A few screen captures from the latest prototype of the game. Things are really starting to come together now…

As you can probably tell, the site has been a little messed up lately. We basically lost our database and I’m reimporting everything by hand, so it’s taking a while…we probably lost a few comments here and there, so I apologize for that. Hopefully we’ll be back up and running at 100% in the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience!

Download Podcast (mp3, 19:49, 9.1 MB)

Martin and I recently sat down to talk about the Atmosphir development process, the Game Developers Conference, and peripherals like Wii Fit. It’s about 20 minutes worth of insane ramblings, so feel free to listen to it in the background during work or your daily commute. You can also subscribe to the show via iTunes or rss, so you’ll automatically download future podcasts and videos to your desktop or iPod.

Do you agree/disagree with anything we’re talking about? Have any questions about Atmosphir that we’ll try to skillfully dodge and talk around in general terms? Feel free to leave them in the comments below, and we’ll try to answer them on a future show.

Thanks for listening!

HD and downloadable versions available on Vimeo.

I remember feeling completely overwhelmed at last year’s Game Developers Conference. As a newcomer to the industry, the flood of people, engines and technologies was humbling and overpowering. One year later, GDC08 started to feel like familiar territory. I actually understood what people were talking about 25% of the time (as opposed to last year’s 2%). I was able to hold halfway decent conversations with people who held similar passions for games. And I totally knew where the least crowded bathrooms were.

A video recap is hopefully coming shortly (update: here it is), but here are a few highlights from the week for me:

+ On Thursday, Dave Jones from Realtime Worlds (Crackdown) gave an awesome session outlining the features in their upcoming game APB. You basically make a gang member or a law enforcer, and fight against other online players in Crackdown-esque cities. Their character customization tool was the most realistic and deep system I’ve ever seen. Definitely something worth keeping on your radar. He was an excellent speaker, and I liked how he often referred to games as toys; toys you can explore, interact, and experiment with.

+ The Portal postmortem with Erik Wolpaw and Kim Swift was hugely inspiring, as was their postmortem in the January issue of Game Developer magazine. The line to get into this thing wrapped around the entire second floor of Moscone West - it definitely seemed like the most anticipated session of the conference. With a development team of only 8 people, they somehow managed to make one of 2007’s best games. Erik and Kim stressed the importance of playtesting, and how their game evolved for the better based on user feedback (including 3 failed attempts at the final boss battle).

+ The Nintendo booth featured the upcoming Wii Fit and Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii, and I got a chance to try both out several times. The Wii Fit balance board (a scale-like device you stand on which measures your balance and translates it into mini-games) was pretty sensitive. So for exercises like the skiing game, it doesn’t take huge motions to shift your weight and move your character. I skied a little and then played the 3D ball maze game too. Like Wii Sports and Wii Play before it, controlling Wii Fit is intuitive and immediately accessible. For Smash, I was playing as Kid Icarus’ Pit one time and Earthbound’s Lucas for another. I had to use the Wii Remote in the sideways NES style, which felt pretty limiting; I’ll most likely use an old Gamecube controller instead when it comes out next month. Although we were stuck in a pretty tame demo mode that seemed light on the power-ups and craziness, it felt pretty similar to the past games - just with some new faces and moves.

+ I talked briefly to Matt Casamassina and Mark Bozon (IGN Wii) on a park bench outside of Moscone North, but got a little starstruck and proceeded to gush like a 12-year old girl about how I enjoyed their work. Other sightings included Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb (X-Play), Brad Shoemaker (Gamespot), and Ryan Davis, Alex Navarro and Jeff Gerstmann (formerly of Gamespot).

+ And finally, the free swag recap: GDC08 tee shirt, Guitar Hero keychain, Realtime Worlds mints, BottleRocket Entertainment foam bottlerocket, Activision hacky-sack, and Bioshock syringe/pen.

Here we are testing out another prototype level. The Hero is inside the walls of a huge temple, sort of like a big 3D maze. There are dozens of paths to take - some leading to secret treasures, some leading to dead ends.

Like any good action game, pushing blocks leads to some interesting secrets and puzzles. You can climb up a stack of these to reach new heights, push one out of the way to reveal a hidden door, or throw one off a ledge to help you somewhere down below.