Monday, August 27, 2007

My first kid!!!

Well, not literally. I am talking about my first game getting shipped and hitting stores on 18th of September. It’s called MySims and it’s available on Nintendo Wii and DS. It feels nice to see your work getting out and being available to the whole world. Till now the work that I have done was to impress my teachers in school and score some good points. I see this as a new phase of my life where the whole world is my teacher and my work is to keep them happy. Yeah you are right, that was quite a cheesy line….

Finishing a product exposes one to the complete development cycle and all the related problems associated with it. Having some failed projects under my belt, I would relish this game for some time. This product was a result of a newly assembled team, new IP game made for a new platform Wii, with a newly built game engine. Keeping these all ‘new’ factors in mind, the labor pains were not unbearable, especially when it was followed by the good news of making a sequel for the game.

If you want to have a look at the game, visit MySims.com.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The art of Comics

Comic has always been looked upon as the entertainment medium for the kids. But in last few years things have changed, and changed pleasantly for comics. Most of the successful comics have been made into movies or games or both and even more, people of all ages love it. This transitioning from comic to movie is not surprising as Investors are more comfortable producing a movie based on a popular idea which already has a fan following and which has relatively less legal hassles. Every comic developer wants to increase its fan following and would be more than happy to encash on his idea’s rights for a movie. So this business deal seems to satisfy both the parties’ needs. I don’t see any other better business model as coming up with a new IP in comics is the cheapest way of bringing one’s idea to the public. Only downfall is that you will have to find a good comic to read out of many bad ones.

If you are not into reading comics but want to get started here are my recommendations: Watchmen and Batman (Year One). From the Indian comic collection, Virulent seems to be a short and sweet one.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Oh Harry, Ginny is calling you!!!

I kept myself busy reading 6th and 7th book of the Harry Potter series for big part of the last month. I am not an ardent fan of Harry Potter but having read the books, I would say one thing, Harry Potter series has got most of the elements required to attract readers of all the ages. Every writer and story teller can learn from Rowling’s books. For me the attractions for grabbing HP series were:

1) The world of wizards and wizardy and their nuances
2) Great characters viz., Hermoine, Ron, Dumbledore, Snape and ofcourse my favorite Lord Voldemort
3) The everlasting suspense that many threads of the story managed to keep successfully till the end
4) Usage of simple words, concise sentences and funny mini-stories viz., fights between Ron and Hermoine, Hermoine questioning Harry’s plans etc.
5) The big win was Harry’s character has been written as a regular guy surrounded by good friends, teachers and a lots and lots of luck. So reader was able to able to digest most of it, except the luck part where Harry happens to survive every evil plan made against him.

I would recommend every person out there to read HP series for it will be subject of the talk for many generations to come.