Shanghai

One Year On…

My head spins to think about everything that’s happened in the last year. On this date 1 year ago I left Lamma Island, Hong Kong and moved to Shanghai. The intent was to help my buddy Xin start his outsourcing company Vykarian, and to launch a new game studio of my own called Spicy Horse.

Both goals have been achieved, and many more. Looking back, I’m impressed by how much has been accomplished in such little time. Spicy’s core development team is now at 26 people, being supported by 19 artists from Vykarian. The Grimm project has gone from fuzzy concept to solid reality at an amazing rate - thanks to a great team and good technology. And most importantly, the people involved in these ventures and projects are happy and full of excitement for the future. It is truly a good time to be in China.

For this next year it’s my hope that the studio will pick up another production. Ideally, we’ll continue using UE3. And this time around, I wouldn’t mind working on a larger-scale console project. Episodic production is challenging and uniquely satisfying, but playing titles like Bioshock gets me excited about the possibilities for a large-scale dark fairy tale action/adventure on 360. We have some concepts out there, and I’m hopeful… besides, it’s a beautiful morning in Shanghai…