One of our secret agents went to LucasArts today (proof!) and while he was there, he snuck over to ILM and stole this model of the Millennium Falcon that they used in the first Star Wars movie! OMG!
Can you believe it?!?
Okay, Okay, I’d better come clean, lest we have some sort of awesome, Orson-Welles-War-of-the-Worlds-type hoax on our hands here.
That’s not a real model of the Millennium Falcon. That is a Lego version, and nobody stole it. You can buy them in stores. But the animators did put it together all by themselves. See how proud they are?
This is just one of the many things that real animators can do that motion capture can’t. If you visit other game studios, the kind that use mo-cap, you’ll notice the Legos just sit in unassembled piles on the floor.
I’m just going to upload pictures from now on! It’s so easy!
I’ve been seeing this ad around town lately, sometimes on a streetlight banner, and this time on the side of a Muni train. I’m not sure what the Giants are up to, but a careful study of this picture makes me think it’s one of the following:
They want to inform the world of my gaming cred.
They want to confuse people about what I look like.
They think my cheeks look fat.
They are trying to warn me that I have an enlarged heart.
Or all of the above. I don’t know. And I have no idea why the Giants are suddenly obsessed with me. But all I can say is it’s about time!
What the heck? Double Fine has reached the Great 8 of the Escapists March Mayhem. Woo!
So now we are up against Valve, and you know what that means. It’s time to stop this crazy, competitive mayhem and just declare the whole thing an 8-way tie. Everybody’s a winner!
We developers have to stick together, right? There’s room for us all to be successful, right? Who’s with me?
If you agree with me, then let us know by going to the ballot right now and voting for Double Fine. I know I said we should call it a tie, but there’s no check box for “Tie” so just vote for Double Fine, and when we win I’ll call it a tie I swear.
UPDATE:
Wow, I was kind of kidding, but you guys actually went and made it a tie. This is all kinds of ridiculous:
Not that I care or anything. Not that I even looked. I totally saw this by accident. I don’t even care. But man, the fact that we are so close to Valve here has me re-evaluating the power of our fans. You guys are an awesome and terrifying force.
The artists and programmers who took the time to make Clairvoyance reactions for every character in Psychonauts would like to thank whoever made these custom themes for the Playstation 3.
Awesome.
You are my own creation! I command you to shake my hand!
I hope you went to Scott’s big “King of Kong” print signing down in LA, because not only could you have met Scott there, but you probably would have also met Raz, famous video game star from such Excellent Games as Psychonauts.
I’m sorry Sonic!
Nothing against your games, but you had to go down. You were standing in the way of us doing battle with our arch enemies, CCP!
Actually, they aren’t our arch enemies. There just some guys in Iceland who make Eve Online, and they’re probably very nice and everyone who works there probably makes electronic music on the side and has adorable rosy cheeks and lots of cuddly sweaters. But we can’t let this award go to Iceland, can we? Haven’t they taken enough from us already? Does Iceland have to win at everything? Iceland, Iceland, Iceland. Enough, already! Sick of them and their tiny horses.
So, thanks to everyone who voted for us. To quote that French lady who won the Oscar, there really are some angels* in this town.
*of DEATH**
**to clarify, the Angels of Death are on our side, so WATCH OUT, and also THANKS!
This time of year I often find myself asking the same question: What, exactly, is this “March Madness” and why should I care? I think--but I’m not sure--that it either has something to do with car dealers and their special sales, or else it has something to do with the world of . (I have to paste that little logo in there because bore me sooooo much that just typing the word puts me to sleep almost instantly. I usually can’t get past the “o” before I pass out and start drooling on my keyboard. My apologies to everybody else out there who loves Spoasdddddddf .xc ,v,/a/a
Oh geeze. Where was I? Anyway, this year is different. This year I think I have found out the truth. “March Madness” is about video game developers! Yay! What a coincidence that it turns out to be so super relevant to me and my interests!
I’m getting my information on this from The Escapist. It seems like they are in charge of March Madness this year (they’re calling it “March Mayhem,” though, probably out of respect for the mentally ill) and they are hosting its traditional ”Developers’ Showdown.” Guess who’s in the top 64? Us!
Our first battle is against Sega. You can vote over in the East Bracket. Maybe there was no room in the West Bracket, or maybe they aren’t sure where San Francisco is, or maybe The Escapist is based in Hawaii, which would place us to the east of them. Anyway, I’m not sure when voting opens up, but I think it’s soon, and when it does you should go vote for us. I mean to say that I, most humbly, request that you proceed at your leisure, to the Escapist, PLEASE, and aid us in our efforts to claw our way to the top of this bucket of crabs that we call the game development community. (Just kidding about the crabs! I love crabs!)
In order to vote, you have to register on their forums. So that’s the catch. But its an easy catch. A really easy catch, just like that guy made the other day, in that event, against that other team! Man, was that other team disappointed. But not as disappointed as Double Fine is going to be if we don’t win the March Mayhem: Developer’s Showdown!!!!
Vote! Vote! Vote!
!!!
EXCITING UPDATE!
Voting is now open! You can now go here and vote for Double Fine! And then go here and talk about how you voted for Double Fine. And then go here and ride to the top of the Matterhorn and put both hands in the air and scream, “DOUBLE FINE!”
I actually have the winning high score myself, but have too much class to report it.
Okay, first of all, King of Kong is an awesome, awesome movie. Best documentary I have seen in a while. Just by the virtues of the the movie-watching experience alone, I advise you to buy a copy of this DVD and own it RIGHT NOW.
What’s that you say? You’re going to Netflix it? Well, sure, I guess that is, technically, LEGAL, but if you merely rent this DVD, you will be missing out on some awesome Scott C. artwork! See, if you buy the real DVD, there is a surprise waiting for you. Even though it looks normal on the outside, if you take out the cover sleeve out and flip it around, you’ll the the alternate cover pictured above. An original work of art by our own Scott Campbell.
Art, you Netflixing cad. ART!
Check out the bigger version of the cover, if you want to read the names of the arcade games on it, or find some secret characters you might recognize lurking in the crowd.
Now how much would you pay?
Wait, did you know you can get it signed? If you live in LA (or are willing to be in LA on March 22 between the hours of 7pm to 11pm) then you can go to the Nucleus Gallery and meet Scott C. himself and get him to sign your dang copy.
Or you can get one of the limited edition prints they’re making for the show, and have him sign that.
Or have him sign your copy of Psychonauts. Or your bus pass. Or your backfat. He loves all of those things.
The other day, I was looking at my Scott Adams Gold Box Set and getting all nostalgic. (I’m talking about the Scott Adams who made Voodoo Castle, Mystery Fun House, Ghost Town, and Savage Island, not the guy who does Dilbert.) Man, I used to love playing those text adventures on my Atari 400. But, unfortunately, all the games in this box set come on 5 1/4 floppy, so its not like I can just whip them out and play them when I want to. So, thank god for Ludwig Kietzmann.
I just played a live text adventure with Ludwig over at Joystiq, and it was awesome. Everybody should play live text adventures with Ludwig. He’s really good at it.
Love,
Tim
P.S. Here is a helpful glossary for people under 38 who are reading, or trying to read, this post:
5 1/4 FLOPPY - Imagine if a CD were made out of video tape material--oh wait. You don’t know what video tape is either. Crap. Well, imagine if you had a CD, but instead of holding a bunch of songs, it could only hold a text file containing the lyrics to those songs. And imagine if you had to pay $800 to get a device to read it. And imagine thinking that this was awesome.
TEXT ADVENTURES - Games you played by typing and reading. Pretend you are text messaging with a friend, and your friend is stuck in a mysterious fantasy world, and they are also really dumb and don’t know what to do. You would text them instructions, and your friend would text back the results. But instead of using emoticons and text speak, the responses would come as thoughtfully-written, descriptive prose. And every once in a while, your friend would be killed without warning, and another friend would pick up their phone and continue, if you had been smart enough to have the first friend write down the location of the phone.
ATARI 400 - The greatest computer of its day, with a keyboard that was so comfortable to type on, they still use it on microwave ovens today. The Atari ate Apple IIs for breakfast, and for dinner it swallowed Commodore 64s whole. It usually skipped lunch, preferring to use that hour to beat up PCs. I’m not bitter, but if Atari had won instead of Apple, they would have made something better than the iPhone by now. Or at the very least, the iPhone would come with Star Raiders.
STAR RAIDERS - The best game on the Atari 400/800, ever. Many people will tell you this. Although, to be honest, few of us can really remember why we say it. We’ve just been saying it since 1980 and it’s a habit.
Ow, my neck hurts.
That’s me talking, not Osama. I actually have a krick in my neck so severe that I can’t turn my head to the right. This always happens. I’m thinking of having my neck removed, I’m so sick of it.
I know it seems like this news page is turning into me just compaining about whatever’s going wrong with my body instead of exciting news about our games. And it is. But that’s just because I don’t have any other big news to share with you right now. We’re still working away on Brütal Legend, in all it’s epic glory. Our publisher is merging with another publisher, so they’re spending a lot of time trying on bridesmaids dresses, picking a caterer, choosing table linens, etc. I was sick for most of GDC, so nothing exciting happened to me there.
They fixed the thermostat in our office. That was pretty cool.
It stopped raining.
I downloaded the Patapon demo. That was awesome.
Hmm.
I guess this is why they say “No news is good news.”
No wait. I can think of something…
A police car drove by me yesterday, with it’s lights and siren on. It was going pretty fast.
Seemed like they had the situation under control, so I didn’t get involved.
Now I kind of wish I had, so I could write about it.
uh…
Holy crap, look at my cat! She’s licking a bag! What’s she doing that for?
. (I have to paste that little logo in there because 
