The Scariest thing in my life...

Yesterday was a very fun, weird, drunk and absolutely terrifying day in my life.

Cheese, Wine, Poker and Club Fifty Five!

Louise - Loser

After a nice day at work with my wonderfully weird colleagues, we brought out the ten (YES TEN!) cheeses and defiled our LCHF bodies with some crackers (read it with a Bristolian dialect a la Louise).

Enjoying some white and red wine while starting to pile up our starting stacks of poker chips, certainly a wonderful way to do start a game of poker.

(scroll further down for the scary story thingy)

Long story short. Victoria wins the game like a pro with AA and Louise was shit (and wasn't too happy about not winning).

Entering the Private Member Club of Gibraltar, Fifty Five, was quite exciting. I pretended to be English (didn't work out very well) and ordered a few interesting drinks (after having to tell the waiter three times with my English accent). We all ended up a bit tipsy (to say the least) and decided to call it a night.

Victoria - Winner

That's when it happened.

... what the hell is going on?!

I came home, sneaking as quietly as I could just to not wake my little princess up (my life depended on it) and was quite proud of myself sliding in under my duvet without a sound. She seemed to be sleeping so no harm done. Perfect. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz.

*BANG BANG BANG*

What the fuck was that? Oh right, I'm dreaming.

*RING RING RING*

Oh wait, that's my Phone! That means... I WASN'T dreaming before. Who the fuck banged on my door! Shit!

I look at my phone.

"Vlada Bajeva calling..." WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!? How can she call me if she is lying next to me?! This is scary shit! Drunk as I was I almost started to sweat, rushing up from bed, not checking if Vlada was still in the bed, and opened the door in my trendy underwear.

There's Vlada! Coming home from her company night out! I had totally forgotten about that and had just ASSUMED that she was next to me all along. I felt stupid and went back to bed in shame. She of course laughed her ass off.

Help! I am lost in a Virtual World!!! Call the Media!

Is it lame, a shame to have friends with in a game? Isn't it the same as having friends out of game?

Btw, I'm doing another "When I met" post today, so scroll down below the Youtube clip to read it!


Either you play alone or with friends

Some people like to play alone, not being disturbed by other people or annoying chats that you have to answer to etc. Many other people quite enjoy talking and playing together with people they have some kind of relationship with. It makes the experience more fun... and also there's cookies (right, Jilly?)!

I remember a painting my mom has, it goes "Shared happiness is double happiness". If this is with real life friends or people you only spend time with online doesn't really matter, imo. Just have a nice balance and you'll be fine. People who think differently are imo. uneducated.

My view: I can understand how it can seem lame to an outsider. I don't blame you. But in fact hanging out with people you like in game is a way of enhancing your experience and helping you from become an anti-social person that have lost connection to reality.




When I met: Fredrik Andreasson
See my earlier "When I met" posts here and here and see if you are mentioned!

More like, my first real interaction of Fredrik Andreasson (since I don't remember the very first moment). I was set to be in the same Game Dev. Project Team as Fredrik and 11 others. I was the Project Manager and he was the Lead Artist of our team.

Fredrik seemed quite persistent about what he thought was right and wrong. In fact I was quite frustrated at him at first. But then I realized why and had a moment where I started to realize that I was wrong getting frustrated at him...

Okay, let's slow down a bit.

It turned out that Fredrik was a natural leader... which was hard for me trying to lead a 13 man (and women) team with quite little experience. What I realized was that Fredrik was way better than me at this. He seemed to have way more experience and the others respected him. Even I!

STOP NODDING!

I never told him, but I think I learned a lot from him during this project (maybe the hard way since Fredrik generally is quite open when it comes to things he is not 100% ok with). This is a great quality. It's hard enough with a Swedish team where very few dares to express their true opinion and be okay with a discussion about it. It is hard to know if you are doing a good job if everyone just nods all the time.

Thanks Fredrik for not nodding! :)

It is not strange that Fredrik Andreasson today is the CEO of Immersive Learning.

Ok... this turned out to be a "Hey, let's start around a religion around this guy that I LUUUV <3<3<3<3<3" post, but I think sometimes it's okay to give another guy some kudos when he consciously or subconsciously helped you develop your skills.

This is him btw! :)

Hiring, Celebrating and Stealing Babies!

Yes, it is true! I am hiring babies! If your baby got what it takes, don't hesitate to send me an email! We guarantee a paid Mother Milk Deluxe Lunch every day and fresh Nappies from The Lady Next Door That Doesnt Know We Break In And Steal Her Nappies!

No.


Would you rather hiring a friend or a possible foe?

I am currently in a situation where I need to look into the process of hiring a person. A friends name popped up in my mind... and this made me think about a lot of things. How big is the risk that it would be too weird to hire a Friend and that I might damage the friendship? Am I willing to take that risk? What is the risk of hiring someone relatively unknown that you don't know if you would work well with? Is there a perfect answer?

I think in this case it will be fine, but I have to be careful if I choose to walk this path. It's like Anakin in Star Wars: Episode II, when he choses to take the chance and  ..........*SPOILER ALERT* .......... marry Padme. Will I become a Sith... or remain a Jedi?

Helmet... or no helmet?

My babies goes Irish!

Only missing some The Dubliners songs that I Like, the band at O'Reillys (the place with worst service in town, quickly followed by Taps when this cunt waitress is there), St. Patricks Day turned out to be one of the (THE?) most fun Party Evenings so far this year.

From Guiness hats at O'Reillys to a Pub Crawl on Mainstreet, to meeting Johan the new Swede in town, to forgetting Phil and Johan at Charlies Tavern to Meeting up with Quisqueya, Jun, Incarne, Louise and Victoria in La Linea for some tapas and live band music at Molleys. All good, all awesome.

Sorry Johan, I still owe you those 7 euros. Since you now got the job (not at my company), I'll take you out for dinner once you arrive!

Click Image for Rebecca's St. Paddys Day Gallery!

My friends Babies goes Stolen!

Long story short. BBQ at Pelle and Nathalie, Vlada steals Molly, Kids Steal my Sausages, Pelle plays the Fiddle and Phil the sax (so much that Alex started crying). But it was really nice and I must say that I don't regret cheating on my LCHF diet by eating the cake/pie thingy that Nathalie baked.

She complained yesterday how much her arm hurt after carrying Molly around. :P

Finishing this blog post by saying the Lek Bangkok (link) is awesome. Try number 78 (Beef Red Curry in Brandy Sauce)... it's the dish of my life.

How to trick your players with smart(?) design!

I've started noticing some things lately when playing a few games. I knew for a fact that these productions were big, maybe even too big. Another thing they have in common is Electronic Arts.

What is priority when you got too little time for a too big project?


Wow, this games is awesome!.. oh, wait a minute...

Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic... the Sith Lord who should have been more epic.

When I first started playing Dragon Age, the original, I loved it. When I finished it, I loved it. The designers clearly had lots of time and made sure the game was good all the way through.

Then there's games like Dragon Age 2 or why not Star Wars: The Old Republic (which I right now play and have for a long time rather enjoyed). The beginning of the game is quite good. It's actually so good that you can't wait for the later levels. It has to only get better, right? 'Cause that is how a game should be. The more time you invest, the better content should be awarded to you. Not anymore.

I believe that if a Game has too little resources before release, the first levels of the game is strategically designed to be really good, in order to capture the player and make him/her invest. Once the player has invested in the game, he/she might still be disappointed by the not-so-good late levels, but since the investment already has been made there's less incentive to stop playing.

Smart move by the designers! But is it... really a smart move? What will the expectation for future games? Is it worth the cost in reputation? I honestly don't know. Do you?


When I first met Johannes Thorén...

... I was working on this forum quite used to all kinds of weird people entering the forum and introducing themselves. Then one day a guy called "Stripps" came. He seemed like a very sincere young boy hoping to one day become a very good poker player. Obviously that never happened. :P

Over time Stripps became more and more active in the forum and one day he was doing so well that I hired him as a freelance moderator. That's when we finally decided to bring some of our people down to Gibraltar for a week or two. That's when I REALLY met him.

He looked a bit different than I had imagined, but I liked the fact that he looked like a younger sibling of Per Wolf, my former Line Manager. They also had quite a similar personality. Both extremely messed up but very happy at all times.

To celebrate this, we raped Johannes head. See the video below:

New Project: When I first met...

It's amazing how you come up with awesome ideas when you lie awake trying to get back to sleep at night. Finally I manage to actually remember one of them so that I could put it into action (you have no ideas how many ground breaking ideas I've lost 'cause I've finally fallen asleep... damn it!

In the upcoming blog posts I will, in the end, include one RANDOM friend and write about when I first met this person... and what my thoughts was. :P This could be embarrassing at some points, but fuck it, that's how I roll!

In this launch post I'll actually start off with two friends. I'll use random.org to help me choose which friends to talk about.


When I first met Håkan Sjölin

Kåt-Håkan Sjölin, looking like a boss!

It was a normal day at my old workplace and I was just about to go up to the kitchen and fetch myself some Nutella toasties. I ran into my old line manager Leo, who told me that there's a guy here for an interview... some blond Swedish dude that apparently worked with Gus before. Hmm... Someone here to take my job?! Nah, I'm too valuable :P

Finally up in the kitchen I see some freakishly ginger-blond guy in something that was suppose to look like a suit and I started to suspect this was the guy. He was talking with Gus, which made me even more sure. But to just be safe I started by speaking some English... turns out it was quite clear that he was Swedish (his accent). Then when he switched to Swedish I thought that his Stockholm accent was a bit tainted... I wasn't quite sure if he was native or not, so I tried to speak as clearly as I could.  Turns out he was native, it was just me not being used to talking to a person who is constantly... excited :P.


When I first met Nicklas Lindgren

Nicklas Lindgren, drawn by David Palm 2012.

I first met Nicklas on the first day of University actually. He was one of the other aspiring Game Designers that had arrived to conquer the University of Skövde.

My first memory is when we were on the top floor of the Game Dev. Building and someone had (I think Cidh?) spilled some water on the floor. Before someone managed to dry up up Nicklas was suddenly standing there trying to breakdance, slide around with his feet or whatever he was trying to do. At that point I was quite sure that he was going to be "The Arrogant Player" or "Mr. Popular" of the class. Turns out I was wrong... and right.

By player I was thinking "womanizer", which was COMPLETELY wrong. Until he met his Monika he was only interested in (mega) men. But I wasn't completely wrong. I don't think there's many people on this earth that have played so many different games as this guy. At least non-PC ones.