As Håkan just wrote we were supposed to had our final “game panel” presentation yesterday. This time around we shouldn’t really present anything … we would just let them be the first one to try “Penalty of Heroes”! So piece of cake? Well not really.

It turned out that none of them got the “beta build” to start so the game panel testing were canceled : (

My girlfriend (worked as test manager at a big Swedish telecom manufacture) though solved the problem. To bad she found the bug 2 hours later. The “bug” was that the game didn’t start if you had a controller, mouse, keyboard or any other external things plugged into the computer.

Anyhow my girlfriend then got the be the first “victim”. I showed her the jump, hit and change character buttons, then I she played the game none stop for about one hour until it crashed. She really enjoyed it.

The “fact” here is:
- The game is in early beta
- She never play games (well just “Wii fit” & Wii sports)
- We thought that the game is more for the hard core audience

I know that should never ever say that your game is fun or anything like that. The fact is that she have heard me talking about PoH for about 5 month daily and she was pretty tired of hearing more about it. So she was prepared that it would pretty much suck ass. Maybe that’s why she enjoyed it : ) If you think something will suck and then it’s “ok”, then it becomes great.

Hmmm, here’s our new “marketing strategy”:
-”Penalty of Heroes is shit and will suck, we are amateurs and Swedish! Don’t expect anything great from us!

In a way that’s true, our game won’t be the new Gears of War 3, Mafia 2 or Diablo 3. We just make a game that we hope will some people will enjoy : )

Yesterday we had the presentation about the marketing of PoH that we were supposed to have like 3 weeks ago, but then it was canceled due to the fact that some people got sick. Overall the presentation went really well and it lasted for about 20 minutes and then we talked and discussed for about one hour. We got a advice to start to use Twitter so we probably start to twitter in a few weeks.

This was the last “game presentation” we have before the final one at GGA in the beginning of June. Though we have a game play panel presentation in a few week, but that presentation is just us getting feedback from the “game panel” playing the game, so no real presentation is needed.

It’s time for another game presentation (2nd of April). We haven’t had one in a while which is both good and bad. The bad thing is that a presentations takes away approx 1 week of 2-3 people in the team, the good thing is that we get great feedback. Here’s some slides from the templete that we got:

This presentation will be about marketing and how we’ll get people to know about Penalty of Heroes. For each presentation we get tons of questions that we have to answer and then put together in a Power Point presentation that we present to a game panel of different people in the gaming industry.

After this presentation we have 2 more, one that’s about the gameplay/test of the game and the last one is the final presentation about the whole game (it’s will be at this year GGA).

Our presentation went ok and it took about 25 minutes. Then we had about 60-70 minutes to discuss and get feedback from the “game panel”. We got really good point and suggestions what we should try to do differently and focus more on.

After the presentation we sat down in the PoH team and discussed everything that had been suggested on the presentation. We came up with really good stuff and took some major decisions reading the way the narrative is told, the animation system, the characters in the game and the rpg elements. Some of the things that was pointed out by the game panel, we discussed and decided to stick with.

Right now most of the team is involved in making the third presentation that we’re going to have on Monday (the 15th of December) in front of the “gaming panel”. Håkan, Stoff, Nixi and me (Jens) are working on the presentation while Dwarf is forcing on the getting the web pages look nice and clean. Right now the web pages doesn’t have to much valid information and the information is mostly in Swedish and shouldn’t really be read by anyone :p

This time the presentation will focus on Game Design, so most of the team will be involved in making this one. Things we will present are things like: design intentions, high concept, main gaming routine, game play structure, design expressions and jada jada jada. Really nice words and very helpful things, but getting everything down on paper takes time and a big cup of patient. So it’s mixed feelings when we do the “paper work”.

These presentations are good in the way that we can present what we’re up to and get constructive feedback on our work in progress. The bad thing is that getting everything together before a presentation, usually puts half of the team on hold for one week, which is not a good thing for our sleep : )

Thou I would say that these presentations do more good than bad for the game in the end. Which is all that matters.

We haven’t brought it up here since we didn’t have this blog back then, but I’ll fill in the blanks. The story goes something like this ….

It was a cold and windy September night (19th) and four vicious game wolves from different packs (companies) were out hunting for some tender game student meat. The students were hunted down just after sun set near the town of Marratech and they were forced to present a game idea so great that the wolves had to let them go and make it. So with great power (point) and Intel power the students presented the game Penalty of Heroes. The wolves were satisfied and agreed to let them go and make the game.

…. but keep in mind that several heroic and great games weren’t as lucky and died that same night.

First presentation

It’s time for our second “game panel presentation” next Monday (20th of October). Håkan, Stoff, Nixi and I (Jens) have been struggling to get it together these last days. We thought that is would take about 3 days to make, but right now it seems like it will take about the double, so no partying this weekend : (

Anyway, … This time the presentation will focus on “Concept” and getting “core things” down on paper. We will be presenting things like: Core Values, USP (Unique Selling Points), target group, risks, quality assurance and so on. We will also present basic stuff in the game such as gameplay, game characters, basic visuals, concept art, narrative and things like that.