Our Man Tyler

“Captive Audience” doesn’t cover it.

It’s always exciting at this time of year as we watch the fun unfold at 2008’s E3. I mentioned a couple of days ago that Grimm was mentioned as part of the gallery of awesome art work in the In the Pixel exhibition, but now we’re once again having one [...]

In the Pixel, it’s the Bomb

he haz a sad

If you remember the Ars Technica article from June 13th, you’ll remember that they loved our artwork. In fact, one of the things that is setting Grimm apart from most other games is its uniquely stylized presentation. “It’s the Unreal 3 Engine, but you’d never know it from the style…” [...]

Gamasutra Talks to Rick Sanchez

Mmmm… burgers…

Gamasutra has a great line in their description of Grimm, and it’s one I wish I’d written myself (it’s so cute):
“… In between those tellings is an unexpectedly gameplay-driven experience that is reminiscent of Katamari Damacy in its dynamic - except, instead of rolling a ball around, you are (apparently) peeing on things and [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Spicy Shirt

Chinese New Year is fast approaching. At the end of this month Spicy Horse will have it’s annual Chinese New Year company dinner. In China this is a time for eating, drinking, celebrating, and the giving of “Red Envelopes”. These envelopes are called “Hong Bao” symbolize blessings and good fortune. Red is itself a color [...]

Rocking Horses

It’s official. We love Rock Band. Despite it not being available in Shanghai, EA’s insistence on region locking their games, and other obstacles - we managed to get our hands on a setup. To say we’re happy would be an understatement. We just *really* hope the drums don’t break too fast.
Here you see (left to [...]

Grimm on GameSpot UK

Emma Boyes over at GameSpot UK has put together a nice interview piece where we talk about Grimm, digital distribution, and life in Shanghai. From the article:
In 2006, McGee moved lock, stock, and barrel to Hong Kong and then on to Shanghai, where he set up his development studio Spicy Horse. From there, he and [...]

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 [...]

Yellow Mountain - Company Trip

Last weekend, as part of a Spicy Horse team building adventure, we took the company to China’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon - Yellow Mountain. Also known as Mt. Huangshan, Yellow Mountain refers to an area of scenic mountains, rivers, waterfalls, and gorges in Anhui province.
Our adventure began at the Spicy offices in Shanghai. We [...]

New Office

Two weekends ago Spicy Horse Games picked up and moved to a new home. We had been sharing office space with game art outsourcing company Vykarian. But both companies have been growing too quickly, so we moved.
We got lucky and were told of a cool space which had been occupied by a film/tv production company. [...]

Vykarian + Spicy Horse Team

Whew! That’s a lot of people. The Shanghai Vykarian/Spicy team has grown to over 120 people since the start of the year.

If you’re looking for a great photographer in Shanghai, be sure to check out Primo’s website or email him at primoyuan [at] 163.com - He took some great pictures of our office and staff [...]

Mainstream Download

AP News is featuring an article discussing the (re-)emergence of mainstream downloadable game content. Mention is made of GameTap and the Grimm project.
GRIMM FUTURE: If you want a really enormous library of classic games, however, you need to turn on your PC and head over to GameTap. The online service owned by Turner Broadcasting System [...]

Poke, Poke, Prod

Welcome to Shanghai, now bend over.
Yesterday we went to the doctor. But it was more like an assembly line of poking and prodding. A model of Chinese scale and efficiency. The goal: To be certified as healthy, happy, and sane before acquiring our China live/work visas.

At the beginning things were pretty standard for a visit [...]

Call for Sponsors

My Shanghai-based game development studio and our sister game art-outsourcing company (Vykarian - www.vykarian.com) are running a video game art contest in China to spotlight the best and brightest game art talent in the country. We are working in partnership with a China’s most prominent gamer/IT magazine, “PopSoft” (www.popsoft.com.cn). In addition to their huge online [...]

A New World

For all my worries about her safety, the cat made it to Shanghai before me. I guess it helped that she had her visa in order. Star (that’s her name) is a surprisingly well adapted travel-cat. If you’re ever shipping a pet to or from Hong Kong/China and looking for a good service, I highly [...]

Shanghaied!

Once again I am compressing my life into a few boxes and making a major move. This time the destination is Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China. I’m leaving behind Hong Kong, which has been my home for the past 2 years. Looking back, I feel like I’ve only been here a few weeks. [...]

Should video games be more like TV shows?

Luke O’Brian over at Slate talks about episodic gaming:
Should video games be more like TV shows?
I’m old now, and I’ve got to work and pay bills. I’m not alone. According to the Entertainment Software Association, the average gamer is now 33 years old, an age at which marathon gaming sessions are (usually) impossible. But today’s [...]

red

wouldn’t you like to know what this is about?
-Update, October 12th 2006
Just a little FYI: “Red” as a project is something that I’ve been working on for the better part of a year. It’s envisioned as a full-blown entertainment property with game, film, and other components. Development on Red is, for the time being, on [...]