Flickr friend Static Eddie kindly sent along this photo of a Grimm outdoor billboard. This was spotted in Atlanta, near the Gametap offices. Nice to see Grimm getting some spotlight in the “real world”.

Yay! “…retail is just one small slice of the complete picture.” Preach on brother! Retail, box-product is in fact a dreadful place for the sort of entertainment products PC’s are best suited towards: Innovative, online, mass-market (dare I say casual?) games.

Not to toot their horn too much, but Gametap gets this. In fact, they are banking on the weakness of the “shelf-space driven box-product” model to drive their profits. Their unique offering is the equivalent of a mile long “shelf”, with minimal “rent”, and a “shop” that never closes. Where a retail PC game MUST sell strong in the first days/weeks, MUST fit into some pre-defined genre-category/slot, and MUST be driven by copious amounts of pre-awareness (translation, marketing $$$) - digital distribution allows the model to be turned upside down. All those “musts” become “eh, whatever”. To some degree, if the product is good, the audience will eventually come - and better yet, new audiences can continue to discover the product years after the equivalent box-product would have been tossed into the “discount bin”.

Grimm is going to be an interesting test of the model. I think we have good content. Gametap has the right distribution mechanism in place. All it takes is for the right audience to discover what’s on offer…

Speaking of, be sure to check out:

Gametap’s Grimm Teaser Site
My Flickr Collection of Grimm Images

More cool stuff will be coming soon!

The general rule for showing Grimm concept artwork to the world is to show images only when there’s a light/dark version side-by-side. But with this image I’m willing to make an exception:

This is “Bone Boy”. He appears in a number of Grimm episodes, usually as the darkened state for child NPCs. He’s one of my favorite characters in the game. The animators gave him a jerky, rickety sort of walk/run. The result is quite amusing.

I think Bone Boy would make a cool stand-alone game character. Maybe after Grimm…

If you’ve ever wanted to read an interview with me in Polish, here’s your chance:

American McGee’s Grimm – wywiad

Poprawne politycznie bajki muszą odejść! American McGee w ekskluzywnym wywiadzie przedstawia nam Grimm, nadchodzącą grę epizodyczną studia Spicy Horse. Znany projektant zamierza zachęcić graczy do przekształcania podczas zabawy łagodnych opowieści w przerażające koszmary.

Andrzej “Klecha” Klimczuk (Gry.o2.pl): Na wstępie powiedz nam kilka słów o sobie i o swojej roli w zespole pracującym nad American McGee’s Grimm.

American McGee (Spicy Horse): Obecnie jestem dyrektorem kreatywnym firmy, którą założyłem ponad rok temu, firmy zwanej Spicy Horse. Przy projekcie Grimm pełnię funkcję głównego projektanta i naczelnego “reżysera” całości. Oznacza to, że zajmuje się takimi rzeczami jak tworzenie wyglądu gry, ustalenie zasad funkcjonowania skryptów, jak również kierowaniem procesem kreacji treści i poziomów.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

China is a fun place to be a gamer. If you aren’t buying 360 games on the street for 10RMB, you’re downloading them from P2P and sharing them with your buddies at work. We had to put a stop to that latter practice at the Spicy Horse offices - we found some of our guys were transferring 100s of Gb per day. Yikes. Regardless of how Chinese gamers get their hands on games, one thing is clear: Gaming is HUGE here.

As if the point needed further making, the following article posted on gamedaily.com today:

Niko Partners today revealed the results from a report on the Chinese video gaming industry. The 2008 Annual Review & Forecast Report on China’s Video Game Industry says that China’s 46 million gamers spent $1.7 billion on online games in 2007, an increase of 71 percent compared to 2006. Looking to the future, online revenue is expected to be $2.5 billion in 2008 and $6 billion in 2012, increasing by roughly a third every year.

“China’s spending on games is up thanks to their booming economy,” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners. “14 million hardcore Chinese gamers play online games more than 22 hours per week. They play online, LAN, and single-player offline PC games in China’s 185,000 Internet cafes and increasingly on their PCs at home, thanks to falling prices and higher disposable income.”

That’s a lot of hours spent playing games. The (un-)funny thing is how these stats only track (basically MMO) online play. Console and PC gaming are huge, but so far no one’s paying for it. The culture doesn’t support it - neither does the market. Even if you wanted to buy a legit game - you’d have a tough time finding one.

The situation is far from hopeless. World of Warcraft and online-only Chinese games are amazing examples of the market potential. Just don’t put something in a box and expect it to avoid being pirated. This is a country where you can buy fake everything. Soy sauce made from hair, bamboo shoots made from chopsticks, and fake boiled eggs made from… I don’t want to know what.

To honor Chinese gamers and their warrior-pirate ways, here’s some Chinese warriors from an upcoming episode of Grimm:

Ni hao! If I told you what episode of Grimm then I’d get a sock stuffed in my mouth. Just enjoy the image and don’t ask questions! Wo bu yao wen ti!

Still cranking away on Grimm production here. The Chinese Government forced everyone to take a 3-day holiday at the end of last week. Actually, just a 1 day holiday on Thursday, then a “fake” day off on Friday - and here the whole country is back at work on Sunday to make up for that. But we did get three straight days of vacation AND beautiful weather to boot. Even better, my flickr posting tool is working again - so here’s a new image for you:

Seriously, what child wouldn’t love a cuddly Teddy Bear that transforms into a prickly Spider Monster?!

I posted a few more new images on flickr.

One of the things I love most about Shanghai is how bicycle/scooter friendly the city is. There are designated lanes on most roads throughout the city, abundant parking with security attendants on every block, and a riding/driving culture geared towards bike-filled streets. When the weather is suitable, there’s nothing better than exploring the hidden alleys and quiet side-streets of Shanghai on a bike.

But then the summer arrives. And bike riding feels like a linear rotisserie. You desperately want to trade pedal power for something motorized. Unfortunately, since an unlicensed French expat killed a Shanghainese woman with his scooter last year foreigners are actively discouraged from driving gas powered motorcycles, scooters, or bikes. Which leaves us with electric…

The only problem with electric scooters in China is they tend to look like they were designed by a sugar addict 12 year old with an unhealthy fixation on Transformers. Painful neon colored plastic molded into sci-fi wannabe design gone wrong. So when my friends and I began seeing cool electric scooters with a Vespa-inspired look we were thrilled. The only problem has been finding a place to purchase. And after months of searching here it is:

Not much to look at is it? And the guys working there were none too friendly either. But hey - they had what we wanted, so we were happy. If you want to find this place, head out past the Shanghai South Railway Station, past the Hongqiao Airport, to 287 Mao Ming Lu.

Here’s my buddy Jung test driving one of the new rides. These things come factory-ready to hit a top speed of 35km/h, have a range of about 40km, and handle really nicely. For a fee the shop is happy to upgrade the battery/motor combo so that the scooter will reach speeds up to 70km. Which by the way is NOT a good or necessary thing in Shanghai traffic.

Now we’ll wait and see how long before they get stolen.

All kinds of new things are happening at the virtual Spicy Horse. Some of you already noticed that the new site has options to eventually purchase Grimm - and you wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t clicked through every. single. page. And that is awesome.

As a neat little reward, I’d like to show you a fabulous little gem that our very own Jason Tai has produced for us. This music sample from the game is pretty well indicative of what you can expect in the future.  I’ve heard more of it - it’s hard to say “it gets even better” when so much of it is so awesome.

Also, if you’re on the forum, you already know this, but if you don’t, we’re having a Wallpaper Contest.  The winner gets some really awesome Grimm paraphernalia and is featured on the wallpaper pages for both the Spicy Horse and Grimm sites.  Two runners up will be rotated in one of the remaining spots on that page.  Knowing how creative our fans are, we’re probably going to run contests like this regularly, so even if you miss the May 31st deadline, patient will be a virtue.

By the way, I’m Lilith70, and I’ll be covering the blog periodically when American is massively swamped with things like making games.  Pleased ta meetcha.

A new interview has posted over at Playhard where we talk about Grimm, Spicy Horse, and non-spicy Goats. Here’s a quick chunk:

Give us some background about the company named Spicy Horse.

We formed the studio a little over a year ago. It started with just two people – myself and our Art Director, Ken Wong. Ken’s the guy responsible for creating our very cool logo. Without that logo we wouldn’t be as cool as we are today – so we’re very thankful to him for that. When we started, Ken and I were down in Hong Kong – but we moved to Shanghai for the beautiful weather, complete lack of pollution and abundant supply of goats.

To read more, check out the full article HERE.

Spicy Horse has a new website! You can check it out here: www.spicyhorse.com

The site was built by a company in Shanghai called Mediaman. It took us almost a year to search through local web development houses before finding their team. During that time several companies built proposals and test sites - the results were always poor. But after the first meeting and delivery of proposal materials from Mediaman we knew we’d found the right people to build our site. Everything they delivered was professional, clear, and beautifully constructed. The end result is something we’re really happy with. If you’re looking for talented, professional web developers, definitely consider these guys: Mediaman

Site content is being updated and maintained by our tireless community manager, Lilith. Over the coming months she’ll be prepping the Spicy Horse site and the new Grimm site for the launch of the first Grimm episodes. If you have any comments or suggestions for her you can send them to her via the comments section on this blog, or through the Spicy Horse site Contact Page.

For some time now Ken Wong has been producing some really amazing wine label artwork for Vins Gagliardi Allard wines. Previously he used the heroins from Red Cap and Rapunzel. Now a new label has been released: Snow White

For the previous images Ken did, be sure to check out the set I created on flickr

And to purchase the great wine with these cool labels on them, be sure to visit Vins Gagliardi Wines

A friend of mine forwarded me the following list of Commandments for foreigners living in China. For anyone who’s spent time spending on the Mainland these rules will ring true.

Commandment #1
Know what you don’t know – (for many westerners, this is by far the most difficult challenge.). Any similarities between China and “back home” are purely accidental. This is a completely different culture. Do not be fooled by surface similarities or by local people who “seem to get it”. Sources of reliable information are your #1 asset.

Commandment #2
China is still a communist country - and there is absolutely zero chance of that changing any time soon.

Commandment #3
You have to show up to win. You must be physically present and put in the “face time”. There is no “autopilot” in Chinese business. If you feel that you are too busy to learn about China, then you are certainly too busy to be successful here.

Commandment #4
If things worked well here in China, then there would be significantly fewer opportunities for competent westerners. Try not to get too frustrated by the challenges you face.

Commandment #5
Time does not mean money here. Chinese business people do not believe in “opportunity cost”. Even simple negotiations can drag on for a long time. Avoid getting sucked into an endless cycle of meetings that don’t accomplish anything.

Commandment #6
Truth, honesty, good-will and long-term benefit are all culturally-specific concepts. Don’t expect your western standards to carry over here. Win-Win is not standard operating procedure here. Do not fool yourself that your long-term relationship with a local partner means anything.

Commandment #7
Don’t check your brains in at the border. You wouldn’t hand over your company’s money, intellectual property or trademarks to a virtual stranger in Sydney, London or San Francisco and expect to make a windfall. Don’t do it in China. The people that are offering to open doors for you are the same ones that can lock you out. Beware of people who peddle their “powerful friends and great connections”. They can use them to hurt you as well as help you.

Commandment #8
Due Diligence becomes more important when the language and systems are unclear, not less important. Don’t settle for the “least worst” deal or partner. Partners don’t get more honest and relationships don’t improve as the amount of money involved increases.

Commandment #9
China will still be here next year, and in 5 years. Don’t be pressured into signing a contract or making a deal because you are afraid of “missing the boat”. The boat has been here for 4,000+ years.

Commandment #10
Having a sense of humor helps. Having a Plan B helps even more.

Been insanely busy around here. Trying to get some episodes of Grimm to “final” in the coming weeks. No real time to update the blog, or make additions to the concept art feed. But here’s an evil mushroom to keep you occupied:

Check out my flickr account for more stuff. I often put new images there even when I don’t have time to make a blog update.

Every good game, movie, or entertainment product should have a high percentage of midgets. Just because. Obviously, Grimm is himself a “man of small stature” - more a dwarf than a midget, but in the same ballpark. “Little” characters like dwarves, midgets, trolls, and gnomes are found throughout fairy tale stories. This “Spear Midget” is a good example:

This guy appears in one of the Grimm tales simply to help a hero past a tough obstacle. Said hero is later murdered by his brother, negating the midget’s assistance… casinospiele mit echtem geldwinners online casinocasino roulette spiel,online roulette spiel,roulette spielonline casino downloadjack black downloadonline video pokerall slotstop online kasinocasino online downloadkasino im internetcasino kostenlos spielenlotto onlinebeste spiel raumslot maschine online spielenslotmachine spielenmobiles casinobaccarat spielenroulette tipsblack jack online spielencasino downloadcasino online wiesbadenslot machines online spielengratis casino spielenroulette online spielencasino slots download,casino slots,casino slots gamesonline casino softwareamerican slotscasino online testein armiger banditcasino websiteinternet gewinn spielswiss casino bonus codeonline casino gamescasino online shoprealistische online spielbankvideo poker strategieonline baccarat spielecasino poker rouletteonline kasino,online kasino pl,online kasino spielen auf deutschcasino online slotswww casino spieleeve online rig slotsvideo poker onlineonline casino bonus ohne einzahlung,online casino bonus,online casino no deposit bonuscasino online �sterreichcasino online ohne einzahlungcasino club comcasino online comcasino club poker bonusslot machine spielen but hey. Little People often appear in fairy tales (and fiction/imagination) in order to explain the unexplainable, perform magical tasks, or to help/hinder a hero in a way that requires predictive knowledge. This guy just gives away spears.

Some days I wish a magic midget would appear and give me a spear.

When building episodes for Grimm our design team is faced with the constant (and enjoyable) challenge of dreaming up light/dark ideas for everyone and everything Player will encounter in the game. Things like grass, trees, dogs, houses, windmills, and fountains - all must be imagined, then rendered as conceptual images in a light and dark form.

When Grimm runs around the goal is: Make everything dark! And when everything is made dark, the story itself turns dark. Scenes are introduced when Grimm relates the particular story point we’re visiting - for example:

“LRC encounters a Wolf in the deep dark woods. No wonder she’s not afraid. I have cats that look meaner, and more dangerous.”

This is how Grimm sets up the scene where Red Cap meets the Big Bad Wolf for the first time. Player’s goal is then to convert the scene and the setting into their proper dark version.

Sometimes these conversions are obvious, other times they stretch the imagination a bit - and often they are downright hilarious. But then we also get the odd ones:

Naked is bad? I don’t agree, but then many (especially in the US) do. I suppose we’re reinforcing the concept by having “darkened” characters that are naked versions of their light selves.

Many have commented on the topic of nudity vs. violence in video games. Why is it OK to gun down armies of terrorists, bad guys, and aliens - but decidedly NOT OK to flash a nipple? Given a choice between real-world streets filled with violence or ones filled with nipples - I prefer the latter (it’s called Bangkok, btw).

Images like the one above are interesting because they’re likely to test the boundaries of “acceptable”. Were the image a concept for a children’s toy, would it generate ire amongst the conservative nipple police? Being a concept image for a video game, I suspect the tolerance for nipple-action is much lower. Note: The female character is stripped of her nippletastic badges of honor - but I’m sure she’ll still do psychic damage on the overly sensitive.

If the next GTA featured a photo-real naked Barbie doll would it be tagged as pr0n and pulled from store shelves? Likely.

Then again, give Ken a ‘gat and he simply transfers to the “action toy” section.

For a while now my site’s search result on Google (and in the new Firefox Beta) have been plagued by the nefarious “This site may harm your computer” warning. This message is attached to any website Google or StopBadWare.org believe is hosting malware, badware, or is breaking Google’s terms of use.

My initial (useless) response to this knowledge was indignation. “How could my site be infected? It’s well groomed, fed, and practices safe sex!” Still, I searched the site’s code, did a few updates, changed some passwords, and assured myself the site was clean. I informed Google as such - but my pleas were ignored. Feh.

Next I requested “review” from StopBadWare - and received a note informing me of certain evil residing on “/page/2″ of my blog. Sigh. But this bit of information was helpful - more precise than the generic “your site = bad” delivered by Google. With that knowledge in hand, I searched again - this time focusing on the posts and comments contained on that page - not the Wordpress code itself.

And voila! I found the evil, and it looks something like this:

That image still contains the actual IP address and web address from the original code. I’d NOT suggest punching those into your browser.

If you too have been hit by the “This site may harm…” message - then here’s how I solved my problem:

1. Send a request for review to stopbadware.org - they should reply with details on where and what to look for.

If you suspect you’ve been hit with the same code I was then:

2. Use the search function of Wordpress to look for “wp-stats” or “Traffic Statistics”.

3. Edit the offending post’s code, and remove the chunk related to “Traffic Statistics”.

I hope that while my site was infected it didn’t pass anything along to my readers. I’ll do my best to keep an eye on this stuff from now on.

Doug Perry over at GameTap has posted a nice write-up on the Grimm preview we were giving at GDC:

The mix of story-telling and interactivity in Grimm is bold. McGee is creating a 24-episode series focused on the world’s best-known fairy tales, including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Pied Piper, Godfather Death, and Pinocchio to name a few. Each episode is 30 minutes, is downloadable, and usually focuses on one fairy tale (though some episodes will comprise two or three shorter stories). Each also opens with the contemporary perspective of the fairy tale, displayed in a puppet show of minimally adorned characters, narrated by “Grimm,” a rough and wonderfully despicable character. It closes with a version that’s closer to the original version of said tale, but with McGee’s touch.

Worth checking out if you’re interested in more details about the content, concepts, and game play coming in Grimm.  Check it out here.

Strange, it seems the Chinese government has suddenly un-blocked flickr. I guess those Pirate Children did the trick! Go evil children!

When playing Grimm you’ll likely notice an underlying theme of “animosity” towards children in the dark versions of the tales. Children are run over by carts, fall to their deaths, crushed by church bells, trampled by animals, drowned, burned, and otherwise mangled, mashed, and murdered in almost every episode. Case in point, a campfire that transforms into a roasting baby:

“Why?” you likely wonder. Well, one core concept of Grimm is that present day versions of fairy tales have been made too light. The teeth have been removed from them - effectively rendering their morals and messages mute. Until the threat is re-instated, what’s the point? And that’s Grimm’s mission in a nutshell: return overly-sweet tales to their original forms - full of harm, hurt, and revenge.

A few interesting tid-bits as example:

• In the original “Pinocchio”, the character you know as “Jiminy Cricket” from the Disney version, is crushed and murdered by Pinocchio. (Yes, I know Pinocchio isn’t a Grimm’s tale.)
• Alternate endings of Red Cap (Red Riding Hood) leave Red and Granny rotting to death inside the wolf. In some versions where they are rescued, the wolf is subjected to torture, mutilation, then drowning in punishment for his “crime”.
• The original ending of Cinderella featured a gruesome revenge being visited upon Cinder’s wicked family: their eyes were plucked out by birds!

And that’s the thought I’ll leave you with today… treat your step-sisters/children badly, and you risk having your eyes plucked out by birds.

If it seems things have been quiet around here there’s a reason. Well, a few actually. One, after returning from GDC I found myself swamped in catch-up work on Grimm and pre-production work on some new concepts. Two, the Chinese government decided to block access to Flickr via the “Great Firewall of China”. When I can’t see what I’m posting I get discouraged and don’t want to post in the first place. What’s up with that?

Well, to show my discontent with Chinese government policies regarding foreign operated photo sites, some mini-pirates:

As mean as they look I doubt they’ll do much to scare the Chinese government into changing their odd Internet blocking policies.