Category Archives: General

Alice Sequel, Featured, General

Alice as a cover girl

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GamePro is going all-out and featuring our very own Alice on the cover of their September 2010 issue.  According to the article on their website, Will Herring will be discussing the early previews of the game during his 14-page feature.  Will visited with us in China recently to get the scoop straight from the Horse’s mouth.

In addition to the overview of Alice: Madness Returns, Will also delved into the complex world of tracking the evolution and permutations of the intellectual property of Lewis Carroll’s slightly-addled heroine from the original stories penned in 1865 on through the movie treatment at the hands of Tim Burton.

For us, it’s excellent to be able to talk about the game finally, and even better to listen to everyone else talking about it, too.  If you missed the original announcement this past Tuesday, EA released the first teaser – and we’re all in agreement that it does tease!  If there was any question about it’s impending rating, we’re hoping that clears it up.

Get ready to snatch up your copy at the end of July.

General

Finally, the official announcement

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Today at the EA Showcase, American finally got to announce the name of the new game, Alice: Madness Returns, and also to show a spectacular 30-second teaser.

EA has now opened up the official Alice sequel website, plus there’s a Twitter account, thewhiterabbit you can follow, and we also now have a Facebook page.

How many more ways could we possibly get you the information as we start giving out more? With the embargo lifted, expect much, much more as we draw closer to some of the most exciting tidbits, like… a solid release date.

… but not yet.

Soon. SOON!

Asides, Shanghai

“Peasant Da Vincis” at Shanghai Rockbund

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Chinese Farmer Sub

Chinese Farmer Built Submarine

From ArtObserved:

On May 4, the exhibition titled “Peasant da Vincis” curated by the renowned American-Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang opened in Shanghai. “Peasant da Vincis,” featuring a combination of inventions by Chinese peasants and works by the artist that explore the subject of human creativity. It is also the inaugural show for Rockbund Art Museum, the first contemporary art museum in the historic riverfront area of Shanghai, known as the Bund.

Read the full article on ArtObserved.

Over the weekend I visited the new Rockbund Museum to see “Peasant Da Vincis” – a exhibit featuring an array of awesome hand-made inventions created by peasant/farmers from around China. I’d previously read with great interest of home-built inventions like the walking, talking rickshaw-pulling robot, fully functional submarine, homemade airplane and helicopter – but I never thought I’d get a chance to see them up close… much less RIDE ON THEM!

The exhibit allows direct interaction with some of the devices – you can actually ride the robot rickshaw. Other inventions like submarines and airplanes are on display inside an open-air atrium filled with birds. The ingenuity and creativity exhibited in the design, construction and function of these devices is truly inspiring.

If you’re interested in checking it out visit the Rockbund Museum website for more details.

EAVB_DGLOPWCAMS

Asides, Shanghai

Wind Power to Blow Strongly

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From Shanghai Daily: Wind power to blow strongly

CHINA is expected to increase its total offshore wind-power capacity from 5,000 megawatts in 2015 to 30,000MW by 2020, a senior official at a hydropower institute said.

“Shanghai as well as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Fujian provinces have already submitted their offshore wind-power blueprints. Their combined off-shore wind power capacity could reach 22,800 megawatts by 2020,” said Wang Minghao, vice president of Hydropower Planning Research Institute, who spoke at the Offshore Wind China Conference yesterday.

Read more on Shanghai Daily.

Every time I read a story like this about energy in China it gives me a little bit of hope. While the world reels from oil-related catastrophes (see Gulf of Mexico, Nigeria, Singapore) China continues to push aggressively towards meaningful renewable energy goals:

China is aggressively expanding its renewable energy consumption to reduce reliance on polluting fuels like coal and oil, and plans to increase the proportion of renewable energy to 15 percent of the country’s overall energy mix.

That, combined with Chinese consumer/manufacture awareness of energy efficiency and resource scarcity, means China could become a beacon for sustainability – that is if they aren’t pushed to consume the world first.

Grimm, Shanghai, Spicy Horse

Off the Map in China

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Off The Map in China

Off the Map in China

Gamasutra has posted an interview by Christian Nutt with your truly. It begins with…

Famous for his work with id Software and on EA-published cult classic Alice, American McGee set up shop in Shanghai, China, in 2007 with his new studio, Spicy Horse. Though the company’s first game, Grimm, for the GameTap digital service didn’t make a big splash, McGee maintains that developing the game was instrumental in setting up a tightly-run and efficient organization in China, one which has helped him reexamine the very process of developing games.

In fact, McGee suggests that most of what developers know about working in China is wrong. He suggests that process can lead to a crunch-free environment and great quality games — his team is currently working on a sequel to Alice for EA, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Says McGee, “EA has talked about trying to figure out how it is we’re doing what we’re doing, because clearly they’re looking at what we’re doing and they’re seeing us hit all the milestones and come in ahead of time, and come in high quality, and everything that they could ask for from a development team. [But] I don’t know if you could export it.”

Christian and I go on to talk about life and work in China, cultural and development impacts on starting and running a studio in Shanghai, and more. You can read the full article here.

Also, if you’re interested in some of the thinking that originally inspired me to move to China, I suggest you check out “Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic” The book examines how American culture has become obsessed with consumption – and how it’s destroying people’s ability to be happy with themselves and what they have.

Featured, General, Spicy Pony

iPhone Developer “Spicy Pony” Launched

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Spicy Pony Logo

Spicy Pony Logo

Quick on the heels of news that the iPhone is gaining traction in China, Shanghai-based Spicy Horse gives birth to a mobile division aptly named “Spicy Pony“. Last week the Pony quietly released its first app – the unique brain trainer “DexIQ“. This week it makes official its entry into the iPhone arena with an eye towards developing entertainment, game and social apps for the Asian and Western markets.

To celebrate we’re making DexIQ FREE for a limited time (weekend of the 18th, December ’09).

Like many others, I was using an iPhone in China long before China Unicom’s official launch of the handset (October 30, ’09). Before the launch, conservative estimates put iPhone penetration in China around 1.5 million – some say as many as 3 million. But these are “gray market” phones, meaning they were sold in Hong Kong then brought into China, jail-broken and resold.

China Unicom iPhone sales hit 100,000 as of last week (December 11th, ’09). At that rate they’ll sell over 600,000 phones per year – and that’s without added momentum from price reductions, new features, killer apps, and the diminishing appeal of gray market phones. I’m going to be non-conservative here and guess that official iPhone sales will have surpassed 1 million units by this time next year. Things that will help drive iPhone sales for China Unicom:

* Young Chinese see cell phones as fashion accessories and love to update every 3 to 6 months.
* Most high-end cell phones here are the price of the iPhone (Chinese youth and professionals have been spending 300-800USD on phones for several years).
* Unicom is offering amnesty for gray market phone owners – allowing them to switch to legit accounts while gaining access to 3G.
* Better and faster network performance from anywhere will gain importance as people see their friends leveraging such access.
* Rumors abound that Unicom will unlock WiFi before long, when that happens watch out!
* More and cooler China-specific apps will drive interest in the device (as happened in the US).

For me, the biggest hurdle in switching was that I had to change my cell phone number. In China numbers are a big deal – everyone loves 8’s (very auspicious) – so phone numbers, license plate numbers and the like are chosen carefully and coveted. Fortunately, there’s little interest in 6’s, so I was able to secure a sweet ‘666’ number. Now that I’m on the new network I couldn’t be happier. It’s fast, reliable and price competitive – especially when compared to the so-so performance I was getting with my iPhone on China Mobile’s GPRS network.

For Spicy Pony, the rapidly expanding Chinese iPhone market is a phenomenal boon. Our studio and expertise are perfectly aligned to address the new Chinese and existing Western markets. It’s an exciting time to jump into the fray. We’re going to leverage our talents against development of original concepts for China and the West – and we’re cooking up a big license-based game I’m sure everyone will find quite wonderful.

Keep an eye on the Spicy Pony site for details and updates.

Check out the new Spicy Pony Website!
Check out the latest Spicy Pony game DexIQ!

And remember, DexIQ is FREE for a limited time. Enjoy!