal fans' expectations.

Last day of Looking Glass Studios

2011-03-17T13:54:00.000+01:00

Colorista II Tutorials

2011-02-23T13:35:00.000+01:00

01 - Getting Started with Magic Bullet Colorista II

02 - Multishot Workflow With Magic Bullet Colorista II

03 - Working with The Keyer in Magic Bullet Colorista II

04 - Working with Power Masks in Colorista II

05 - Cosmetics: Skin Retouching with Magic Bullet Colorista II

06 - Highlight Recovery With Magic Bullet Colorista

Lights Out Asia - Radars Over the Ghosts of Chernobyl

2011-01-18T15:46:00.002+01:00

Cooking Skill +2 (feat. blueberry & raspberry pie)

2011-01-16T07:53:00.001+01:00

Gemini Rue Official Trailer 1 & 2

2011-01-12T22:43:00.001+01:00

Gemini Rue Designer Interview

Elgiganten goes parkour and behind the scenes

2010-12-24T14:34:00.000+01:00

Cooking Skill +5 (feat. Devil Stew, Hell Edition)

2010-11-28T04:45:00.000+01:00

Blade Symphony - Combat walkthrough

2010-10-24T04:27:00.000+02:00

Blade Symphony - Moddb

Parkour - Manhood

2010-10-24T02:42:00.002+02:00

Sonic Fan Remix

2010-10-24T02:06:00.000+02:00

Sonic Fan Remix

Coding skill +1 (Jan-Ken-Pon of DOOM in C++)

2010-10-23T22:34:00.002+02:00

More code from over half a decade ago!

// Jan-Ken-Pon of DOOM by Dopefish
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <conio.h>

using namespace std;

void score(int iW, int iL, int iT)        // Function for writing out the score
{
    cout << "Win: " << iW << " Lost: " << iL << " Tie: " << iT << endl;
}


int main () 
{
    int iFool;        // Random start message
    int iComp;        // Computer choice
    int iPlay;        // Player choice
    int iLost;        // Lost counter
    int iWin;         // Win counter
    int iTie;         // Tie counter
    bool bGame;       // Game status
    bGame = 1;        // Game is active
    srand (time(0));  // Random seed from system clock
        

    cout << "Welcome to Jan-Ken-Pon of DOOM!" << endl;
    while (bGame == 1)
    {
        iComp = (1 + (rand() % 3));    // Comp choice on random (1=Rock, 2=Paper, 4=Scissor)
        if (iComp == 3)
        {
            iComp = 4;        // 3 is changed to 4 (Scissor) for calc purposes
        }


        iFool = (rand() % 3);        // Random start message
        switch(iFool)
        {
            case 1:
                cout << "I'll cut your throat with my scissor!\n" << endl;
                break;
            case 2:
                cout << "You'll eat my rock!\n" << endl;
                break;
            default:
                cout << "I'm going to slice you up with my paper!\n" << endl;
                break;
        }


        cout << "What are you going to do:" << endl;
        cout << "1. (Rock)\n2. (Paper)\n3. (Scissor)\n4. (Give up!)" << endl;
        cin >> iPlay;
        cout << endl;

        switch(iPlay)
        {
            case 1:
                cout << "Rock" << endl;
                break;
            case 2:
                cout << "Paper" << endl;
                break;
            case 3:
                cout << "Scissor" << endl;
                iPlay = 4;            // 3 is changed to 4 for calc purposes
                break;
            case 4:
                cout << "You run away in to the distance..." << endl;
                bGame = 0;
                break;
            default:
                cout << "That wasn't an option sucker!" << endl;
                cout << "I don't play with cheaters..." << endl;
                bGame = 0;
                break;
        }


        if (bGame == 1)
        {
            switch(iComp)
            {
                case 1:
                    cout << "Rock\n" << endl;
                    break;
                case 2:
                    cout << "Paper\n" << endl;
                    break;
                case 4:
                    cout << "Scissor\n" << endl;
                    break;
            }
        }


        iPlay = iPlay - iComp;    // Win, Tie or Loose check (1=Rock, 2=Paper, 4=Scissor)
        switch(iPlay)        
        {
            case -3:    // Rock vs Scissor
                iWin++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                break;
            case -2:    // Paper vs Scissor
                iLost++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                break;
            case -1:    // Rock vs Paper
                iLost++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                break;
            case 0:        // Both picked the same
                iTie++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                cout << "Hmm... that was strange... ";
                break;
            case 1:        // Paper vs Rock
                iWin++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                break;
            case 2:        // Scissor vs Paper
                iWin++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                break;
            case 3:        // Scissor vs Rock
                iLost++;
                score(iWin, iLost, iTie);
                break;
        }


    getch();
    }    // end of while loop

    return 0;

}    // end of main

Coding Skill +1 (Zombie mower in C++)

2010-10-23T22:32:00.001+02:00

Found some code I did over half a decade ago :)

// Zombie mower by Dopefish
#include <iostream>
#include <iodos.h>
#include <conio.h>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
 dos_console();

 int zombies = 1;

 cout << "How many do you see standing on the lawn?" << endl << "> ";
 cin >> zombies;

 while (zombies > 0)
 {
  cout << zombies << " zombies left under the moon" << endl;
  cout << zombies << " zombies is going to be mown" << endl;
  cout << "If one of em' happens to be mown," << endl;
  zombies--;
  cout << "then it's only " << zombies << " left on the lawn" << endl << endl;
 }

 if (zombies < 1)
 {
  cout << zombies << " zombies left under the moon" << endl;
  cout << zombies << " zombies is going to be mown" << endl;
  cout << "There are no more zombies left to mown..." << endl;
 }

 getch();
 return(0);
}

Valve Software Studio Tour 2010

2010-10-22T13:22:00.000+02:00

Headmounted GoPro Camera Parkour 2

2010-10-20T21:37:00.001+02:00

Demon's Souls Speedrun [0:54:54] by peercast

2010-10-19T00:43:00.000+02:00

SpeedTree Hand Drawing + APEX Physics

2010-10-18T13:44:00.000+02:00

Kim 'Kimzan' Kastås playing Warsow!

2010-10-18T00:25:00.000+02:00

It begins at 31:50 into the stream :D

Headmounted GoPro Camera Parkour

2010-10-10T14:03:00.000+02:00

Blade Symphony (Half-Life 2 mod)

2010-10-09T20:13:00.001+02:00

Blade Symphony - Moddb

Cooking Skill +1

2010-10-08T23:21:00.000+02:00

Deus Ex 3 Gameplay footage

2010-10-07T03:39:00.000+02:00

ModDB Spotlight September 2010

2010-10-07T03:28:00.002+02:00

nDo - Normal creation toolkit!

2010-10-07T03:24:00.000+02:00

"Yesterday at about 10:43am (PST), teddybergsman posted a thread in the Pimping & Previews forum that caused quite a stir and also caused a lot of jaws to drop. With his first post, he became an instant legend in the Polycount community by sharing his normal mapping toolkit called nDo.

nDo has a wide variety of normal map creation features, which gives the user great control to create quality normal maps all within Photoshop in a simple and easy to use script."

nDo tutorial by Philip Klevestav
Polycount - nDo Normal Map Creation Toolkit
nDo Download and Installation Instructions

Minecraft: Lava + forest = ?

2010-10-05T20:32:00.000+02:00

Atleast I made the bridge in stone ;)

Minecraft - Renewed confidence

2010-10-03T14:05:00.002+02:00

Project Vector (StarCraft 2 mod)

2010-10-03T03:28:00.002+02:00

Nintendo 3DS Lineup Gameplay

2010-09-29T15:36:00.000+02:00

Cooking Skill +3

2010-09-28T23:12:00.000+02:00

Minecraft FIREE WTFFFFFFF!!!!!

2010-09-27T14:09:00.000+02:00

Pixel Kombat Trailer

2010-09-21T22:31:00.000+02:00

Bioshock Infinite Debut and TGS2010 trailers

2010-09-21T19:15:00.000+02:00

Pokémon Apokélypse: Live Action Trailer

2010-09-21T12:46:00.000+02:00

Live action Pokemon movie (Full HD Trailer) and interview with its creators

Marco Spitoni - I'm the Freeman (machinima?)

2010-09-20T17:47:00.000+02:00

"I've always been in love with the PC game "Half-Life" so I've decided to work out a project that would have been a trailer for an hypothetic feature film of Half-Life. Again, is not live action, althought I would have love to have the chance and the time to work out something like that.

So, here is the teaser, but at the end there won't be any short movie, just a trailer which it will be a lot longer, packed with more contents and telling a little bit about the story."

Escape From City 17 - Part One

The Notorious IBE 2010 (life of a breakdancer)

2010-09-19T19:53:00.001+02:00

The Notorious IBE

eMove Dev Update 6 and Suit Rundown (UDK)

2010-09-17T10:38:00.000+02:00

APB shuts down

2010-09-16T22:31:00.001+02:00

DAMN IT! Didn't have a chance to get the latest update, so I can't join in for the last session :(

APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone's best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close.

It's been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome! From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support. The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye!

- Ben 'APBMonkey' Bateman (Community Officer)

"I truly wish we had the chance to continue to craft APB into the vision we had for it. It has been a long & difficult journey but ultimately rewarding to have had the chance to try something bold and different. APB holds some great memories, from the last night of the beta, to the clans and individuals who amazed us with their creativity and sense of community.

I am so sorry it had to end so quickly but hopefully the good memories will stay with us all for a long time. Thanks to all the team for the years of hard work, and to the players who contributed so much."

- Dave Jones

Please spare a thought to all the thousands of brave men and women of San Paro who despite knowing the odds, still dared to cross the street. They will be sorely missed..

- Johann van der Walt (Software Engineer: Living City)

Thanks for sticking with us through the hard times guys, we put a huge amount of our lives into APB, but unfortunately we.re not going to get the chance to make it the game we all knew it had the potential to be. Thanks."

- Rob 'bobbyd' Anderberg (Technical Lead).

"Thanks for being a creative and imaginative community, the cookies, feedback and ideas were appreciated."

- Ben ' Giefster ' Skelly

"Working on APB was rewarding, frustrating, amazing, depressing, exciting, and overall, surreal. I've never experienced anything quite like it, but I.ve enjoyed it all the way. I hope the players enjoyed the time they had despite the short comings, and will remember the game in a good light for what it was meant to be, not quite what it turned out to be. Now just to get started on that Xbox version..."

- Jon McKellan (the guy who did the loading screens)

I had the great pleasure of working with some extremely talented people in both the Dundee and Boulder office, and for the longest time APB was our lives. It is truly sad that it ended this way ... but when you aim for the stars, you sometimes fall on your face..

- Ben Abbott, Live Producer

"Press F to apply for Jobseekers Allowance."

- Ben Hall (Development QA)

"In every way APB was a dichotomy. I have witnessed the project alter from a fragile and delicate entity used to show the world the depth of our vision through to the sturdy beast we released to the public.

There were the unusual errors and crashes which are to be expected but it worked. Once in the hands of our community I have never seen something elicit such a polarisation of people. It was dismissed as overhyped and broken or else taken to heart to be loved and cherished, buoyed on by a fanaticism I was proud to have played a part in bringing to the world.

Although still again among our players APB brought out both the poles in human behaviour. I bore witness to raw hatred and fury, arrogance and mean spirits but I was also delighted to experience the kindest side of human nature as players came to the aid of others when in a tight spot or they created works of art with the tools provided.

In all APB was a fantastic experience with an incredible team and it is one that I will always cherish and has added to who I am. Thank you everyone involved from our excellent players to our incredible dev team."

- Conor Crowley (Senior QA, System design assistant, Tech support, in-game support, Overall CS, 1 man Publishing QA team, Tea Boy, Morale Officer)

"I'm sad to see the project go. Of all the games I.ve worked on, APB was probably the one with the most potential. I genuinely believe that given more time, we could have turned APB into the game we all wanted it to be.

I'd like to thank the community for all their support, the good times I've had playing against them, and for the amazing (and often hilarious) user-generated content that they've created. I'd also like to thank the rest of the team for all of their hard-work, and for generally being great people to work with. "

- Bryan Robertson (Gameplay Programmer)

Where Realtime Worlds went wrong

2010-09-16T15:26:00.000+02:00

Where Realtime Worlds went wrong, part 1
Where Realtime Worlds went wrong, part 2
Where Realtime Worlds went wrong, part 3

Words from the inside of Realtime Worlds

Cooking Skill +3 (Deserts, and DEVIL STEW!)

2010-09-14T21:07:00.000+02:00

Shine - Parkour & Freerunning

2010-09-14T18:47:00.000+02:00

Paul Svoboda - Moated Grange (UDK environment)

2010-09-13T01:50:00.005+02:00

ThieveryUT (Unreal Tournament mod)

2010-09-08T01:57:00.002+02:00

Thievery UT - Moddb
Thievery UT - Map packs
Thievery UT - Server browser
Enhanced renderers for Unreal Tournament

id Software Office Tour

2010-09-07T22:56:00.000+02:00

City and Colour - Day Old Hate

2010-09-04T22:35:00.002+02:00

Gamescom'10: Rapha vs k1llsen (Quake Live)

2010-09-04T20:16:00.001+02:00

Pro-gaming, Fatal1ty vs Vo0

The History of Zelda Documentary

2010-09-01T09:55:00.001+02:00

Zelda no Video: The History of Zelda (.mp4)

ModDB and IndieDB Spotlight August 2010

2010-08-31T15:29:00.000+02:00

Words from the inside of Realtime Worlds

2010-08-29T12:34:00.002+02:00

ExRTW says: (August 16, 2010 at 11:32 am)

"What a fucking mess. I’m ex-RTW.

An outcome like this wasn’t desired by anyone at RTW, but game development is a weird business. A game can play poorly right up until only a few months before release, for a variety of reasons – Crackdown was awful right up until a month or two before it came out (some would say awful afterwards, too, but I’m trying to make a point :)

Knowing this, it can blind you to a game’s imperfections – or lead you to think it’s going to come right by release. You end up in this situation where you’re heads down working your ass off, not well able to critically assess your own product.

APB itself only really came together technically relatively late in its development cycle (and it still obviously has problems), leaving too little time for content production and polish, and lacking any real quality in some of its core mechanics (shooting / driving).

It’s not that the team was unaware of these huge issues, but a million little things conspire to prevent you from being able to do anything about them. It can seem difficult to comprehend, it certainly was for me before entering the industry – ‘How did those idiots get X wrong in game Y?’.

No team sets out to ship something anything less than perfection, but projects can evolve in ways that no one seems to be in total control of. All that said, it was pretty clear to me that the game was going to get a kicking at review – the gap between expectation and the reality was huge.

I wasn’t on the APB team, so I played it infrequently, during internal test days etc. I was genuinely shocked when I played the release candidate – I couldn’t believe Dave J would be willing to release this.

All the issues that had driven me nuts about it were still there – the driving was poor (server-authoritative with no apparent client prediction, ergo horrendously lag intolerant), combat impact-less, and I found the performance of the game sub-par on what was a high-spec dev machine.

But the real killer, IMO, is the business model. This was out of the team’s hands. The game has issues, but I think if you separate the business model from the game itself, it holds up at least a little better. A large scale team based shooter, in big urban environments, with unprecedented customisation and some really cool, original features.

The problem was that management looked at the revenue they wanted to generate and priced accordingly, failing to realise (or care) that there are literally a dozen top quality, subscription free team based shooters. Many of which, now, have progression and persistence of some sort – for free.

The game would have been immeasurably better received it had simply been a boxed product, with paid-for in-game items, IMO. This may not have been possible, given what was spent on the game and the running costs, but the market is tough.

You can’t simply charge what you feel like earning and hope the paying public will agree with your judgement of value. Many of us within RTW were extremely nervous at APB’s prospects long before launch, and with good reason, as it turns out.

They also failed spectacularly to manage expectations. When Dave J spoke out saying there would ‘not be a standard subscription model’, he unwittingly set expectations at ‘free to play’. When it’s announced that we’re essentially pay-per-hour, we get absolutely killed in the press, somewhat understandably.

The game also announced far too early (though it kept being delayed), and had little to show but customisation for what seemed like years, largely because internally we (correctly) judged it to be the stand out part of the game. But we should have kept our powder dry.

Our PR felt tired and dragged on and on, rather than building a short, sharp crescendo of excitement pre-release. We also went to beta far too early, wiser heads were ignored when it was pointed out that any kind of beta, even very early beta, might as well be public as far as generating word of mouth.

The real purpose of beta is publicity, not bug fixing. We never took that lesson on board. We also made the error of not releasing fixes externally to many of the issues early beta testers were picking up, keeping the fixes on internal builds, I presume to lessen the load on QA.

This simply meant that to early beta testers, it looked as though we were never bothering to fix the issues they found, when in fact, they were being fixed, simply being deployed back into beta very infrequently. This lesson was eventually learnt, but only after we’d pissed off a large number of early-adopters.

The sheer time spent and money it took to make APB is really a product of fairly directionless creative leadership. Certainly Dave J has great, strong, ambitious ideas for his games.

But he’s a big believer in letting the details emerge along the way, rather than being planned out beyond even a rudimentary form. For most of the lifetime of APB, he was also CEO of the whole company, as well as Creative Director. His full attention was not there until it late in the day.

This has ramifications for how long his projects run – many years, on average – and the associated cost. This, in turn, means that the business model options were constrained, conspiring to place APB in a really difficult position, commercially.

Ultimately, it’s this pairing of a subscription model cost with free to play game play that really did for the game. And many of us saw it coming a mile off. I must admit I’m dismayed about the scale of the failure, however.

Many of us thought APB might do OK at retail and sell a few hundred thousand, though struggle on ongoing revenue, and gradually carve a niche. But it absolutely tanked at retail I believe (though I’m not privvy to figures) I think due to the critical mauling it received.

It never made the top 20 of the all format UK chart. It’s scraping along the bottom of the PC-only chart, a situation I’m assuming is replicated in its major markets. And being at the bottom of the PC-only chart is not where you want to be as a AAA budget game.

God knows what the budget was, but when you account for the 150-odd staff and all the launch hardware and support, it was in the tens of millions of dollars. MyWorld is an innocent bystander caught up in the demise of APB.

Which is a real shame, because it is genuinely ground breaking, though not aimed at the traditional gamer audience. It was going great guns over the last year or so, coming on leaps and bounds, impressing everyone who saw it.

MyWorld might as well have been a different company – there was very little staff overlap on the two projects, they worked under entirely different production methodologies, and because we were not the next in line for release we received very little attention from the execs (which was a good thing, to be honest).

We knew that time was limited, and tried to encourage management to go the ‘google-style beta route – release a limited, but polished core feature set early, and iterate. What happens to it from here on out is not clear, but without the people who wrote it, the code isn’t worth a damn, so I can’t see the project being picked up.

Management tried to get a publisher onboard to fund continued development, but the time scales involved meant that was always unlikely, despite some considerable interest from potential partners.

God knows what will happen to it now the team are gone. Probably nothing. Years of my life were poured into that project, but it was a blast to make, and at least it was made public so I can point and say, “I helped make that”.

RTW tried something bold, and fucked it up. It tried to make what amounted to two MMOs at once, as well as self-publish. I have to hand it to Dave J. He’s ballsy. But in the end, we couldn’t do it, and I think the whole company will go under sooner rather than later.

It’s a shame, too, as Dundee can’t absorb the level of game dev redundancies that are about to hit, which means the Dundee scene gets that little bit smaller. But that’s the price of failure, and we certainly failed.

No excuses, really. We were well funded, hired some great engineers, designers and artists, and great QA guys. Ultimately, the senior management team must take responsibility. I think they had far too much focus on the company’s ‘strategic direction’ and not enough on day-to-day execution, which was where it really matters.

And I think a huge part of the blame lies with Dave J, though I can’t emphasize enough how nice a man he is personally; ultimately APB has torpedoed the company, and it failed largely under his creative leadership.

It has other issues (technical, for instance), but the design and the business plan are largely down to him and the board, and they are what have failed so irrevocably for the rest of us."

Unknown-contractor says: (25 August, 2010 at 16:37 am)

“The last 6 months was chaos and no one seemed to know what they were doing. The amount of lies told, especially to EA, was unbelievable.

I think there was a realisation early on this year that the economic crash had finally hit the gaming world and this game that had taken 7+ years to develop and in excess of $100 million really wasn’t that different than the other games being released.

Coupled with a nasty double cross of EA - waiting until last minute to take back online publishing rights - right before launch and a confused marketing campaign meant no one other than hardcore gamers knew the game had launched.

Include some internal politics - mainly from the senior producers and art department - leading to stale advertising material and negative beta campaign the game never really had a chance.

RTW was hemorrhaging $2 million a month between January to May in operation costs. It is a shame as David Jones was still very passionate about his vision for the game but it was kind of stale and a bit 2006-07.

There was a frantic push to de-bug and just get a working game out for summer and no one was asking if the game was actually worth playing let alone paying for.”

APB Insider: 'Realtime Worlds Lied To EA'
Redundancies At Real Time Worlds (comments)

Gemini Rue Designer Interview

2010-08-27T01:14:00.002+02:00

Sonic & Knuckles 3D - Mushroom Hill Zone

2010-08-26T21:55:00.001+02:00

Sonic GDK and Ashura: Dark Reign (UDK)

2010-08-26T13:06:00.000+02:00

Ashura: Dark Reign - Moddb

Nightmare House 2 released! (Half-Life 2 mod)

2010-08-23T15:58:00.000+02:00

Nightmare House 2 - Moddb
Nightmare House 2 (Half-Life 2 mod)

First-Person Project: The Jacknife Chronicles

2010-08-23T14:05:00.000+02:00

Haha, this is soo cool, partly because I can tell where almost all music, animations, textures, models, video effects and so on comes from without seeing the credits. Really impressive use of Gmod aswell.

PARANOIA (Half-Life mod)

2010-08-22T14:39:00.000+02:00

PARANOIA - Moddb

Cooking Skill +0.5 - The story about the fish

2010-08-14T02:07:00.001+02:00

Found a bowl with berries in the fridge. Open lid and see only a white fur/spores growing up. I think they were gathering strength to lift the lid themselves and escape. Oh well, let's try to eat some bread instead. Wth, molded.

Damn it to hell, I jinxed me-self! The only edible stuff in the freezer was fish. There's a reason why I hadn't eaten it already... I hate fish...

I don't even know how it's supposed to look like when it's done ó_Ò

Guess I might have overcompensated with the french fries due to my abnormal fear of fish. And the worst thing of all, it actually taste good!

Probably the best fish I've had since I ate fish sticks as a kid. Not accounting for sushi though. The small amount of fish were Alaska Pollock. Need to remember that they are edible :)

La Roux - In For The Kill (Skream Remix)

2010-08-13T13:23:00.000+02:00

Bloodlines Revival (Half-Life 2 mod)

2010-08-12T16:49:00.000+02:00

Bloodlines Revival - Moddb

Arx - End of Sun (Doom 3 mod)

2010-08-12T16:48:00.000+02:00

Arx: End Of Sun - Modddb

open Outcast (Crysis Wars mod)

2010-08-09T02:36:00.000+02:00

open Outcast - ModDB

IndieDB Spotlight July 2010

2010-08-09T02:29:00.000+02:00

LittleBigPlanet - Limbo and Pitfall

2010-08-09T02:21:00.000+02:00

Andreas Heikaus Super Mario Bros. Sidewalk

2010-08-09T02:18:00.000+02:00

RayFire Tool plugin for 3ds Max

2010-08-09T00:36:00.002+02:00

RayFire Tool plugin for 3ds Max

Music while I update my sound card drivers -BRB

2010-08-05T21:21:00.000+02:00

Cooking Skill +3

2010-08-05T21:14:00.000+02:00

ModDB Spotlight July 2010

2010-08-05T21:09:00.002+02:00

Alien Swarm - First Person

2010-07-22T23:36:00.002+02:00

Console commands:
firstperson
asw_hide_marine 1
asw_controls 0

First one enables firstperson mode, second one hides your marine so you can see, third one changes the camera controls to be more FPS like.

Linus Åkesson's - The Chipophone

2010-07-22T23:26:00.000+02:00

Making the Chipophone

Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0

2010-07-22T00:12:00.002+02:00

E.Y.E. (Half-Life 2 mod) even more awesome

2010-07-19T03:54:00.000+02:00

E.Y.E. (Half-Life 2 mod)
E.Y.E. - Moddb

Razer: The Hax Life

2010-07-07T15:21:00.000+02:00

Korean Gamers: APM Demonstration

2010-07-07T15:19:00.000+02:00

ModDB and IndieDB Spotlight May-June 2010

2010-07-06T11:29:00.000+02:00

Cooking Skill +5

2010-07-05T23:08:00.000+02:00

UDK - The Physics Dance!

2010-07-05T22:57:00.002+02:00

Robert Briscoe's progress on Dear Esther remake

2010-07-05T12:08:00.002+02:00

A Light at the end of the Tunnel

GameTrailers Pop-Fiction

2010-05-29T00:25:00.000+02:00

Indie Games, Pixel Art, Chip Music

2010-05-25T18:02:00.000+02:00

Cooking Skill +5

2010-05-09T06:09:00.000+02:00

Crysis Cyberpunk mod

2010-05-07T02:02:00.000+02:00

Cyberpunk FPS/Adventure - Moddb

ModDB Video Spotlight - April 2010

2010-05-06T06:28:00.000+02:00

Nero - Innocence

2010-05-05T19:36:00.002+02:00

Alan Wake - Building the Technology

2010-05-05T19:23:00.001+02:00

Cooking skill +9

2010-05-02T17:05:00.000+02:00

Summary of the IW vs Activision debacle

2010-05-01T21:02:00.003+02:00

1st of March, 2010

"A source close to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 developer just informed me that a "bunch of bouncer-types" just showed up outside of the Infinity Ward offices unannounced. When approached by employees, the non-uniformed "bouncers" were unwilling to disclose why they were there."

"Infinity Ward studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West reportedly met with Activision this morning and have not been seen by Infinity Ward staff members since."

2nd of March, 2010

"Activision announced that Sledgehammer Games, an internal studio founded by former Visceral Games (Dead Space) leadership, will develop the next Call of Duty game, and the publisher confirmed the departure of Infinity Ward founders Vince Zampella and Jason West."

"2010 is expected to be another big year for Call of Duty, with Treyarch developing a new title for fall release, Infinity Ward's downloadable content for Modern Warfare 2 in the works now, and a new Call of Duty title expected to be released in 2011.

In addition, Sledgehammer Games is in development on a Call of Duty title in the action-adventure genre. It's an exciting time and it's the right time to ensure the appropriate resources are there to support Call of Duty's growth."

3rd of March, 2010

"After Activision fired Infinity Ward studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, the pair filed a lawsuit on March 3 against Activision."

"Along with compensation, West and Zampella are also seeking the contractual rights that "Activision granted to" the studio heads to control the Modern Warfare brand."

4th of March, 2010

"Now that former Infinity Ward leadership Vince Zampella and Jason West have filed a lawsuit against Activision the legal fight is on. I've since reviewed an Activision internal legal memo from a source close to the company that details what documents Activision is searching for related to the current litigation with Zampella and West."
"Documents regarding past, current or future IW projects, including but not limited to any and all businesses analyses of future projects (e.g. Modern Warfare 3)"
"Documents regarding any potential 'spin out' of IW, including but not limited to any communications with IW employees, West or Zampella regarding forming a new studio independent of Activision"
"Documents regarding West and Zampella's communications with Activision's competitors, including but not limited to Electronic Arts"

9th of April, 2010

"Activision Blizzard filed a countersuit Friday morning [9th of April] against ex-Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, painting a picture of two insubordinate employees out to harm parent Activision and its shareholders."

12th of April, 2010

"West and Zampella today announced their new studio, Respawn Entertainment, and a publishing agreement with EA Partners."

27th of April. 2010

"The ongoing friction between Activision and its internal development studio Infinity Ward has reached new heights, as several dozen current and former Infinity Ward employees have banded together to file suit against Activision, claiming breach of contract and seeking unpaid royalties and bonuses.

According to documents obtained by G4tv.com blog The Feed, the suit is being collectively filed by the "Infinity Ward Employee Group," comprising 38 developers.

They allege that Activision violated California labor codes and deliberately withheld deserved payments related to the success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 "in an attempt to keep the employees hostage so that Activision could reap the benefit of the completion of Modern Warfare 3.""

28th of April, 2010

"Activision’s confirmed that CEO and president Mike Griffith has resigned, effective from April 23. The big man will maintain a role as vice-chairman of Activision Blizzard on a 12-month contract."

1st of May, 2010

"Two more leads leave Infinity Ward today which is virtually a clean sweep of the team leads."

"As of May 1st 2010, 37 have been terminated or resigned."

Ex-Infinity Ward bosses wanted Bungie deal
Who remains at Infinity Ward?

Sources:
Security Appears At Infinity Ward, Studio Heads Missing, Activision Investigating "Insubordination"
Sledgehammer To Make New Call Of Duty, Activision Reorganizes Franchise
Court Filings Detail $36 Million Infinity Ward Lawsuit
Activision Seeking Internal Documents Related To West, Zampella And...Electronic Arts?
Activision Countersues 'Scheming' Ex-Infinity Ward Heads
West, Zampella Form Respawn Entertainment, Reveal EA Deal
Eight More Leave Modern Warfare Developers, Bringing Total To 26
38 Infinity Ward Employees File Lawsuit Against Activision Over Royalties, Alleges Devs Held "Hostage"
Mike Griffith quits Activision

Uppcon'10 AMV: I Am Alive

2010-04-21T06:44:00.001+02:00

Download as mp3

Blue Foundation - Eyes on Fire (Zed's Dead remix)

2010-04-19T14:55:00.001+02:00

Download as mp3

DAN the MAN - Stage 1

2010-04-16T17:05:00.002+02:00

Fairlight & CNCD - Agemda Circling Forth

2010-04-12T10:02:00.000+02:00

La-Mulana

2010-04-08T20:18:00.002+02:00

La-Mulana

Tiny & Big - Up That Mountain

2010-04-08T20:17:00.002+02:00

Tiny & Big

Pixels by Patrick Jean

2010-04-08T20:08:00.005+02:00

Cooking skill +3

2010-04-08T19:47:00.000+02:00

Retro Game Challenge #1 - 7th of April 2010

2010-04-08T19:26:00.005+02:00

During my last visit at Gotland University, I arranged a retro game competition. The participants didn't get to know which games and what rules there would be in beforehand, and only revealed to them for each round.

The challenger that scored the highest last round would be the first one out the next, and the second best would be the second to play and so forth. This so there would be a handicap for those who came in last.

For this to be fair, we began with a game most people already knew.

Cobra Triangle - Nintendo Entertainment System - 1989

Challenge: Complete the first three levels and get a high score.

Zeke: 43 300p
Hjort: 44 950p
CF: 22 600p
Johan: 47 850p

Assault Suit Leynos 2 - Sega Saturn - 1997

Challenge: Defeat level 1 boss in the shortest amount of time.

Johan: Failed
Hjort: Succeeded (06:03)
Zeke: Failed
CF: Succeeded (07:12)

Captured - Commodore 64 - 1986

Challenge: Progress through as many rooms as you can with 5 lives.

Hjort: 0 rooms
CF: 1 room
Johan: 6 rooms
Zeke: 1 room

Umihara Kawase - Super Nintendo - 1994

Challenge: Complete as many levels as you can with only 5 lives.

Johan: 1 level
CF: 3 levels
Zeke: 3 levels
Hjort: 4 levels

Strahl - Sega Saturn - 1995

Challenge: Complete as many scenes as possible.

Hjort: 0 scenes
CF: 1½ scenes
Zeke: 2½ scenes
Johan: ½ scene

Power Drift - Arcade - 1988

Challenge: Race through the C-course and get a high score.

Zeke: 35 832p
CF: 44 400p
Johan: 44 857p
Hjort: 41 899p

Jumping Flash! - Sony Playstation - 1995

Challenge: Complete the two first levels and get a high score.

Johan: 86 350p
CF: 100 350p
Hjort: 110 350p
Zeke: 197 650p

Tokyo Bus Guide - Sega Dreamcast - 2000

Challenge: Get as far as possible without getting retired.

Zeke: Drove straight forward and off the road.
Hjort: Almost reached the first bus stop.
CF: Got halfway to the first bus stop.
Johan: Just after the first bus stop.

Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru - Sega Saturn - 1997

Challenge: Get as many kills as possible before dying once.

Johan: 47 kills
Hjort: 58 kills
CF: 66 kills
Zeke: 180 kills

Bushido Blade 2 - Sony Playstation - 1998

Challenge: Fight each others, best out of five matches.

Zeke vs CF: Zeke
Hjort vs Johan: Johan
CF vs Hjort: CF
Zeke vs Johan: Johan

Final result
Johan: 26p (1st place)
CF: 22p (2nd place)
Hjort: 22p (2nd place)
Zeke: 20p (4th place)

More Duke Nukem Forever

2010-04-06T21:09:00.000+02:00

Marina Faib - Worn Out Places

2010-03-29T16:16:00.002+02:00

Jason Bradbury - Modern Warfare 2 challenge

2010-03-26T07:34:00.000+01:00

3D Dot Game Heroes coming May 11th

2010-03-26T03:33:00.000+01:00

3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3 exclusive Zelda-ish)

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

2010-03-25T17:14:00.000+01:00

HTC Sprint Evo 4G (Android)

2010-03-24T07:17:00.003+01:00

Full hands-on with Sprint Evo 4G