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

Some weeks ago my dear friend Dopefish came back to his home island Gotland to pay me a visit … and his parents (mostly me). Baba, Jakob, Jona and Zaffe had bean working really hard to finish their game Exhaust, so they could be able to release it on the Xbox live community game in the beginning of 2009.

So what more could I do as a good friend than handing over the control to a man that breakes games (find bugs errors and so on) for a living. Dopefish works at the excellent Swedish game studio Starbreeze, makers of games such as The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness. They’re busy working right now on The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (360, PS3) and Project RedLime (Win, 360, PS3).

Tip don’t forget to read Dopefish blog it’s one of my favorite!

/wp-content/uploads/dopefish_exhaust.flv

Hurray! Today we got our tech up and running on the Xbox 360. Nothing fancy, but our first milestone is reached.
So now that we know that it’s working, all we have to do now is to make “some” more tech and a great game. By the way, the strange grumbling sound you hear are our two programmers (Baba & Jakob) speaking Swedish.

/wp-content/uploads/1st_run_on_xbox.flv