As I said a few days ago, the first weeks of June it’s moslty bad and rainy weather  here in Sweden and it mostly rains on “midsummer eve”. But after that the summer usually comes : ) No exception this year, today it’s about 25 degress Celsius (77+ Faherneheit) and this next week will be the same … all sunny : )

Yesterday a nice/strange thing happened when I drove out to the coast to fish (in Ängelholm). Suddenly all cars started to use their horns and I though -”well it’s probably some students that have taken their degree”. Then the next moment a Koenigsegg drow up at the side of my car. First I thought of trying to race, but I guessed that would just seam pathetic :p so I didn’t. Koenigsegg makes the car in the area (in the town of Ängelholm) so I guessed it was out on a test run.

Koenigsegg just bought Saab from GM so it will be interesting how that will turn out.

I know, no updates regarding PoH (it will probably slow down this sunny week : )

Today it’s “Midsummer eve” here in Sweden and no one is working because everyone is partying and celebrating summer, … in the rain :p

Since we have many people outside Sweden I first thought that I was going to tell you about how and why we celebrate it, but the text on Wikipedia was good so I though Wiki could tell you why : )

-”In modern Sweden, Midsummer’s Eve and Midsummer’s Day (Midsommarafton and Midsommardagen) were formerly celebrated on June 23th and 24th, but since the 1950’s on the Friday between June 19th and June 25th and the following Saturday. It is arguably the most important holiday of the year, and one of the most uniquely Swedish in the way it is celebrated, even if it has been influenced by other countries long ago. The main celebrations take place on the Friday, and the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. One typical dance is the frog dance. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole.

Raising and dancing around a maypole (majstång or midsommarstång) is an activity that attracts families and many others. People dancing around the pole listen to traditional music and many wear traditional folk costumes. The year’s first potatoes, pickled herring, sour cream, and possibly the first strawberries of the season are on the menu. Drinking songs are also important at this feast, and many drink heavily.

Because Midsummer was thought to be one of the times of the year when magic was strongest, it was considered a good night to perform rituals to look into the future. Traditionally, young people pick bouquets of seven or nine different flowers and put them under their pillow in the hope of dreaming about their future spouse. In the past it was believed that herbs picked at Midsummer were highly potent, and water from springs could bring good health. The connection to fertility is naturally linked to the time of year. Many young people became passionate at Midsummer, and this was accepted, probably because it resulted in more childbirths in March which was a good time for children to be born.”

So now you know more about Midsummer eve than most Swedish people :p

It sounds really good, but the fact is that during June it’s mostly shitty weather. Normal is that in April and May we have really great weather with about 15-25+ degrees (Celsius) and then when summer should start in June we have a month of kind of bad weather with rain and about 15-20+ degrees.

So why do I write this? Well, it’s because it’s been typical “Swedish summer weather” now for about 2 weeks now and it’s so boring : ( Well I guess the summer will start here late in June so in a couple of weeks it will be all nice I think : )

Later today/tonight we’ll have the first big meeting since GGA and will discuss all the feedback we got. Everyone has written down all the feedback they got/heard from the people playing PoH. At the meeting we’ll decide what things we’ll have to redo and tweek.

After a couple of days in Prague, I’m back at the office in Sweden. The writing is put on ice this week as I’m currently working on feedback from the story and the level’s built. This week I will work with our sound effects guy (Josef) and I’m eager to see what sound he will put on the characters’ animations.

I’m also working on the upcoming trailer. Nothing is really determined for the moment, but as usual it’s going to kick ass. I have tons of ideas and the hard part will be to decide which one will fit our game the most. The obvious choice of curse would be something like THIS

But that wouldn’t really fit our game now would it!?

Eight of the members of Databox Games are stage on Gotland in our home office, it has it’s benefits that you can just turn your head or walk over to the other office when something is unclear. It’s easy to see when people work and make progress or mistakes. The good part is also the bad party, because when you work on the same ting all the time you can easily blind yourself with your work, or take design question for granted if you over heard some people in the team working.

Those are the reasons why I’m very happy to have Jens that always question how things are or progress, so I don’t overseen some important stuff. As he said yesterday “I have to drag out information from you”, this is because I sometimes believe that everything is crystal clear, but if something is not it well easy / early be discovered by the people.

** Jens comment **
Well I have a tendency to take the role of “the devils advocate”, this so important things are not forgotten or things overlooked because no one take care of them. Also I’m quite a control person so I like to know where things are, and when things will be done. So it’s natural for me to “drag out” information from Håkan :p Håkan is also from the northern part of Sweden, so it’s in his genes to not tell me everything :p

Anyway I (and other people  on the team) got some good info from Håkan yesterday, so now everything is crystal clear … I think :p

As we say in Sweden -”communication is A and O” (means communication is everything).

Gidiapp everyone! My “workation” (work+vacation) is over for this time and I’m back in cold dark Sweden (it was snowing when I got back). I have had a great two weeks with a lot of sun and relaxation, so now it’s back to work for another hmm … many month : ) Just had to take pictures on the text on the airplane wings (it’s kind of funny when you’re in the air and read that text : )

The meeting/seminar with Kjartan that we’re going to have last Friday (6/2) was moved to this Monday (9/2). So we’ll tell you all about it in the next week.

Today it’s Christmas eve here in Sweden (we celebrate the 24th of December here in Sweden) and I’m out in the woods in the middle of Sweden and there’s no snow to be seen at all : ( Anyway hope everyone has a really nice day and eat a lot of Christmas food and enjoy the holiday : )

Gidiapp goat beavers!

Tomorrow we in Sweden celebrate the darkest day of the year with the annual “winter light festival” Lucia, where the Catholic saint, saint Lucy of Syracuse (Saint Lucia), is celebrated. The tradition goes down something like this:

A nice blond girl with lights in her hair wakes you up in the morning and sings for you. If you’re lucky she brings her friends.

The day before this miracle happens (which is today) it’s one of the biggest “party night” of the year in Sweden. Guess what we will be going?!?

Write code, draw concept art and have long meetings ….?

Nooooooooooooooooot gonna happen. We will party so much that this Island will shake. We might post some pictures from the party.

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.

What! Oh yes it’s white all over Sweden. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen snow in years down here in southern Sweden, I guess I will go out and rid on some polar bears and play with some penguins :p I’m ok with that’s it’s white here December and mid January. Then the summer can begin *I wish.
Our Producer Håkan is from the dark evil northern part of Sweden (it’s just snow and dark up there, isn’t it Håkan? :p) so I guess he feels at home right now.

That was a lot of gaming updates … or not? Well in a way, you see if the weather is bad the PoH team stays indoors and makes games. So you better hope that it will rain all this spring :p

As you might have understood or not, everyone on our team is bloging. So just look under the title of the blog post and you’ll see who of us is “responsible” for that particular post. That’s the reason why the “tone” and they way we talk/write change from post to post. So that was just a little information about that small thing : )

Yesterday it was Halloween here in Sweden and of cause it was party for us. Håkan and Jona was dressed as two “tv Swedish redneck comedians” (Ronny & Ragge), Nixi and Dwarf were bloody, Baba as Super Natural (TV show) and Jakob as James Bond.

These last days Håkan have been at the game show Flippat in the southern part of Sweden in Malmö. He and some other students showed games that they have done such as Drinks for the Nintendo DS. Drinks was also shown at a huge outside big screen at the centre of Malmö. Other games that also were shown there were Red Alert 3, Mirrors Edge and Guitar Heroes World Tour. Here’s a clip that shows the Drinks video shown at the outside screen.

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