Die Gute Fabrik News

2011-11-25T12:20:00.002+01:00

to the new Gute Fabrik Blog and will not be updated in the future. If you want the latest news of Die Gute Fabrik, the please go here: gutefabrik.com/blog/

Thank you

2011-11-03T03:09:00.003+01:00

Download the Where-is-my-Heart? press kit here

2011-10-31T12:05:00.004+01:00

JOUST OF CANADA

Doug here! I'll do a proper introduction when we get our new blog up, but for now, I just wanted to announce JOUST OF CANADA. This Wednesday, November 2, I'll be exhibiting our party game, Johann Sebastian Joust, at the Prince of Arcade exhibition in Montreal, Canada.

To celebrate the occasion, we'll be running the game to some classic tunes by Boards of Canada (that is, in place of the J.S. Bach music). Nils and I are such big Boards of Canada fans that we decided to take the idea even farther. So, voilà! A parody album cover, illustrated by Nils.

You do recognize which album cover it's satirizing, right?

Once we get our new website up (stay tuned!), we'll provide a desktop wallpaper version, sans text.

By the way, if you happen to be in Montreal, J.S. Joust will also be on public display at Eastern Bloc's J.E.U.X. exhibition, from Thursday to Saturday (Nov 3-5). Come by and play!

2011-09-01T09:14:00.018+02:00

F%!K, F#{k or F**k?

I made this flier for the next Babycastles Party. They will show a couple of physical (party?) games, where the players don't have to look at a screen to be able to play them. Doug, who's also part of the organisation team, is showing Johann Sebastian Joust as well. The motive for the flier is one of the B.U.T.T.O.N Characters in a futuristic Icehockey (Airhockey?) suit. It was inspired by Ramiro Corbetta's game Hokra. Neither Hokra nor B.U.T.T.O.N will be shown at the party, but I thought the picture fitted the whole physical game theme. So, if you're in Williamsburg, New York, september 7th, you should drop by the Babycastles space and bring a couple of friends.

2011-08-31T14:44:00.007+02:00

Our composer is touring

Yesterday I witnessed Alessandro Coronas, our composer and sound designer for the upcoming Where Is My Heart, play in Stengade with one of his projects, Quasi Dub Development. This band was formed by Berlin-based musician F.S. Blumm, who plays the bass and features Luca Fadda on trumpet and melodica. Alessandro played the drums and carillon. They just release a record called limousine to the guillotine on the danish label rump recordings, which is founded by the electronic musician Jens Berents Christiansen aka Rumpistol.

The Band is still playing in following cities, so check them out if you're somewhere near: 31.08 Posten, Odense, DK; 01.09 Prinz Willy, Kiel, DE; 03.09 Ausland, Berlin, DE.

2011-08-10T10:19:00.005+02:00

B.U.T.T.O.N at the MOMA

As always, I'm superlate with this blogpost and it's not even news anymore. But this is so amazing that it deserves some mentioning and a little bit of bragging. Killscreen Magazine hosted an Arcade the 27th of Juli at one of the Poprally events, that take place in the Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately, none of us could make it to New York, but they showed B.U.T.T.O.N and appearantly it was a big hit. Sparklelabs created 4 giant Buttons which looked amazing and made people tackle each other on a big scale. Also thanks to our friend Matt Parker, who took care of showing the game and took this picture before the event started.

So, can games be art? Well, if the MOMA curators say so then that's cool with me...

2011-04-11T14:54:00.004+02:00

B.U.T.T.O.N'S OUT!

You can get it from our B.U.T.T.O.N homepage, Steam and Xbox live Indie Games.

more information

2010-12-23T13:21:00.009+01:00

HO HO HO!

Christmas season starts with a great surprise this year. We got nominated with B.U.T.T.O.N. for the Nuovo Award at the Indepentent Games Festival. The game will be out on XBox live Indie any day now (on PC a little later, but soon). There's a crazy party organized by the amazing Babycastles people in their Gallery in Manhatten today (December 23rd!!!), where they show B.U.T.T.O.N with people wearing the Buttons and the screen as Robot suits on the dancefloor (!?!). There will be Danish Julefrokost and other abusive games. Unfortunately I can't come, but Doug will be there to represent the Collective.

Merry Christmas everybody

2010-09-30T17:48:00.007+02:00

Partey!

Hey, if you're in New York this weekend, drop by in Queens at the Silent Barn.

2010-07-13T13:39:00.001+02:00

Where is my Heart? mini trailers

more trailers

2010-07-07T11:16:00.003+02:00

Rückblende downloadable again

There were some problems with the download of Rückblende, but now it works again, thanks to Douglas, who also wrote a very flattering article on the copenhagen game collective blog.

2010-03-13T14:28:00.012+01:00

B.U.T.T.O.N

I worked on a game with the Copenhagen Game Collective called B.U.T.T.O.N. (Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now), which got picked among six one-button-games from 150 submissions to showcase at Gamma 4. It's an event hosted by Kokoromi and was held this year at San Francisco, during the Game Developers Conference. B.U.T.T.O.N. is a game made by drunk people for drunk people. For more information check out the CGC website.

2010-02-21T12:58:00.004+01:00

Nordic Game Jam 2010

I guess I'm pretty late again to write this post. The Gamejam was a great, we started out arranging an opening party with the Copenhagen Game Collective, where Nifflas played his own Electronic Music and I played some music from my mixed tapes. After getting the constraints for making the games the next day, we hung out at one of the auditoriums of the ITU, where I was involved in a game called Preschool Theatre D irector. The Artwork is made by Florian Sänger, a friend from my studies, who came up from Berlin to Copenhagen for the Gamejam. It was a funny experience, and great to see how everything from sound, music and artwork came together to become this charming little game.

2009-12-18T17:05:00.007+01:00

The World of Where is my Heart? #1

work in progress

2009-11-30T12:48:00.014+01:00

Mutatione Log #2

So we finished an ok prototype in october, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. Anyways, Mutatione is on hold for some time, while we're busy with other projects. One of them is Bernie's "Where is my heart?", you can follow its development on his site. I'm working on the artwork for WIMH and starting to like doing pixelgraphics, which I haven't done before. I don't want to change Bernhard's artwork completely, since he did a great job already, so I try to adapt to his style and make the world richer and more atmospheric. I'll post some conceptart of it later. For now there's some new picturematerial from Mutatione, both from the current prototype and conceptart I haven't published yet. There's also more info and pictures on the Copenhagen Game Collective site.

2009-08-11T15:23:00.009+02:00

Mutatione Log #1

"It's a girl!"

So we've been working on Mutatione in a team of 6 people for 2 months now. With the prototype support from the Danish Film Institute it was possible to work concentrated on the project and we're quite satisfied with what came out of it so far. By the way, the main character in the prototype is a girl, though we'd like to have both sexes in the final game.

The game mechanics remind a lot of the 2D Prince of Persia, Flashback or the polygon classic "another world". I just love those games. Anyways, for Mutatione we try to have a stronger focus on the story and the mood of the game, especially when it comes to sound and music.

It's gonna be interesting to see how this works out, but I guess the scope and the development speed of the game depend a lot on the funding we'll get in the future.

However, I hope to work on Mutatione a lot more...

2009-07-20T12:17:00.009+02:00

No More Sweden!

I spent two days at No More Sweden working on a headbanging game called "spirit horse of the cherokee!" together with Kian Bashiri and Andreas Zecher. Anyways, it's basically a lovestory between this couple and by synchronising their headbanging, they'll reach new planes of heavy metal love (two of the topics we had to work with was "hair and "no pants").
Unfortunatly I wasn't able to spend all three days in Malmö and so missed to see all the finished games, but it was good to meet everyone there, hang out and work a little.

2009-07-20T11:18:00.008+02:00

Bernie "where is my heart?" Schulenburg is the new programmer for Mutatione

Everyone's indie darling Bernhard Schulenburg came up to Copenhagen to join us for two months to work on a prototype of Mutatione. It's awesome working together, because there's such a good chemistry between us and great to see the beginning of how Mutatione is coming alive. In autumn I'll be joining him to do some graphics for where is my heart?. Who knows where this new working relationship will take us? We don't know yet, but I'm sure something interesting will come out of it.

2009-05-23T10:18:00.005+02:00

The Danish Film Institute gives us money! Twice

Hurray! We're going to get support from the DFI (Danish Film Institute) to make a prototype of my new game "Mutatione". It will be an adventure/platformer/soap opera, taking place in a mutant-inhabited swamp village with the same name.

Furthermore, the same grant went to the Copenhagen Game Collective – which I am a part of – for the game "Face-off in the magic circle" (check out the homepage). Thanks DFI.

2009-05-18T10:37:00.002+02:00

Five Minute MMORPG online

Now there's a first version of our revolutionary World of Warcraft clone online. Why grind for days, when you can get to level 80 in just five minutes?

2009-04-09T15:31:00.008+02:00

GDC 2009

I caught the flu right after GDC, I guess like a lot of people who didn't get enough sleep, because there were too many parties in the evening and very interesting talks early in the morning and you wanted to be everywhere at the same time. There have been some remarkable moments this year and I'm gonna try to make a list of my personal favourites.

Ron Carmel's keynote, "everything you always wanted to know about going indie, but were afraid to ask": It wasn't just a very good presentation, it was also very informative, about 2D boy's experience with selfpublishing World of Goo. It was also the first of many talks that explained how publishers become more and more obsolete, in times were you can sell and distribute games by yourself (putting a lot of effort into it).

Indie Game Maker Rant: Yes, we'll take over and kick all the space marines' and warrior babes' asses!

How to manage small Indie teams by Kellee Santiago: I guess everyone in the room who has worked in groups could relate to this talk (it had the most personal QA session I've seen at GDC so far). It was a lot about problems in teams that come up by avoiding conflicts and how to tackle them, thanks, very helpful.

Making LOVE in your Bedroom by Eskil Steenberg: Eskil talked about and demonstrated the tools he build to make LOVE, his MMO Adventure Game, all alone. It was brilliant and made me want to learn more about it. It was the most interesting talk I saw at GDC this year.

The IGF award show trailer

Erik Svedäng winning Seumas McNally Grand Price for best Independent Game. I was hoping for this, Blueberry Garden expands the area of what games can be. I've seldomly seen such a poetic game and it feels great to play and explore. Congratulations Erik

GDC Microtalks, One Hour, Ten Speakers, Unlimited Ideas: It was compact, diverse, thoughtprovocing, hilarious and engaging, impossible to summarize and not fill the whole page.

All about Noby Noby Boy by Keita Takahashi: Hard to explain what made this talk to awesome, it was very inspiring. We need more people as consequent and with such a unique vision as him in games.

Experimental Gameplay Session: A lot of new gameideas, some of them mindblowing, like the puzzle platformer Miegakure from Mark ten Bosh, where you jump between the 3rd and the 4th spacial dimension, which probably few people understood (I didn't, but found it cool anyways). One of my favourites was the storytelling experiments of Daniel Benmergui. He finds new and beautiful ways of storytelling, something that hasn't been explored enough in games yet.

Game Over Continue? It wasn't officially part of the GDC anymore and that was probably one of the reasons why it was so great. An exhibition of game related art and four games by indies collaborating with visual artists at a little gallery/shop on the height. The place was crowded, everyone had a great time and being away from the Moscone halls seemed to have quite a relaxing effect on people. To bad they closed at 10.

That were some of my personal favourite moments of GDC. Writing this actually makes me realise that there were a lot more, but I gotta stop now.

2009-04-09T14:33:00.008+02:00

Global Gamejam Copenhagen

I know I'm a little late writing about this, just about three months, but it definitly deserves mentioning.

Wow, what a weekend. I can recommend everyone to participate in one of the worldwide gamejams next year. It was very interesting to see so many people work intensly for 48 hours and having a really good time with it. I was in a group with some of the people who made the Dark Room Sex Game last year. We worked on a 5 min mmorpg. My role was to make most of the art and since everything had to be done quickly, I chose to make very iconic fantasy-cliché characters (you even had the warrior princess in bikini armor) and I had a manic laughing attack while working on the hobbit (must have been the lack of sleep). We might actually keep working on the 5minmmorpg in the future, so hopefully you'll hear more about it in the future.

2008-12-09T15:21:00.004+01:00

The Scavenger

Adam Robezzoli and I made a little flashgame for Kokoromi's Gamma 3D competition. It has to be played with red and cyan 3D-glasses and it's called the Scavenger. We made it on two days while hanging out at the Indiecade Festival, so it more like a sketch. Check out the Kokoromi page for all the other stereoscopic and downloadable games.

2008-11-21T12:51:00.005+01:00

Indiecade

The Indiecade festival in Bellevue, WA was awesome, a friendly and familiar atmosphere, interesting presentations and great games. The wiimote swinging Dark Room Sex Gam e made by a couple of stundents from the ITU Copenhagen, won the price for the most fun gameplay, which is a hundred percent deserved. I wonder when Nintendo will knock on their door. Other great games were Standard Bits by Mark Johns, Ibb and Obb (that also won a price) and White Space (which was unfortunatly renamed "the unfinished swan"?!?). Actually most of the games were great, so check them out on the Indiecade page. There was also a pleasant surprise for me after the festival. I won the Developers Choice Award with Rückblende. Thank you fellow developers.

2008-10-23T09:55:00.004+02:00

Interview on jetzt.de

On jetzt.sueddeutsche.de I was asked some questions about indiegames. It might be interesting if you speak german and haven't heard about independent games yet.

2008-10-06T11:50:00.005+02:00

Indiegames on bavarian radio,

Indiegames are getting more attention in Germany. I've recently had an interview with the tv-broadcast giga.de and now there's a feature about independent games on the Bayern2 radio (in german, of course). It's on the air tuesday, october the 7th at 19:00 including a few of my studdered words of wisdom. I'm glad that the topic is picked up by the show Zündfunk on Bayern2, since they also play good music.

2008-09-10T09:09:00.005+02:00

Indiecade Festival

Now it's official. Rückblende will is one of the finalists for the Indiecade festival in Bellevue, Washington. Big thanks to the jury, I'm very excited. The festival will take place between October 10-17. The whole event is gonna be about independent games and I'm sure you'll see some awesome and experimenting stuff there, so check it out.

2008-08-26T14:20:00.003+02:00

Rückblende download

there has been a little problem with the download of Rückblende last week, because the server was not responding. I regret the inconvenience, but now everything should work alright again.

2008-06-09T16:12:00.003+02:00

Living Games Festival

I was invited to speak at the living games festival in Bochum (Germany) about Rückblende (which will also be shown there) and independent games in general. The context is gonna be: the art of making games – Künstlerische und Kreative Seiten der Spieleentwicklung (yes, it's in german). Friday and Saturday, the 13th and 14th of June. Bis dahin

2008-05-29T14:16:00.005+02:00

Updates

September 2007: Rückblende, my diploma project in visual communication was featured in the output book #10, the international yearbook for students.

Winter 2007-2008: I sent my interactive Story Rückblende to the Independent Games Festival and became surprisingly one of the student showcase finalists and invited to San Francisco to the Game Developers Conference (GDC). Yeah! The GDC was overwhelming and also nice. There were some amazing games the other finalists made and a lot of interesting talks and presentations.

Spring 2008: I won an honorary mention with Rückblende at the digital sparks competition.

Rückblende was shown at the Art of Play Arcade at Carnagie Mellon in Pittsburgh, curated by Kokoromi.

There was quite a lot of feedback after the GDC and some interest from the press. I was interviewed by the west german pop radiobroadcast 1live about independent games for example and there was a documentary on 3sat, a cool german tv-channel, about new things in the world of games, where they show clips of Rückblende and a part of an interview from the Independent Games Festival. If you speak german, check it out here.

2008-05-29T12:47:00.007+02:00

Hello and welcome

to the Good Factory (that's english for "Gute Fabrik") Newspage.

This "Blog"is most of the time gonna be about the development of the good factory and probably stuff that has to do with indie games.

2008-05-27T16:02:00.004+02:00

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can anybody read me?

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