Partis cést mourir un peu

Because we know the talented Paul Konings loves drama, pixar and because he left us to go off to college (...) and left me with this amazing gift while I was on a holiday. This is to Paul, straight from his favorite movie:

Molly: [Andy is climbing up the ladder to the attic to put his toys away when Molly walks out of her room carrying a box] Uh!
[a small heavy ball falls out of the box]
Andy: You need a hand?
Molly: I got it!
Andy: Here.
[he puts the ball back and picks up the box]
Andy: So, you gonna miss me when I'm gone?
Molly: If I say no, do I still get your room?
Andy: [they walk down the stairs] Nope.
Molly: Then, yes, I'll miss you.

Finally: The New Guy!

We've asked the new guy that's been sitting in our office for a few weeks now to identify himself. Please meet our mystery guest:

Hi there, my name is Tj’ièn Twijnstra, almost 31 years of age and I just joined the GameHouse team as game designer. Before joining GameHouse I worked at Playlogic Game Factory, a medium sized studio developing games for consoles. At Playlogic my design focused on action titles such as Fairytale Fights and EyeToy Play: Pompom Party. After about 5 years it was time for me to move to new challenges and broaden my game design horizon.

I’m extremely lucky that I was able to join the talented team here at GameHouse Studios in Eindhoven. The casual games market requires a different approach to the action games I’m used to design, but it is proving to be a perfect challenge for me. The well defined target audience places specific constraints on the design of the game, focusing heavily on usability and elegant systems. These constraints are close to my heart and I think they improve any games’ design, not just casual games.

So far I’m having a blast at work and things are getting more exciting by the day. I had the opportunity to play Heart’s Medicine when it was nearly finished and the team created a unique and involving experience which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Time management with a heart, can’t get any better than that right?

Almost immediately after I started working I was given my own assignment, which was to help the team with completing Campfire Legends 2: The babysitter. This game is going to be great, solving a mystery filled with scary moments and challenging puzzles.

If that wasn’t enough, I’m also working on a top-secret project. Naturally I’m dying to tell you about it, but I’ll be risking severe physical punishment and mad looks from my colleagues – not sure which is worse, though. So, I owe you one.

Cheers,

Tj’ièn “The new guy” Twijnstra

The 'anything is possible'- book!

A great read, a great inspiration for everyone who's in for some "to infinity and beyond" thinking. The treehouse book.

Great Game Award!

Sky High Murals

This you gotta see! If you're interested in ever changing occupation this is your chance. These guys are awesome and their work is as well! Death to digital! Long live paint!
http://vimeo.com/10562000

It's Now Official!

The much-anticipated hospital game -formerly known as Private Care- which is going to be released very soon has an official name and is called "Heart's Medicine - Season one"

First Production Art for Campfire Legends II

The production for Campfire Legends II is rounding up and we can show you some very nice background scenes. As you can see from the writing and painting they were still in progress at that point in time, but they are still worth looking at;)
For people who aren't familiar with Campfire, here's some CL 1 for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC1_iv5V3HU
....
If you dare...MWAHAHAHAHA!

hair development

Going through some old sketches for the book "The Art Of - Heart's Medicine" I came across these. They were made to get a better picture of Allison's hair. What kind of hair and how it is falling. In the book you will find all sorts of visual development. From Allison's facial changes, her hair but also the evolving rooms, cantines and so on. Because it will be published in a limited edition give us a comment if you're interested;) Maybe we will even sign them!

o comments

This is already the fifth post that reached 0 comments! But wait! Before you think that nobody is following and commenting on our posts, we're actually doing better than before! The last time we had 24 '0-comments'posts in a row!

logo designs

If there's another thing that is keeping us busy is the logo design. This is from a phase we are thinking of the design and the name at the same time. go figure...

nice stuff from popcap

Posting popcap wannahaves is not going to be a regular item;) but we all were very impressed with all the nice toys'n'things we received here at zylom. check this out!

more background stuff part 2

Okay, so we're still fighting over the title of Private Care. This week we thought it would stay "Private Care", but 'the man upstairs' (which sounds very much like another game that is in production right now) decided otherwise. In the U.S. private care means something different than what we want it to mean. So...please enjoy the view while we try to come up with a new title.

Clay Emily

Because we are about to start working on Delicious 6 we decided it was a good idea to finally get the full potential out of Emily as a character. Considering the sequels to come and the possible platforms, Dirk van Dulmen began his work on Emily in some obscure farm somewhere in France. Here's the making of Emily, version 1. For a first draft this looks already a lot like Emily!

more background stuff

We're doing the finishing touches on Private Care and we finally founs some time to show you some amazing background art. Because we are not giving it all away, we'll let you decide which one is final artwork.

Private Care Preview!

If you are curious what GameZebo thinks of our alpha:

We're always excited to check out the latest game from GameHouse Eindhoven (the Netherlands-based game studio formerly known as Zylom). The creators of the Delicious series always seem to put out quality games with plenty of ...

check: http://www.gamezebo.com
And stay tuned if you want a piece of this because interesting things are about to happen with this game and it's promotion.

Private Care

It's been a week now since Private Care has met the public's eye for the first time and they even seemed to like it! (pffew!)

Our betaboard has given us enough feedback to make this even a better game.
One of the comments was: “A different genre than I usually go for but I loved the fact that I actually felt under pressure to perform. I dived right into the story line - well done!!!”

One of the 'rules' we live by during development, is that we try to push our artwork. If you already felt 'under pressure' playing the game this is how we could graphically push the experience even to a higher level...
please note: These animation are for testing purposes; they are made with flash.

Where the wild things are

It may not come as a surprise to you but some of us still haven't seen Where the wild things are directed by Spike Jonze. What some of you don't know (except for the people that do...there always are...)is that John Lasseter from PIXAR directed a CG test for Disney in 1983. Yes, that's right, 1983. In a land before time...

In my search for inspirational presentations I came across this one:

Master Assignment

Because we missed some thursdays, here's another episode in the Master Assignment series. For more background information on this piece, feel free to visit the artists blog.

Frank Frazetta R.I.P.

Monday, May 10, 2010
Frank Frazetta 2/9/28 - 5/10/10

Elemental Magic

At the moment we are working on our opening scene of Private Care where it's raining. To make sure that the rain feels like rain, with raindrops splashing on the street and splashing on water pools we consulted "Elemental Magic", The art of special effects animation, by Joseph Gilland.

It's always reassuring to read that there are companies out there with special effects departments dealing with issues like how waves crash into a hawaiian beach or-in our case-how rain crashes in on crashed cars.