Blog Posts

  • 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…

  • Back in the PRC (2)

    Once again, I return home to China. GDC went great. The GameTap PR machine (driven by the very protective Wendy) lined up the interviews, and I did my best to knock them down. It seems everyone liked what they saw of Grimm – and press since the event has been nothing but positive. On top…

  • 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.…

  • Grimm in USA Today

    I’m heading back to Shanghai from San Francisco. Sitting at Narita, waiting for my connecting flight – I saw that Grimm was mentioned in USA Today:  If you think Shrek wreaked havoc on the Disneyized version of classic fairy tales, wait till you see American McGee’s Grimm. The former id Software designer and programmer (Doom,Quake) re-envisioned the Alice in Wonderland story in his…

  • Grimm Trailer Release

    Gamespot and Kotaku are running news of the release of the Grimm trailer. Gametap has also updated the Grimm site with new content – the trailer and some screenshots. Check it out the Gametap Grimm homepage here. To celebrate the occasion, a duck with a broken neck.     Btw, Kotaku crowd: American McGee loves you too. 

  • San Fran-Pirates!

    In San Francisco this week for the Game Developer’s Conference. The trip from China was uneventful. It’s been a year since my last visit to the US. I’m struck once again by how *bright* the world is. It’s as if someone has removed a filter from the sun. I remember that sunglasses aren’t just a…

  • 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 square…

  • 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.…

  • Chinese New Year Update

    My flickr-wordpress plugin was dead for a few days, so I was having trouble adding new Grimm images to the site. This morning I sorted things out, and am back on track. Btw, if you’re getting “API expired, error code #100” when trying to use flickr-post, I suggest just upgrading to the latest “Flickr Photo…

  • 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…