Song of the Mermaid – Production Still
Friend and sometimes collaborator Troy Morgan has been working on a cool movie project for some time now: Song of the Mermaid. You can check out some production stills and video from the project on his site. I’ve worked with Troy in the past – and hope I can do the same in the near future on TNBT.
Grimm Graphic Novel Preview Art
Dwight MacPherson has announced on his blog that the first episode of the Grimm graphic novels is now available for pre-order:
Rejoice, children! American McGee’s Grimm #1 is now available for pre-order!
American McGee’s Grimm #1
Written by Dwight L. MacPherson
Illustrated by Grant Bond
Covers by Ben Templesmith and Grant Bond
EPISODE 1: CRISIS ON EARTH 57
After transforming the fairy tale realm into a hellish nightmare, Grimm launches a secret invasion into the world of comic books! As he enters a domain where villains are doomed to fail, will this be Grimm’s final crisis? Join us for the ultimate American McGee’s Grimm adventure and find out!
Go to his blog to read more and find out how you can pre-order. You can also check out some awesome preview images!
Enjoy!
The Spicy Horse Logo
Brian Ashcroft from Kotaku has presented a really great interview with me and a few others from Spicy Horse. It details the history of my move to China, the formation of Spicy Horse, and our vision of the future of games in China. From the article,
It was 2007, and China was buzzing — with optimism and energy. “Chinese contemporary society is like a whirlwind,” says McGee’s business partner and art director, Ken Wong. “It seems to have changed in 10 years as much as America has in the past 40.” McGee and Wong, started boutique studio dubbed “Spicy Horse†or “Ma La Ma†in Chinese. Initially, they worked out of their homes on an island off the Hong Kong coast. “We moved into some really low-rent warehouse space in Shanghai upon our initial landing in the mainland,” says McGee. “From there we moved a few more times, ever growing the company, taking on more people, and evolving the culture.”
Be sure to check out the full article.
Many thanks to Brian for crafting such a cool article. And thanks to Kotaku readers for supporting interesting interviews like this 🙂
I had to mention this, simply because the buildings here are getting so TALL. Shanghai to build ANOTHER mega-skyscraper: “Three months after opening the world’s second-tallest skyscraper, Shanghai is about to start construction of an even taller building – in the face of an economic slowdown and falling property prices.” Follow the link to check out the picture and see what I mean.
Turkey Chomp Action!
Gobble, gobble! It’s time for the Golden Goose – and not just the one on you featured on your typical American thanksgiving dinner table. Grimm’s got some Goose action to share too! But I’ll let you try first – something tells me a goose cooked by Grimm might not be the thing to get your stomach in a holiday mood.
Here in China we’re far, far away from anything resembling a “traditional thanksgiving dinner”. A few years back we tried to create an approximation of the event with roast pigeon, Chinese greens, and yam-like sweet potatoes. But there’s something about eating thanksgiving dinner in a Chinese house older than the United States that doesn’t ring quite so true.
For those of you NOT in China, try some Grimm-style Goose with Episode 13 – “The Golden Goose”! GameTap released this one early and are running it for FREE through the holiday weekend. Actually, I have no idea how long it’ll be free since no one at GameTap bothered to tell me they were doing anything special with the episode – but hey! It IS Turkey Day after all!
And be sure to stayed tuned – the next couple of Grimm episodes are really cool. Next week we’ve got “Iron John”, which I can assure you is one of the more … insane … episode of Grimm we’ve ever created. And following that – the big Christmas episode, “Christmas Carol” which aside from containing a lot of Scroogey goodness, also pushes the Unreal 3 engine to all sorts of awesome visual effect.
I hope everyone out there has a happy holiday!
Centaur
This week brings us one of my favorite Episodes from Grimm – “King Midas”. In this tale Grimm visits a classic Greek myth and the world it inhabits. We meet Gods, Kings, and Fools. And best of all – Grimm’s dark power takes on a special “shine”.
As David Craddock over at Big Download describes it: Once Midas is given his golden touch, though, things become more entertaining. Trading dirt and corruption for every woman’s best friend (next to chocolate, of course), the player, through control of Grimm, does King Midas’s work for him. Objects and NPCs turn to gold as you pass them by, with objects such as leaves and boats crashing to the ground or bubbling to the seafloor due to their increase weight. In an odd twist for the series, climbing to a high vantage point and looking down at your handiwork is quite striking instead of depressing.
On a less than golden note: It appears the Chinese government has blocked Flickr and some other US sites this morning – so I’m unable to upload a new image to accompany this post.