Game Design Study Circle

Posted November 16, 2016 by eriksvedang
Categories: Teaching

A replica of "The Royal Game of Ur"

This fall I’ve been organizing a study circle for people interested in game design here in Gothenburg. For posterity I kept a blog with reflections and photos from each meeting, you can read it here: http://speldesigncirkeln.tumblr.com/

If you live in Gothenburg and would be interested in participating in a similar thing in the future, please contact me! If you live in another city and wish this kind of thing existed there – what are you waiting for? It wasn’t hard at all to organize and I hope the blog can be a good source of ideas.

Getting so much into different board games from all times and places also got me really inspired, so right now I’m working on an app for playing a bunch of these.

Autumn

Posted August 23, 2016 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

IMG_1868

Hello again,

It’s been great, relaxing summer but now it’s definitely time to get back to work. I have some exciting ideas for new projects but also plans for the older stuff – primarily Else Heart.Break(), Clairvoyance and Slice & Dice. Still some loose ends to tie up…

The new projects are too early to talk about, suffice to say that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about past creations, what I’ve learned, and what direction I want to go in the future. I hope there will be some pleasant surprises for both you and me.

Here’s a list of what I’m all about right now: Tennis, growing vegetables, turning 30, starting a game design study circle (email me if you’re interested and live near Gothenburg).

Thanks for reading and take care,
Erik

Else Heart.Break() is in a Humble Indie Bundle!

Posted February 23, 2016 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, ElseHeartBreak, My Games

A pretty epic bundle it is, check it out!

Christmas Sale!

Posted December 23, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: My Games

IMG_9870

Hi there!

Even though you can’t tell from the weather here in Sweden (not a snow flake in sight…) it’s actually starting to look a lot like christmas, and that means insanely good prices on interactive digital entertainment products – a.k.a. GAMES!

Here’s a list of my goods, please open your wallets for a starving artist and his fellas <3

Else Heart.Break() – 50% off, now $12.49

Blueberry Garden – 75% off, now $1.24

Kometen – 66% off, now $0.99

Shot Shot Shoot & Tri Tri Triobelisk – $0.99 each

Such tremendous bargains… the perfect late minute gift for your mother, lover or arch enemy!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Erik

Else Heart.Break() Steam Halloween Sale

Posted October 30, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

This weekend Else Heart.Break() is 30% off over at Steam!

Else Heart.Break() has launched!

Posted September 24, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

GameIsOut

Finally, after many years it is released! Quite a surreal feeling over here in my apartment where our team has gathered.

Buy it on www.elseheartbreak.com or one of the following places:

Steam

Humble Store

GOG

Please tell your friends!

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Else Heart.Break() Release Date and Trailer

Posted September 9, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, ElseHeartBreak, My Games

ReleasePoster

Big news – Else Heart.Break() is done and ready for release! It will be out for Windows, Mac & Linux on September 24th. We will sell the game on SteamHumble Store, and www.elseheartbreak.com.

There is also a soundtrack with 56 songs by various artists including El Huervo, Hello World, Sasac, Shelby Cinca, Tor Bruce and Philip E Morris! You can pre-order the soundtrack over at the Swedish Columbia Bandcamp page.

Finally, here’s a new trailer showcasing some more things from the game:

 

Imaging the Future

Posted July 12, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: Travel

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I’m back in Sweden after going to the Imaging the Future symposium in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. I was invited there to talk about Else Heart.Break() and especially emotions in video games. The symposium was part of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, or NIFFF for short. I can highly recommend the festival, it was a really well organised event and the location was absolutely gorgeous. Here are some pictures from my trip, thanks to everyone who made it so nice!

Read the rest of this post »

Finishing Touches

Posted June 18, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

MainMenu

Nordic Game Indie Night 2015

Posted May 7, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: Exhibitions, My Games, Slice & Dice

IMG_3867

It turns out that I have two games nominated for the annual (and awesome) Nordic Game Indie Night. They’re not computer games though – this year I’m all cardboard!

The first one is my and Nicolai Troshinsky’s Slice & Dice (still looking for a publisher, *hint* *hint*). The second one is No More Money, a game made by Petri Purho and me at the last No More Sweden game jam, with wonderful art by Petri and Anna Zajaczkowska.

I’ll be there and show the games, so please stop by if you can!

Erik

Secret Arcade Jam Entries

Posted March 23, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak, My Games

FirewallCade 4

We held a game jam for people to make games that can be played inside Else Heart.Break(). A bunch of great people participated and made a whole range of games – from a detective story to a quiz and an almost 3D dog simulator. These will all be on various computers and arcade machines around the city of Dorisburg.

The awesome entries are after the jump, check them out!

Read the rest of this post »

Post

Posted March 13, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak, My Games

Sofa

So, we didn’t win the IGF award but the trip to San Francisco and Game Developers Conference was great anyways. Thanks to everyone we met and who told us they like our game! We’re getting closer and closer…

Excellence in Visual Art!

Posted January 7, 2015 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

Else Heart.Break() has been nominated for Excellence in Visual Art at the Independent Games Festival 2015. We’re so very excited!

Break in, break out

Posted December 3, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

New gameplay footage.

Advent Calendar

Posted December 1, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: Advent, Announcements

This year I’m doing an advent calendar – one little thing every day until Christmas. It can be found here.

Cheers,
Erik

Else Heartbreak Follow-up & Gameplay Video

Posted November 13, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak, My Games

First of all, thanks a lot to everone who’s been watching and sharing our trailer, it means a ton to us!

For those who want a more complete picture of what kind of game Else Heart.Break() will be, there’s now a gameplay video. We plan on producing a few more of those in the near future. Be aware that they will contain some spoilers, although we try to keep that to a minimum. Here’s the first one, “Visiting the Café”:

A lot of people have asked about a release date and nothing is sure yet. In the beginning of next year is our hope. There’s still a bunch of bugs to fix, some content to add, and the English translation is being proofread as we speak. We’ve had some complaints about how annoying the speech bubbles look, so that’s something that we’ll definitely try to fix too.

An exciting thing is that we’ve submitted to the Independent Games Festival. With over 600 entries the competition is obviously fierce – hopefully we have what it takes to capture the imagination of the judges. If you’re not a judge but some kind of journalist or games reviewer who would like a preview copy of the game that can definitely be arranged!

For those who want to have a piece of themselves in the final game there is also the Secret Arcade, a Facebook group with information about how to make games that run inside Else Heart.Break(). There are already a bunch of cool little games in the making that I think will fit perfectly into our game world. If you’re not on Facebook and still want to participate, just shoot me an email instead and I’ll get you set up.

For more information about the game, check out the website and our development blog.

Cheers!

else Heart.Break() – official trailer and website

Posted October 21, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

www.elseheartbreak.com

Chasing the Whale

Posted July 29, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, Podcast

Me and my good friend Andreas Zecher have started a new podcast! It’s called Chasing the Whale and is about making indie games and things like that. Today the third episode is out, the topic this time is game design books that we’ve read over the years.

The podcast can be found at iTunes and www.chasingthewhale.cc. Our plan is to release one episode every week. Feedback and thoughts are appreciated! (here or on twitter)

Erik

Busy Times

Posted June 5, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

Here’s a photo from when we were showing Else { Heart.Break } at the Nordic Game Indie Night. That was fun! The game is starting to feel like the real thing now – and a pretty massive thing that is. We are posting pictures and videos at postcardsfromdorisburg.tumblr.com. Cheers!

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Blueberry Garden on Linux and Mac!

Posted January 25, 2014 by eriksvedang
Categories: Blueberry Garden

blue

Exciting news! Programmer/musician Ethan Lee has ported Blueberry Garden to Linux and Mac – thanks so much for that!!! Follow him on twitter at flibitijibibo.

If you have already bought the game for Windows you should have access to these versions already. If not, get it here.

Take care,
Erik

The aesthetics of motion in software

Posted December 11, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Links

Birds in trees.

There is something very special about how to make interactive things for a screen, it has to come alive in a certain way. This is something I constantly think about when designing and programming games but I still have a lot to learn. In a way I believe that it’s the most important thing to master for someone in my trade and I think there is a whole other level of dynamic motion that we all should aspire to. Here are two things I’ve read/watched recently that inspired me and advanced my thoughts on the topic. Perhaps someone has more tips? If so, please comment!

What Screens Want by Frank Chimero – I particularly liked the second half when he starts talking about horses and ends in a kind of political statement. This is more from a web design perspective but the point is valid no matter what you make.

Stop Drawing Dead Fish by Bret Victor – all of his talks are amazing, you should definitely spend some quality time on his website if you haven’t (Inventing on principle obviously, but there is more). This particular talk touches upon some really important aspects on how to make animated and interactive things for the computer.

Oh, and I just realized Martin (Grapefrukt) Jonasson’s and Petri Purho’s talk Juice it or lose it is about this topic too and it’s great! From watching the video and playing their games I think they might be experts in this area of interactive design. I’m looking forward to what they and others will do in the future. And I hope Bret Victor will release some of his tools :)

Cheers,
Erik

On features and tiny computers

Posted October 17, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

Screen Shot 2013-10-17 at 12.05.14

For a long time I have had the intention to start publishing small essays and opinion pieces on this blog, here comes the first one.

This morning I flipped through a fresh copy of a Swedish game magazine called Level. On one of the ‘indie’ pages I found an interesting looking game by Blendo Games, the creator of Gravity Bone & Thirty Flights of Loving (two famous and very good indie games, you should definitely try them out if you haven’t). This game was called Quadrilateral Cowboy and apparently it revolves around hacking and computers. It had also made a splash at IndieCade so I guess a lot of you know about it already and that I’m just really behind the times – that’s what happens when you work hard on your own things. Reading further I realized it’s a game where you learn how to program computers and get be a oldschool hacker,  breaking into places and doing other cool things. The computers in the screen shots looked suspiciously similar to the ones we have in our work in progress Else Heartbreak – a game that happens to also involve programming computers and “realistic” hacking. My heart started beating faster. Oh no, I thought to myself, please not another one of these damn great-looking programming games!

The thing is that Quadrilateral Cowboy seems really good and actually not that similar to the thing me and my friends are working on. I hope that both our games will find big (overlapping) audiences. The only thing that worries me is that they both share a very distinct feature (‘programming’) and unfortunately computer games and their critics are extremely concerned with these kinds of features. There is a good reason for this also, features are tightly connected to game mechanics and how something works. Games surely do work a lot. Seen as an artistic medium this  is really dangerous though, since it makes us focus too little on the themes, feelings and ideas expressed through the game. Put another way: most people would agree that a piece of art isn’t good because of the individual parts (the ‘features’) but rather because of how they all fit together and feel as a whole. This is true of games too but by always examining the parts first we get into tons of trouble when thinking about them, arguing whether gameplay is better than graphics, what elements they must contain to be called games and other strange things.

What I’ve realized is that as a creator and artist I can’t rely at all on features, it was a severe mistake if I ever thought I could. Back when we started working on Else Heartbreak a little over three years ago this whole idea of computers inside the game seemed so fresh and new, like a free ticket to get people interested. Games with programming were mostly Robot Wars like things or pure fakery with mini-game puzzles symbolizing hacking, to actually make the machines work “for real” was a very exciting thought. Today the situation is quite different and it seems like everyone is putting little computers into their game. Maybe it’s an effect of what is technically feasible to do nowadays or maybe it’s just the zeitgeist, I don’t know. I think we will have to get used to that they are part of games anyway, and I actually think it will be a lot of fun. It’s just not very unique anymore.

I hope that in the end people who play games will not be too obsessed with features, getting hung up on whoever thought of something first or that something which perhaps seemed like a very novel and weird idea pops up in several people’s work around the same time. In the end each game is its own little world of themes, ideas and things to experience. Seen as cohesive wholes they are expressions of their creators and their features should only help fulfill that cause.

Thanks for reading,

Erik

Status updates

Posted October 3, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Clairvoyance, ElseHeartBreak, Slice & Dice, Teaching

I felt like writing a few words about what I’m working on right now and what is going on with my projects.

Most obviously I’m working full time on finishing our big game Else Heartbreak! You can follow the progress here.

The illustrations (by Nicolai Troshinsky) for my card game Slice & Dice are also done (!!!) and I’m currently looking for a publisher. Feel free to contact me if you can help out with this.

I’m also giving some courses on how to build interactive worlds and games with Unity. After leaving my job as a teacher in Skövde I haven’t had much chance to do stuff like that but I really enjoy it and want to find more opportunities for teaching in the future.

This past weekend me and Danish composer Anders Monrad had an intense work-session where we made a small sound app for iPhone/iPad, it should be up on the App Store very soon (we have submitted it). Despite being very small and simplistic it’s a lot of fun to play with so be sure to try it out in a week or so.

Clairvoyance is still in beta since we are focusing all our time on Else Heartbreak right now. When this intense period of work is over (February 2014) I’ll try to reach version 1.0 as soon as possible, I promise. The game is very much working as it is now though, so feel free to try it out and you’ll get the full version when that is completed.

Oh, and this upcoming weekend there will be an event here in Gothenburg called Automat where there will be different indice arcade games shown. I’ll try to have some things on display, come by if you have the chance!

Yours sincerely,
Erik

Unity Workshops

Posted August 6, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Teaching

I’m giving three one-day workshops on how to create interactive worlds in Unity, 16 – 18 August. They will be held in Gothenburg at NTI Gymnasiet. More information can be found at the website for Kulturkalaset here. They will be free to attend so please tell anyone who lives nearby and who might be interested.

Take care,
Erik

More Nordic Game Program Funding!

Posted May 27, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, ElseHeartBreak

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I’ve got some AWESOME news to share! The Nordic Game Program has granted us more funding for ‘else { Heart.break() }’. 300 000 DKK to be precise! We are super happy and thankful for this since it will really help us finish the game. Our plan is to basically get the whole thing done by the end of 2013. There will be some more waiting after that until the release (we have to do translation, testing, website, etc) but at least we are starting to sense the final goal of this long project.

Excitement and love!

Erik

 

Nicolai Troshinsky, Astigmatismo & my card game!

Posted May 11, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, My Games, Slice & Dice

A still from Astigmatismo

In my last post here on the website I was looking for an artist for my card game and I found one!

His name is Nicolai Troshinsky and the best way to get to know more about him is to check out his website at www.throshinsky.com. It contains Illustrations, Animations, books, games and other art projects that he has done. His stuff is truly great so I’m very excited about this collaboration!

I met Nicolai two years ago in San Francisco during Game Developers Conference where he was showing his very fun (and unusual) iPad game Loop Raccord. Recently he has been working on an animated short film called Astigmatismo. The film has its own website at www.astigmatismo-shortfilm.com and you can even watch the whole thing for free there. Actually I think you should do that now!

Looking for an artist

Posted March 31, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Slice & Dice

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Over three years ago (geez!) I designed and prototyped a board game that I became very happy with. Getting it ready for production has taken forever though, to the dismay of both me and several of my friends who seem to have enjoyed the game very much (sorry about that!) The biggest trouble has been the creation of illustrations for the different cards (the pictures used in the photo are just for the prototype and was stolen from the internet). So now I’m looking for someone who can draw the cards, preferably within the next few months. I really want to get this done soon!

The game is a kind of dueling game for two players and it takes about 30 – 45 minutes to play. It uses a variety of dice and a bunch of custom cards. There are roughly 18 card illustrations (with borders and backs) needed, plus art and logo for the box and rulebook. More details about the rules and theme of the game will be given to the person I decide to work together with. Payment will be a very fair revenue split but no money up front unfortunately, since I can’t afford that at the moment. Possibility of meeting up in Gothenburg or Stockholm is a plus but not a requirement.

Are you interested? Send an email to me at erik.svedang [at] gmail.com with your portfolio and any relevant work that you have done.

Cheers,
Erik

Work in Progress…

Posted March 26, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

Burrows

Station

Ghost

 

Podcast

Posted March 1, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, Podcast

Me and my friends (and co-creators of several games) Niklas and Oscar have launched the first episode of our podcast ‘Den bottenlösa dammen’. Here is a page with all the info you need to find it. Please note that the podcast is in Swedish.

Postcards from Dorisburg

Posted February 8, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

We now have a blog where you can follow the work on ‘else { Heart.break() }’

http://postcardsfromdorisburg.tumblr.com/

In the Classroom

Posted January 29, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: Teaching

Classroom

This past weekend I and the sweet organization Dataspelsakademin did a test run of a special kind of course that I have been wanting to do for a long time. The idea was to help people with an interest in game making technology (Unity to be precise) to get started and begin working on their own projects, expressing themselves through interactivity and world building. Unfortunately I caught the flu so the second day my two very nice friends Ebbe and Hugo had to jump in and finish the whole thing all by themselves (thanks guys!!!)

Nevertheless it was really great to see the whole thing work out and I think that we will try some even more ambitious incarnations of this idea soon again. So if you live in Gothenburg (or can travel here) and are interested in this kind of stuff, keep your eyes and ears open!

XOXO,
Erik

The poet lives there?

Posted January 15, 2013 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

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SPORTSFRIENDS

Posted December 5, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I just want to make sure that no one who could be interested in this kickstarter campaign has missed it. Johann Sebastian Joust by Douglas Wilson is hands down the best game for Playstation Move and it’s kinda ridiculous (and sad) that it’s not already out so that people can play it. Hokra is also a very cool and minimalistic game that I had the pleasure to play against its creator last year – fun times! You can check out all the four games on the Kickstarter page. There are only a few days left to help them so if you’re interested – make haste!

Update: They made it, yay! And I promised to do a little thing for them too, I’ll write more about that when it’s done…

The Clairvoyance Beta has Launched!

Posted November 21, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, Clairvoyance, My Games

We have launched the Clairvoyance paid beta over at www.gameofclairvoyance.com/buy

The game costs $5 while it’s in beta, we will increase the price when version 1.0 is ready. It’s very much playable right now though, so please try it out if you’re interested. Here’s the trailer:

For more information, bug reports and other inquires there is a twitter, facebook page and email. Finally we want to thank the Humble Bundle people for their nice Humble Store Widget that we use for selling the game!

<3 <3 <3,
Erik

We Are the Robots

Posted October 15, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Clairvoyance, My Games

Working very hard on finishing Clairvoyance now! To stay up to date with our work on the game, follow @ClairvoyanceApp and check out the brand new website at www.gameofclairvoyance.com

Best regards,
Erik

Swedish Indie Pack!

Posted September 11, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Blueberry Garden

My game Blueberry Garden is part of a bundle over at Steam. Ten Swedish indie games for $15!

I decided to put all my other games on sale during this period too, they can be found here, here and here for $1 each.

[UPDATE: The sale is over, thanks to everyone who bought any of my games!]

Take care,
Erik

Gothenburg Indie Games Exhibition

Posted August 4, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Exhibitions

Yesterday the Gothenburg-based organization Dataspelsakademin arranged a little exhibition with games made by people in the city. Me and my friends showed Clairvoyance, Quiddity and No More Meat (all unreleased). Some other noteworthy games on display were Residue, an iPad version of The Journey Down and a smoking hot build of Hotline Miami! The whole event was great and the visitors really took the time to try things out. Thanks a lot to everyone who came!

I was pretty busy observing people and learning what to fix in the games but I managed to snap a few blurry pics:

Playing the vegan card game that I made with Petri Purho and Anna Zajaczkowski during the No More Sweden game jam

Clairvoyance, Robert vs Per (getting some guidance from Oscar, our sound designer)

Hotline Miami was looking awesome, naturally

Discussions and last minute programming

And now for the non-news of today

Posted June 3, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

After successfully quitting and staying off Facebook for three years, independent game developer Erik Svedäng has decided to join again. No one is very surprised. A friend, who wants to be anonymous, says the following:

– He was always so difficult about that whole thing, going on about how he disliked the site and how it was bad for him to be on there. I always knew that he’d come back though, I mean that’s just how the world works nowadays. He’ll get used to it.

We have tried to reach Erik for a comment but his agent says that he’s busy doing laundry.

Jams

Posted May 14, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements

A game jam is an event where game developers come together and make small games during the span of a few days (sometimes just hours). It’s usually both fun and stressful in a strange mix. It’s also a great chance to try out ideas since you don’t have to feel that you should continue working on the project after the event. Unless it turned out really great of course, but that’s OK too  :)

I’m helping out organizing two game jams this summer so I thought I’d write about them here:

Enterhake

This one happens here in Gothenburg June 8 – 10 (that’s soon!) The indie game scene in Gothenburg is really coming together right now but we have never had a jam, so it’s definitely about time. People from other places are very much welcome to come also, of course (we can help with arranging accommodation). The theme for the games will be ‘Camera’ so hopefully that will lead to some interesting stuff being made. More information (in Swedish) can be found at www.enterhake.se.

No More Sweden

This one has been around since 2008! It seems like a lot of people are coming from all over the world so that’s very exciting. Apart from the jam there will also be talks and presentations. This year it’s going to be in Malmö, July 19 – 22. All the information can be found at www.nomoresweden.com.

Anemone nemorosa

Posted May 1, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

New double album by El Huervo

Posted April 29, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: El Huervo, ElseHeartBreak

A lot of these songs will be in else { Heart.break() }

You can also get them on iTunes

Jacob Wallén

Posted April 16, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Jacob Wallén

One of my best friends when I studied in Skövde was this man, Jacob Wallén. He makes awesome music that you can listen to here. He has also put all his chiptunes up for free there (under ‘XM’). What a guy!

Open Source

Posted April 10, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak, My Games

Hello,

There is going to be a lot of programmer lingo in this post so if you’re not into that kind of thing – be warned! :)

I didn’t go to the Game Developers Conference this year but I did read stuff about what was going on there, for example this article from “The Indie Soapbox Session”. What caught my eye was Steph Thirion‘s talk about open source and how we in the computer game community should become better at sharing our code and helping each other out to improve the tools we use. I have been thinking a little bit along these lines before but never had the guts to actually share anything – mainly because it is so scary! I have also never contributed to an open source project for pretty much the same reason. Anyway, Steph and his talk made me take the plunge and a couple of weeks ago I put most of the libraries we have built for “else { Heart.break() }” up on github.com/eriksvedang. The gameplay code, art and sound is not up there though, so you can’t try the game (sorry!) Here’s a quick explanation of the different repositories that actually are available:

  • Grimm – A story scripting language that makes it easy to write branching dialogue, to listen for events and conditions in the world, etc. It doesn’t have any dependencies on our own game logic and can be easily extended from the client code. It is heavily tied to our own database system though, which is something that I want to remedy in the future to make it simpler to reuse.
  • Sprak – The programming language we have created to be used by the player inside the game. It is mainly inspired by Python and Ruby. The main goal has been to make it easy to learn and use, hopefully it will also produce better error messages than what is currently the norm. The test suite should give a pretty good view of how the language looks and behave. It will probably change a lot during development though, since we evolve the language as part of the overall play testing. It doesn’t have any dependencies so it can be tried out on its own.
  • Pathfinding – A node based A* implementation.
  • TingTing – A tiny game entity framework. We use it so that we can run all our game logic separate from Unity in a MVC-kinda way. We actually have a working command line interface for the game also, but that’s a story for another day :)
  • Relay – a simple database we use for saving and loading of state. Used heavily by both Grimm and TingTing. We built this when our old, reflection-based save system proved to be too inconsistent. With this solution we can save all the state in the game as one big file if we wish. It makes everything very cohesive and reliable but unfortunately also forces its users into adapting certain paradigms that might not be optimal (specifically inheriting from a special base-object).
  • GameTypes – most of the other libraries use this component for some basic stuff like logging and a few basic data types that we need throughout the game. Should probably be split into a few more pieces but this is a practical solution to keep the number of projects down.

All the code is written by me and my friend Johannes Gotlén during the last 1½ years. If anyone wants to check them out or try to use them for something I would be very excited and I am willing to help out as much as possible! If you just wanna browse the code and give me some thoughts about it, that’d be interesting too.

XOXO,

Erik

I.R.I.S.

Posted March 17, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Uncategorized

Image

Hi!

I’m in Stockholm this weekend since a project I did some work on is being presented here now. It’s a facade projection where a building (the Stockholm City Museum) is transformed in different cool ways. My contribution was an interactive thing that let the people that are watching the projections text in messages with their phones. Those messages then appears in speech bubbles on the wall. The whole event started yesterday and people seemed to like it a lot. If you are in Stockholm and want to see it, just go to Slussen between 18.30 and 23.00 today (Saturday) or tomorrow!

More info can be found here: http://www.solarisfilm.se/iris/

else { Heart.break() }

Posted February 16, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: Announcements, ElseHeartBreak, My Games

After more than 1 year of pre-production, plus another full year of actual production (supported by the Nordic Game Program), I feel that it’s really about time that I reveal something about the project I am currently working on together with some friends.

It is called else { Heart.break() } and will be a kind of adventure game. Here’s an excerpt from the initial description I wrote for the game:

else { Heart.break } is a game about being able to change reality. It is set in a mysterious world made up of computers and their code; a place where bits have replaced atoms. The player – who is assumed to have no previous knowledge about programming – gets access to the code and is taught by other characters how to modify it. As the story unfolds the possibilities of what can be reprogrammed, hacked and controlled increases greatly. Eventually the inner parts of the gameplay code are revealed and the barrier between our own world and the game starts to dissolve.

The idea is to create opportunities for truly creative gameplay that goes beyond the kind of puzzle solving and stats improvement normally seen in games. Ideally it even allows the player to free herself from the designer of the game! The goal is an experience that borders the metaphysical, and to create a kind of game where thoughts and knowledge mean everything.

An arcade machine at 'Bar Yvonne'

Besides the programming aspect, we also focus on creating great possibilities for interactive drama. The game world will be inhabited by characters living their own little lives. Talking to them and becoming part of their world is a big part of the game and just being in the world should be a fulfilling experience in itself.

We are a team of five people working on the game: me, Johannes Gotlén (programming), Oscar Rydelius (sound design), Tobias Sjögren (graphics) and Niklas Åkerblad (art direction, music and graphics). Here are some drawings that Niklas has made for us:

So far, work on the game is going well but there is still a ton left to do though, so we won’t be finished for another year at least. Hopefully we can share some videos and smaller demos soon. Come back again for more information!

Best regards,
Erik

PS. For readers of Swedish, here is an interview we did about the game last spring: http://www.blogemup.se/?p=11588

Entrée

Posted February 2, 2012 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak, My Games

Pictures from the Future

Posted December 3, 2011 by eriksvedang
Categories: Clairvoyance, My Games

Here are some screenshots from Clairvoyance (work in progress, click them for full image)

Laser...

Read the rest of this post »

Clairvoyance Gameplay — HAL vs Erik

Posted November 23, 2011 by eriksvedang
Categories: Clairvoyance, My Games

Hello, dear blog readers! I just posted this over at YouTube:

Clairvoyance is a 3D strategy game in which both players plan their moves simultaneously and then reveal them, often with a surprising outcome! Think of it as Chess meets Rock Paper Scissors — with robots and lasers. It’s played over the internet and players can enter their moves whenever they feel like logging in (asynchronous).

Right now the game is going through a lot of testing, but we hope to release it on Mac and PC pretty soon! (We’re also planning to do an iPad version in the future.)

Wanna get notified when the game is out?
Sign up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/hjybo
Twitter: @ClairvoyanceApp
Facebook: Clairvoyance Facebook Page

The game is being developed by a small group of friends; Erik Svedäng, Johannes Gotlén, Niklas Åkerblad and Oscar Rydelius. This video shows the playback from a complete game where Erik takes on the vicious HAL. Enjoy!

TRI-TRI Power-Up Creation Contest!

Posted November 14, 2011 by eriksvedang
Categories: My Games, TRI-TRI-TRIOBELISK

Re-posted from the Intra-Dimensional Communication Wire:

Calling all strategic engineers of the imperium! This is your opportunity to adjust the way the universe itself functions within Tri-Tri-Triobelisk! Come up with a new Power-up! 

Send your suggestions to us via TwitterFacebookTumblr or Email. The best ten will receive prizes and be selected for a second round of internet voting. The winning design will be added to the next version of Tri-Tri-Triobelisk.

Contest ends Dec. 21, 2011.

(…and of course you can just add a comment here below to participate, just remember to enter your email address)

Hotel Babcia

Posted September 13, 2011 by eriksvedang
Categories: ElseHeartBreak

Work in progress.