Happy new year to everyone!

Hope you’ll have a great year

As you might have noticed we haven’t been updating the PoH blog since this summer. So is PoH dead you might ask yourself? No it’s alive and well : )

So why haven’t we updated our progress here then. Well …. the summer came and most people went home so there weren’t to much work on PoH to write about, then autum came and some people had new game projects to take care about so work on PoH went down about 50 %.

So before and during the x-mas holiday we have been 100% focusing on PoH and it starts to shape up. The main focus now is getting game conents into the game. The game has been up and running with all the game features since the beginning of the summer. We showed and demoed  the first level of PoH at both GGA and GDC Europe 2009 this year, so we have got tons of feedback what kick ass and what things that sucks ass :p

So when will PoH be out? Well all I can say is “When It’s Done” :p and that is in 2010 : )

Many of our friends at the University of Gotland and also some of the Databox people are leaving the island (Gotland) for the summer. Therefor things will probably not move as fast as they have done before summer but we’ll try do the best we can anyway : ) Things will probably speed up in a few month again.

Today there’s nothing really more to post.

Yesterday we worked until 5 am in the morning and I think I fell asleep at 6, then the phone range at 9 so I got about 3 hours of sleep. Anyway nothing important to know our working hours :p
Anyway I took two pictures yesterday night and some pictures about 10 minutes ago.

Here’s our nice view from our office one picture taken at 4 am and at 3 pm

Us working at 4pm and our back alley (not from our game though it might look like it:)

Databox Team is back after 2 weeks holiday and the start of 2009 is looking good for us. The Winter has come=( (unfortunately) and icy winds are attacking our beloved Gotland. Kids play in the snow, old people slip on the icy pavement, but I remain inside. Safe from harm. Since I’m not a winter-being, I have had the luxury to barricade myself indoors playing lots of games, read some fantasy, drank some alcohol and sat down just thinking. Thinking about our game and what features we could add to make it even better.

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Everyone have left the island of Gotland for the holiday and gone back to their families. I got some videos from Håkan and Jona of what they were up to. Håkan has been out with his love Lisa (his scooter) and Jona been singing a bit.

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I got a question the other day, -“why do you have your game studio at the island of Gotland?” For people in Sweden this question is a bit valid since Gotland (the “biggest” island of Sweden) is mostly famous for it’s medieval wall and goats, not video games. The only games here are “Keno” (Swedish lottery) and medieval tournament games.

So why are we here? As mentioned before on this blog most of us are going to gaming university here at Gotland. So that’s why we’re here out in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Russia.

All of the pictures here are from the “biggest city” in Gotland, called Visby and it’s where we live and go to University.

This week Håkan and some other students at Gotlands University will go to the game show Flippat in the southern part of Sweden in the city of Malmö. So most things will be focused on getting everything ready for that. We’ll be showing games like Drinks and some other stuff

Turning Torso building in Malmö

About the PoH team
The project/game started by four people (Håkan, Dwarf, Nixi & Jens) that are studding the International Master Program IGPS (International Game Production Studies) at Gotlands University in Sweden. Two students (Johan & Jakob) studding their 3:e year at the “Game design and programming” program at Gotlands University joined the team as programmer and Stoff (already graduated from Gotlands University), joined the team as a writer. Two 3d artists studding their 3:e year at the “Game design and graphics” program also at Gotland University joined the team after a while.

The current team:
Håkan: Producer
Jens: Marketing
Johan (aka Dwarf ): Artist
Nicklas (aka Nixi): Artist
Johan (aka Baba): Programmer
Jakob: Programmer
Kristoffer (aka Stoffer): Narrative
Jona: 3d artists
Tobias (aka Tekei): 3d artists

The idea for Penalty of Heroes has been growing in Håkans head for about 1.5-2 years. So when Håkan and three other people (Nixi, Dwarf, Jens/me) decided to take an international master degree at Gotland University in Sweden, we decided to make the game our main and only project during our master year. In a few weeks I will tell you more about the PoH team : )

The course name is “International Game Production Studies” (IGPS) and it’s for one year. To be able to take this master you have to have a bachelor degree in Computer science or comparable. The great thing about this master is that it’s fully Internet based so you can take this course from Japan, USA or Sweden : )

Gotlands University

(From the education plan of the course)

After completion of studies the students will have:

- Understanding of the concepts regulating the production methods and quality assurance in game development.

- Practical experience in the field of game design and IP development for an international market.

- Knowledge and certain proficiency in the field of research projects.

- Practical experience in the field of project planning for: Technology exploitation, resource allocation and changemanagement.

- Extensive knowledge of project organization within game development and design of games.