Once upon a time I tried to make extensive travel posts every time I travelled abroad, but lately I’ve been rather…lazy. I went on vacation to Greece and didn’t bother to post about it. I went on a business trip to Germany and didn’t bother to post about it. Now I’ll be going on a business trip to Taiwan and Singapore in the coming weeks, and I’ll do my darnest best to post some pictures from that one at least!
Lovely picture that’s definitely not mine.
Does anyone have hints about what to do while abroad? I’ll have at least a couple of days to spare in both places; I’ve received a few suggestions concerning shopping and party areas in Singapore, but I have no idea what I can do in Taiwan. My last (and only) visit to Taipei was filled with work and more work, so I didn’t have time to look for anything fun. If you have any suggestions for either Taiwan or Singapore - leave a comment!
And speaking of shopping… What should I buy aside from the obvious things like a cheap MP3 player or two? Does anyone know of cool and/or weird things available in either place? Things that one simply cannot miss?
For a long time at work I’ve been moaning about getting to travel more. Apparently it paid off - I get to go on a two-week trip to Asia now, and my new assignment after a re-organization is going to be Field Applications Engineer. I have high hopes for adding more countries to my “been-there-done-that” list during the next year. 
“Well, Karja, how are things going with Wildhollow? Last you were moaning about art and design changes - how are things progressing?” Since no one has asked me that question I’d better ask it myself. And, because I’m so kind to myself, I’ll even answer it! First, here’s a small work in progress screenshot:
Our brave hero tries to break the ice with a couple of inept adventurers in town.
Wildhollow Status Report
Art
- Characters - progressing very well, thank you. No worries there.
- Backgrounds - as seen above, things are moving along. I’ll get the town background soon, and more shortly after that.
- Animals - they’ll be next after the characters.
- Other - so far, just my own GUI elements. We’ll see what happens there; this will be taken care of relatively late.
Design
- Story - the major storyline is complete, but all the quests aren’t specified.
- Puzzles - yeah, well, there’ll be more adventuring than puzzling, that’s for sure.
- Management - the animal management parts are pretty defined, but only on paper…
- Dialogue - coming along nicely! Most of the first location is complete. I’ll have some inspirational fluid (read: beer) one of these days, call upon my muses (read: listen to Tom Lehrer and Stephen Lynch), and get some more writing done.
Programming
- Adventure - the adventuring framework with locations and dialogue is pretty solid.
- GUI/Inventory/Management - rudimentary but shouldn’t be too much work to fix.
- Effects - no sparkles at all yet!
Audio
- Music - I have some music that seems suitable; I’m waiting with it though.
- FX - no worries. I have a good library of sound effects to dive into.
This sure sounds depressing… But not to worry. Most of the progress will take a major leap forward Soon(TM), and then things will start accelerating a whole lot. In March I was scheduling a summer release, but - not surprisingly - it will probably be a release just after summer instead. A playable demo should be available in June, a working version in July, and if people don’t find the game too crap it should be available in August.
But I really have to start working on Spandex Force 2 in parallel with Wildhollow in order to get both games done this year…
These last years I have been lamenting the fact that I’m getting too old for behaving like an uncouth youth. Slowly but inexorably I’ve cut down on my drinking, partying and general weird behaviour…but something inside me misses the good old days. I miss hitch-hiking to festivals to watch strange punk bands no one else cares about, meeting strange people and experiencing random everyday adventures. But lo and behold! Now it seems like I might get a chance to indulge myself in some good ol’ misbehaviour again: West Coast Riot is an upcoming festival in Gothenburg, and it features the best lineup I’ve seen so far in 2008!
Just look at the bands…
- NOFX
- Bad Religion
- Flogging Molly
- Lagwagon
- Moderat likvidation
- De lyckliga kompisarna
- No Fun At All
- Randy
- And so on…
I am aware that you might be culturally handicapped and unaware of the greatness of the latter four Swedish bands, but I trust that everyone has heard of NOFX, Bad Religion and Flogging Molly at least. Those three are enough to make me feel hot and bothered; the rest is a great bonus.
Feel like tagging along? The problem right now is that it’s been half a decade since I last knew people I could convince to come with me on events like this. I don’t fancy the idea of being the old bastard in a crowd of pretentious little 16-year-old punks, but trust me: even if I have to go alone, I am definitely attending this festival!
I think…
These last days I’ve seen quite a few articles on the ‘net mentioning MySpace’s recent “Data Availability” program which will make them share data with, among others, Yahoo and Twitter. This revelation is often mentioned alongside DataPortability, a framework for combining information from different social networking sites. I’m all for solutions like this; I love the thought of having data being accessible from everywhere (as long as it’s in a controlled manner). Not that I see much point in it, myself - I can easily add what’s needed manually to the few social networking sites I’m active on. But I love the idea.
One problem is that this is yet another attempt at creating an open standard that can be used by anyone and everyone. I’m sure that DataPortability thinks that it’s special and unique and brings something new into the disarrayed online world…but I’m also sure that OpenSocial feels the same way, just as FriendFeed and who knows how many others. Looking at DataPortability’s FAQ page it seems that they are aware of the problem of constantly re-inventing new standards; they want to use existing standards effectively instead. …But in a controlled manner. According to their recommendations. …Which sounds like they are trying to impose a standard, after all. One good thing about DataPortability is the fact that they won’t try to make a centralized storage point for all data - unlike FriendFeed, which sounds like utter bollocks.
Anyway, good luck to all of them, and I’m not stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth: if DataPortability (or some other standard) becomes a wide-spread way of sharing data I’ll definitely look into how I could use it in upcoming projects. For example…Spandex Force 2. I could imagine some cool uses such as importing personal information into the game, accessing photos that can be converted into an in-game avatar pic, or sharing pictures of impressive victories. Amongst other things.
I suspect that this could even be used for cross-game character data. It’s the old utopian dream that fanboys have yearned about for years and years: imagine that you’re playing an RPG and that you’re pretty fond of Mr. Fagball (as your character might be called). Then you want to play another RPG - or even a game of a completely different genre - and you could now have the option of using Mr. Fagball in that game as well! Yayness! Of course, it would probably work like utter crap if it was implemented badly, but I could imagine that static character traits could be shared even though game-specific data isn’t.
For example, if Mr. Fagball is a character in an RPG his STR stat might be at 16. Even if this would be possible to translate into strength in a strategy game, it might be completely ludicrous - the strategy game could become totally broken. However, if the RPG game stored information about Mr. Fagball’s pot-bellied appearance, that could (possibly) be of use in the strategy game as well. Like a cross-platform Mii. Except that this sharing wouldn’t have to stop at mere appearance; if data was gathered through social sites as well, personal information could be utilized by the game in order to make an uncannily scary experience.
“Give it up, Moop-Gleez! Your evil plans are brought to an end!”
“So, Mr. Fagball… You have come to destroy me? I think not - I know your weakness! You made out with Patrick’s sister last weekend, and if you don’t throw down your sword right now I’ll e-mail him and tell!”
“NOOOOO!”
I simply have to brag about the awesome character art that’s been pouring in lately for my adventure-puzzle-management game Wildhollow! Take a look at the cast so far:
Tiny, tiny samples of the characters in Wildhollow. Tiiiiny tiny tiny!
It’s going to be a whole lot of characters, and a whole lot of fun! I’d really like to write a bit about the story and the characters, but I’ll do my best to not spoil anything. And either way, things might always change before the end, so I’d better not say too much just yet.
One thing I can say though is that I’ve re-thought the beginning a bit. Originally I thought of giving the player loads and loads of things to do from the beginning, but that’s just…a bit overwhelming. Instead I’ll focus om the adventuring aspects first, and maybe some puzzles, before I bring in the management bits. Essentially, you’ll have to progress a little into the game before it really opens up. Not to worry, though - it won’t be like a dull tutorial. Just… Focusing on other aspects of the game, in the beginning.
When you start the game you have to solve a few easy quests and gather enough money for your first ranch upgrade before you can start buying animals. That’s when the game will begin properly; when you’re able to breed animals and create new species. But I have a suspicion that there’ll be quite some adventuring and puzzling even after that.
Enough ranting for now. I’ll just briefly mention that it’s a female dog to find background art that fits…and is affordable. I might have something going now - I’ll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned for Wildhollow news!
