So why are you making a boardgame Johan? What is the purpose of it all and what do you expect to achieve? Just out for a quick buck or are what is your ultimate motivation?
The thing is, I just love games. All sorts of games, and I am very fascinated by game design. As much from a mechanical standpoint as well as an aesthetical. I do it all for the love of the game media.
Making a boardgame is my first try at showing my skills at game design. I start with something small, while still trying my skills at combining game mechanics balancing with storytelling. It's a fun art, complex yet simple. Inspiring. Creative. Creating a game, no matter how small or simple is like creating a world. And what can be more fascinating than that? Setting your own natural laws and playing god with what is right and what is wrong in your creation.
I have many ideas and visions, so many dreams, and I wish to make at least some of them reality. It's just not all limited to boardgames, no. My dream is to be able to move on to computer game design given the chance. There is so many stories I want to tell, stories that make a difference. I want to be able to create fun enjoyable games, but still tell a story and a message. I want to reflect our world, our human weakness, our human strengths, in visions portrayed within the games. There is so much that can be done within the compputer game media, that the possibilities are endless. I want to provoke, and I want to please.
But most of all I just want to tell stories, stories that matter, and I want to do it on the media I love the most. The media with the most possiblities, and the most interesting audience. And I just want to entertain and hope to spread some joy into the world.
This is my first step into the the known unknown.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Games in US politics
Thursday, June 22, 2006
The Pirate Bay drama intensifies
I have deliberatly refrained from discussing politics on my blog, but this is taking so huge proportions now...
Quoting a post on Piratbyrån about the latest updates:
After the raid against the Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån and almost 200 other servers, information suggesting pressure from American lobby organisations as well as the US government was the reason for the police action was released. Minister of justice Thomas Bodström immediately denied all knowledge of that kind of foreign influence.
This Tuesday however, Swedish public service TV have presented evidence that shows how, shortly before the raid, the US justice department threatened with trade sanctions via the WTO if Sweden doesn't act harder on Swedish file-sharing sites – that is, the Pirate Bay.
- This is no more than a farce-like juridical outrage featuring Thomas Bodström as the main character, says Tobias Andersson from Piratbyrån. - If he has a grain of decency and self respect left, we expect him to resign from his post.
The Pirate Bay is a file-sharing site using the Bittorrent technique. The technique itself is in no way illegal, which is why the Pirate Bay has not been shut down before. The complexity of the technique is also why Bittorrent hasn't had its legal status tried in the US.
- We demand all cards to be put on the table immediately, says Tobias Andersson. We won't tolerate this kind of fiddling, lies and foul play. It's an attack on freedom of speech!
Piratbyrån has not yet gotten its server back after the raid, although it was not an official target for the bust. The police remain silent, contradictory and refer to prosecutor Håkan Roswall for more information. Roswall on the other hand has not given Piratbyrån any answers.
- We're convinced that this raid against the servers was meant as sabotage against the Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån and not as a juridical case, says Tobias Andersson. - Obviously we are an uncomfortable part of the debate, but it's alarming that freedom of speech is not worth more for copyright crazed lobby organisations and legal authorities
Piratbyrån is forming a critique against copyright by operating as a think tank and information aggregator for issues concerning intellectual property, file sharing, piracy and other related topics. We pursue no activity that could be considered a violation of Swedish law.
Make of it what you will. Personally I definitely do not support piracy or copyright-related crimes. I do however support an open debate on copyright issues, and copyright and patent changes that help support the authors and creators instead of the greedy corporate bodies. This just isn't the way to go. This is so wrong on so many levels, I am out of words. Right now I am ashamed for living in a country with such a corrupt system, where politicians act on whims or from threats from other countries. Working against public opinion as well as, most upsetting, directly spitting on our constitution.
Quoting a post on Piratbyrån about the latest updates:
After the raid against the Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån and almost 200 other servers, information suggesting pressure from American lobby organisations as well as the US government was the reason for the police action was released. Minister of justice Thomas Bodström immediately denied all knowledge of that kind of foreign influence.
This Tuesday however, Swedish public service TV have presented evidence that shows how, shortly before the raid, the US justice department threatened with trade sanctions via the WTO if Sweden doesn't act harder on Swedish file-sharing sites – that is, the Pirate Bay.
- This is no more than a farce-like juridical outrage featuring Thomas Bodström as the main character, says Tobias Andersson from Piratbyrån. - If he has a grain of decency and self respect left, we expect him to resign from his post.
The Pirate Bay is a file-sharing site using the Bittorrent technique. The technique itself is in no way illegal, which is why the Pirate Bay has not been shut down before. The complexity of the technique is also why Bittorrent hasn't had its legal status tried in the US.
- We demand all cards to be put on the table immediately, says Tobias Andersson. We won't tolerate this kind of fiddling, lies and foul play. It's an attack on freedom of speech!
Piratbyrån has not yet gotten its server back after the raid, although it was not an official target for the bust. The police remain silent, contradictory and refer to prosecutor Håkan Roswall for more information. Roswall on the other hand has not given Piratbyrån any answers.
- We're convinced that this raid against the servers was meant as sabotage against the Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån and not as a juridical case, says Tobias Andersson. - Obviously we are an uncomfortable part of the debate, but it's alarming that freedom of speech is not worth more for copyright crazed lobby organisations and legal authorities
Piratbyrån is forming a critique against copyright by operating as a think tank and information aggregator for issues concerning intellectual property, file sharing, piracy and other related topics. We pursue no activity that could be considered a violation of Swedish law.
Make of it what you will. Personally I definitely do not support piracy or copyright-related crimes. I do however support an open debate on copyright issues, and copyright and patent changes that help support the authors and creators instead of the greedy corporate bodies. This just isn't the way to go. This is so wrong on so many levels, I am out of words. Right now I am ashamed for living in a country with such a corrupt system, where politicians act on whims or from threats from other countries. Working against public opinion as well as, most upsetting, directly spitting on our constitution.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Furiae Boardgame - Entry II
Since I've found out I get a fair share of visitors from Linda Bergkvist site, where she links to my blog from her Ungentle, Gentle picture that shows a typical Skinflayer Dryad, and because Thord D Hedengren asked about it, I think it's not more than right I give you guys some heads up on the boardgame project.
I wish I had some fancy new pictures to show, like I did in the first post about the game, but I'd rather not share too much of the material I have at the moment. Driving up unnecessary hype or showing material that might change considerably for the end product seems improper and unfair to both me and you. Maybe I'll show off something in future updates when we have more stuff finalised and we are through the initial prototype phase. Because that's where we are now.
The map for example is, although accurate, just a roughly drawn variant and the final map will of course be much more detailed and fancy. But in it's current state it works splendid for testing purposes. It just need a few minor changes, as to working out the perfect balance between strategic considerations and storyline and worlddesign considerations. It's all more or less in it's final stage.
The rules and mechanics are finished more or less, and just need some playtesting, but I feel confident that they are very balanced and works splendidly in conjunction with the storyline. So I have finally moved on to building the prototype. Which means trying to find some means of printing out the map, god-tokens and other colorcoded stuff somehow, in a proper size. Which is a bit of a pain in the ass since I don't have access to a printer currently. However it seems we have now worked out a perfect solution there anyway, so it'll be done within the week. The rest is just a matter of gluing white paper on to generic game cards with different colored backs, so to separate the five different card types used in the game (3 spell type variants, monsters and magic items).
A lot of you are probably wondering how much of Lindas art will be present in the game since it circulates around her world. While I am doing most of the layout, all art is made by her really. The map, the magical items, the creatures and characters, all will be based on her visions and painted by her. For some stuff we will reuse known and popular paintings already done, either details or the whole images. But for some we will use new original paintings made by Linda, such as those Skinflayer Dryads in the Ungentle, Gentle picture which was made public just to give you people an idea as of what you can expect from us.
Also, additionally I might add I am actually working on another boardgame concept, which I will pursue as soon as we get this one finished. And we're thinking about eventually doing a card game for Lindas world too, but that's just loose ideas at the moment. It all depends on how well things go with this game.
And that's all for now. I'll keep you updated with the progress.
I wish I had some fancy new pictures to show, like I did in the first post about the game, but I'd rather not share too much of the material I have at the moment. Driving up unnecessary hype or showing material that might change considerably for the end product seems improper and unfair to both me and you. Maybe I'll show off something in future updates when we have more stuff finalised and we are through the initial prototype phase. Because that's where we are now.
The map for example is, although accurate, just a roughly drawn variant and the final map will of course be much more detailed and fancy. But in it's current state it works splendid for testing purposes. It just need a few minor changes, as to working out the perfect balance between strategic considerations and storyline and worlddesign considerations. It's all more or less in it's final stage.
The rules and mechanics are finished more or less, and just need some playtesting, but I feel confident that they are very balanced and works splendidly in conjunction with the storyline. So I have finally moved on to building the prototype. Which means trying to find some means of printing out the map, god-tokens and other colorcoded stuff somehow, in a proper size. Which is a bit of a pain in the ass since I don't have access to a printer currently. However it seems we have now worked out a perfect solution there anyway, so it'll be done within the week. The rest is just a matter of gluing white paper on to generic game cards with different colored backs, so to separate the five different card types used in the game (3 spell type variants, monsters and magic items).
A lot of you are probably wondering how much of Lindas art will be present in the game since it circulates around her world. While I am doing most of the layout, all art is made by her really. The map, the magical items, the creatures and characters, all will be based on her visions and painted by her. For some stuff we will reuse known and popular paintings already done, either details or the whole images. But for some we will use new original paintings made by Linda, such as those Skinflayer Dryads in the Ungentle, Gentle picture which was made public just to give you people an idea as of what you can expect from us.
Also, additionally I might add I am actually working on another boardgame concept, which I will pursue as soon as we get this one finished. And we're thinking about eventually doing a card game for Lindas world too, but that's just loose ideas at the moment. It all depends on how well things go with this game.
And that's all for now. I'll keep you updated with the progress.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Blog metapicture
Naseer of Super Play! posted a nice picture of the metastructure of his blog. I kinda took a liking to it's molecular aesthetics, so I decided to jump on the trend and post a pic of my own blogs metastructure too.
blue: for links
red: for tables
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images
yellow: for forms
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes
black: for the root node
You can go to this site to generate a picture of your own blog.
blue: for links
red: for tables
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images
yellow: for forms
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes
black: for the root node
You can go to this site to generate a picture of your own blog.
Statistics, Anthologies and Machinima
The other week I installed a statcounter for this blog. Mostly because I was a little bored and really felt like procrastinating. I'd guess. Or maybe it was because I have a secret, almost perverse, love for webstatistics, no matter how depressing they are. To my surprise I found out that I have a lot more visitors here than I ever expected. Each day I get somewhere between 20 and 50 unique visitors. I can't for the love of anything understand why however. The oddities of Internet. But since I obviously have an audience, I might as well make my best at entertaining them. Or bore them to death, whichever one applies the best. So I'll better try update it a little more often.
Something I should have mentioned quite a few days ago is that my synopsis for the mmorpg anthology was approved and that I was one of the few lucky authors that got accepted for the book. Except for a few select individuals I really have no clue as to who the other authors are, so it'll be exciting to look forward to what comes out of it all. It's a thrilling project indeed. I guess I'll have plenty of time during this summer to write my chapter for the book. Although, I'll make sure to leave some time for the boardgame development and Gameplayer of course.
Another thing I have for a long time wanted to get off my chest is a kind of irritation. An irritation aimed at game development philosophies and market strategies. Of course I have many aversions and irritations in this matter, but one in particular made itself obvious today as Olle Agebro published his review of the Movies expansion, Stunts and effects.
The other week we republished a short article, also written by Olle, on Gameplayer originally intended for and published on Spel2 (Yeah we do that since we have a larger audience now, so shoot us. Our stuff is good). In that very article he asks the developer how he thinks the expansion will help in improving the machinima culture that the game both supports and profit from. He didn't answer that very question and Olle, with all right, draws the conclusion that they can't answer the question, because they really don't care or know what they are talking about when it comes to that.
But the thing is, this was a fairly easy question still. We brainstormed quite a bunch of good indepth questions regarding machinima and machinima culture for that interview. Olle, of all those questions, only choose to ask this one, since the length of the interview didn't allow more. Personally I think it is insulting to us as journalists that they refuse to answer even the simplest of questions. Even a nobrainer answer like "We of course hope it will help in stimulating the creativity among the players", would have been enough. But we're treated with silence. It shows two things, and two things alone, as far as I am concerned:
1. The devs don't give a shit about the machinima culture, they just find it amusing. Meaning: they have no clue as to what they are doing, except making profit.
2. They have no respect for, nor any high thoughts about, game journalism, since they think just leaving questions blank will solve things. Make us ignore we asked it. To them we are just a means to an end.
Thumbs down for Lionhead (or whatever developer made that expansion), they have no spine. Thumbs up for Olle, he has.
Something I should have mentioned quite a few days ago is that my synopsis for the mmorpg anthology was approved and that I was one of the few lucky authors that got accepted for the book. Except for a few select individuals I really have no clue as to who the other authors are, so it'll be exciting to look forward to what comes out of it all. It's a thrilling project indeed. I guess I'll have plenty of time during this summer to write my chapter for the book. Although, I'll make sure to leave some time for the boardgame development and Gameplayer of course.
Another thing I have for a long time wanted to get off my chest is a kind of irritation. An irritation aimed at game development philosophies and market strategies. Of course I have many aversions and irritations in this matter, but one in particular made itself obvious today as Olle Agebro published his review of the Movies expansion, Stunts and effects.
The other week we republished a short article, also written by Olle, on Gameplayer originally intended for and published on Spel2 (Yeah we do that since we have a larger audience now, so shoot us. Our stuff is good). In that very article he asks the developer how he thinks the expansion will help in improving the machinima culture that the game both supports and profit from. He didn't answer that very question and Olle, with all right, draws the conclusion that they can't answer the question, because they really don't care or know what they are talking about when it comes to that.
But the thing is, this was a fairly easy question still. We brainstormed quite a bunch of good indepth questions regarding machinima and machinima culture for that interview. Olle, of all those questions, only choose to ask this one, since the length of the interview didn't allow more. Personally I think it is insulting to us as journalists that they refuse to answer even the simplest of questions. Even a nobrainer answer like "We of course hope it will help in stimulating the creativity among the players", would have been enough. But we're treated with silence. It shows two things, and two things alone, as far as I am concerned:
1. The devs don't give a shit about the machinima culture, they just find it amusing. Meaning: they have no clue as to what they are doing, except making profit.
2. They have no respect for, nor any high thoughts about, game journalism, since they think just leaving questions blank will solve things. Make us ignore we asked it. To them we are just a means to an end.
Thumbs down for Lionhead (or whatever developer made that expansion), they have no spine. Thumbs up for Olle, he has.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Just a short notice
Published a small preview on the upcoming Lost Eden expansion for Anarchy Online today on Gameplayer. It's nothing thrilling there for you hardcore AO fans, except maybe some screenshot or two, since the article is mainly aimed at people not too familiar with the game already.
But it all reminded me of the fact that I had been thinking of tipping people to read the blog of Yngvild Lothe, one of the AO developers at Funcom. Her blog can be found here.
I can't help it, but I envy her. She's got the job of my dreams. Anyway, her blog is a very interesting read. Check it out.
But it all reminded me of the fact that I had been thinking of tipping people to read the blog of Yngvild Lothe, one of the AO developers at Funcom. Her blog can be found here.
I can't help it, but I envy her. She's got the job of my dreams. Anyway, her blog is a very interesting read. Check it out.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Zelda - Hero of the bad taste
Well, it seems the idea is that if you like something enough, you pick a group of untalented people and bring them together to make a movie about it. And thus forever slaughtering the very thing that you adore. Ah, the stupidity of man. Makes for a good laugh though :)
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