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.

Today at 2pm we were suppose to have a presentation in front of the “game panel”, but some of the people in the “game panel” got sick so the presentation was canceled and moved to a new date.

So in this post I had in mind to tell you about how the presentation went, so I have to tell you something else : )

Yesterday night I got a peek of some “alfa” screenshots and the game starts to shape up. There were now “eye candy” effects such as normal maps or shaders, so it’s nothing we release right now. But in about 2 weeks we hope to show you how the game look like. So stay tune ; )

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).

Every game needs a start screen, something that tells the player what kind of game they can expect and what the story is about. Earlier on I made a concept used as a background for a couple of presentations. My producer liked the epic feeling about it and so did I. However it didn’t reflect any of the action elements in the game. I thought about this and came up with the idea to add some enemies, standing ready for battle on one end and our heroes on the other. The upcoming conflict is placed on a bridge that separates the lands, showing Era (the hometown of the heroes) on the left side and a dark forest on the right side.

Depending on what selection the player makes something happens ex. Camera pans and shows something related to the selection. When the player start a new game, the characters runs towards each other and just before the battle starts, the screens fades and the game begins.The placement and the behaviour of the menu is something that I will continue to work with.

Early concept for the PoH startscreen.

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.

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.