Prince Of Persia

So first a huge apology. It has been ages since I have posted anything here. Needless to say, I've been busy.

For a couple of years now I've been coyly alluding to the fact that I'm working on an action adventure game for Ubisoft. Some of you who cared enough to dig might have put two and two together and guessed what title I'm working on. For those who didn't (and yet care) I can now officially announce it.

Coming out this holiday season on 360, PS3 and PC is the next-gen Prince Of Persia. I'm really really proud of how this game is shaping up and am exstatic that the first magazines have finally come out covering it! Now I can finally tell the world. ;)

I won't link to the magazine articles (for obvious reasons) but if you're interested I encourage you to find a copy of Edge magazine for May 2008 (english) or Joypad (french). Both magazines did excellent articles about the game, really helping to validate (for me) all of the hard work myself and the team have invested in this game over the last two and a half years.

I won't be using this blog to talk about any specific POP features or items not already reported elsewhere, but I may on occasion use it to draw attention to articles etc that I find particularily interesting. If you're a fan of the game and want to get an occasional idea of what I think of the press and coverage, hopefully you'll find something interesting here in the coming months.

Star Wars: Force Unleased

If Star Wars: Force Unleashed isn't on the top of your most anticipated lists for 2008, you need to read this article (from Vanity Fair, nonetheless).

I remember seeing Euphoria (one of the two key technologies in Force Unleashed) in action at GDC 2005 and being thoroughly impressed. I can't wait to see it in a game to see just how far they push the technology.

In case you haven't already seen the recent trailer online, check it out here.

Other then my own title (naturally) Force Unleashed is top of my list for this year.

Time Stops - Excellent Performance Art

Everyone once in a while something comes through an email forward that is just too cool for me _not_ to pass on. This is one of those times.

A performance group (flash mob?) all simultaneously froze in mid-step in the middle of central station in New York in the middle of rush hour. The look of confusion and awe on the faces of all the passers-by is priceless.

This is what the internet is made for. :)

XO Laptop - Part II

Some more news from the XO front:

A friend from the US who has had an XO for some time now recently wrote me to see if I knew of any interesting 'tips'. I'm not much (read: not at all) of a linux hacker, so I had only managed a few pretty basic modifications, but they happened to be exactly what he was looking for (which made me feel good). I guess these two 'issues' are things people are pretty routinely frustrated by, at least in the North American market.

So in case you have an XO and haven't already figured these out, here are a couple of tips:

• The XO has a feature whereby the 'desktop' will automatically be partially displayed whenever the cursor is at any extreme of the active window. I guess the rational behind this is to allow users to quickly tab between windows, but the effect is that it greatly minimizes the 'safe' screen real-estate on an already wonky touchpad (see point below). The solution for this is simply to comment out the two lines in the source that control this feature. Detailed instructions can be here: How To Disable The Auto Frame.
• As mentioned above I also had problems with the touchpad being really finicky. Every time I lifted my finger from it the cursor position would reset. I fixed that with the 'Four Finger Salute'.

Als0, the XO has been in the news a lot lately and I found this story about how much of a difference 50 laptops are making in a remote Peruvian village particularly warming. If I see more such reports I'll definitely give serious thought to a second donation.

Finally one of the 'activities' (the XO equivalent to an application) that I was most excited about is called 'Turtle Art', a simplified version of my first computer love - Logo. While Turtle Art is very limited (only the most basic support for parameters, no incrementation, etc) one really interesting element of it is the graphical interface for the 'programming'. It is all done with a very intuitive 'puzzle piece' interface that limits the sequence of operations to those that (more or less) make sense together. See below for a screenshot.

XO Laptop

I came home today and found my XO laptop waiting for me on my front doorstep. Very exciting. I'm writing this blog post from my XO right now. I plan to post more about this amazing initiative once I've poked around with it a little more, but for now I recommend anyone who isn't already familiar to climb out from under your rock and read up on it! Negroponte and Co. have created a great piece of technology with a truly noble ambition and, in my humble opinion, they deserve all the recognition and support they can get.

In case anyone out there already has an XO, I came across this interesting blog of someone who is exploring their XO's featured and blogging about it. Pretty decent starting resource.

More soon.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everybody! If you find yourself close to a computer tonight or tomorrow, do yourself a favor and play The Night Before Christmas as read by Louis Armstrong. I garuntee you you've never heard it read like this before.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

For a few months now I've been slowing picking my way through a book that my wife got for me over the summer called 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'. The premise caught my attention right away, given that I've always been a big fan of comic books and she, having read it before she gave it to me, was raving about how much she loved it. Of course, the fact that it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 was certainly intriguing as well. I started out only reading a few pages each night before going to sleep, but lately it has grabbed a hold of my attention and I can't put it down.

I'm about two thirds of the way through the book now and while I normally would wait until I was done to do any sort of review or recommendation, this one is just too good to hold back. If you're reading this, and you haven't already read the book, please do yourself a favor and pick yourself up a copy. It is one of the most fun books I've ever felt good about reading!

The core premise (from Wikipedia):

The novel follows the lives of the title characters, a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born writer named Sam Clay—both Jewish—before, during, and after World War II. Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the nascent comics industry during its "Golden Age."

On top of being an excellent yarn with truly fascinating characters who are richly developed - strong and talented, yet fallible and human - one really exciting element of the book is picture it paints of the world of comic books in the 1940s. Originally pulp fare marketed only to children, the story of their evolution into a more popular and artful medium is intricately woven into the pages of this book. There is a chapter about half way through that directly tackles the subject of crass entertainment evolving into art forms and when I finished reading I had to put the book down to write down the names of everyone in the gaming industry who I wanted to read this book.

I've never read anything quite like it so have a hard time drawing comparisons, but there are elements of 'Understanding Comics', some of the whimsical Hero fantasy of 'Soon I Will Be Invincible' and some really interestingly integrated real-world history.

David, Kim, Patrick, Clint - if any of you are reading this, make sure to put Kavalier & Clay on your Christmas wish lists.

Fun With Physics

Not much to say about this other then it really makes me wish I had a machine powerful enough to run Crysis at home. I think I could lose hours in a playground like this... :)