Kotaku: Grimm’s “Clever, fun, twisted”

Kotaku says: Grimm has a great, simple graphical style but don’t let that make you think it’s a game for kids. This is a very twisted world and the game will have an M rating. The humor is quite black and may have some players scratching their heads but those of you with a sick sense of humor will absolutely love it.

Titan Studios - Hiring Engineers

My good friend Paul Meegan has started a new game studio in the heart of Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

First True Episodic

The guys over at Penny Arcade have been producing some of game industry’s funniest and most revealing web comics since before I can remember. I’ve always been a huge fan, but that didn’t stop me from being completely unaware of their involvement in the creation of a new game concept - an episodic one to [...]

Chinese Gaming Boom

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 [...]

Buying Electric Scooters in Shanghai

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 [...]

Goat-Filled Grimm Interview

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 [...]

New Spicy Horse Website

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 [...]

Vins Gagliardi - New Label

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 [...]

The China Commandments

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” [...]

Midget = Good

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 [...]

Naked = Evil

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 [...]

This site may harm…

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 [...]

Grimm Preview @ GameTap

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 [...]

Great Firewall of China

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 [...]

Games For Windows - Podcast

Games for Windows is hosting an audio interview they did with me during GDC:
Welcome to GFW Radio, the podcast homepage for Games for Windows: The Official Magazine. Here, through the glorious magic of the Internet, you can listen to the GFW editors and occasional guests pontificate and yammer about all sorts of PC game related issues. Plus [...]

CNY 2008 - Fireworks Fun

So far this year no one I know has been blown up by fireworks in Shanghai, but perhaps not for lack of trying. Check out this video taken on my balcony a few days ago:  
 This was recorded during the height of the “fireworks attack” on Shanghai. At this point in the evening, every [...]

Wind Power

Flowers become skeletal hands, logs become carcasses, and dainty sailors become pirates. These are some examples of transformations from Grimm. While all transformations involve items, characters, and locations going from light to dark, some transformations are more active than others. An example is this windmill:

In its “light” state it behaves as might be expected. Such [...]

Something New, Something Wicked

Over the past 12+ months my partners and I have been working diligently to build Spicy Horse into a premier game studio - our goal is to make it one of the best in China, and in the world. So far we’ve had tremendous success in finding people from all around the world to bring [...]

Merry Coconut-mas

Seems I forgot to post a new image yesterday. Things around the office have been hectic. Pushing towards a milestone and preparing for a little Christmas break. In China there’s not usually time off for Xmas - but since we’re an American owned company we feel compelled to honor the St. Nick holiday. In honor [...]

Headless Bunny

One key rule we’ve learned while building assets for Grimm is to push for more interesting transformations. People playing the game tell us “greater contrast between light and dark = more interesting.” Early on, “light/dark” was communicated with distinctly different textures, but somewhat similar geometry. These days we’re trying to build assets that reflect equal [...]