2011 August

Five most recent posts:

February 15th

Valentine’s Wizardry! by Mikael

February 1st

Trine 2: Director’s Cut Gets Updated and Now Available in AU/NZ by Mikael

January 18th

Delays with Director’s Cut Update and AU/NZ release by Mikael

December 5th

Miiverse is artsy by Mikael

December 3rd

Frozenbyte Xmas / Wii U Launch Party by Mikael

A las afueras del reino, cerca del Academia Astral…
August 29th, 2011 by Susie | Category: Trine 2

In Finland we are used to the idea that everything is presented at least in two languages: Finnish and Swedish. The reason is that those two are the national languages of our country.

Of course English is playing more and more important role as well, especially in business life – for example, it is ”the official language” at Frozenbyte. Although we speak mostly Finnish here, all the documents are in English.

But we know that not everybody in this world speaks English as their first language, so in Trine 2‘s case it was obvious that we would provide the game in different languages: English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

Additional subtitles will be in Finnish (Russian and Turkish in selected areas). I will personally make the Finnish translation, so all you who understand Finnish can send all the critique straight to me.

Even if English is your first language, I would recommend you to try the other languages too. I guarantee it will be so much fun!

-Susie

Comments (10)
Making of Trine 2: The Mighty Bonecrusher!
August 26th, 2011 by Mikael | Category: Making Of, Trine 2

Bonecrusher is the newest addition to the Trine 2 enemy repertoire and was recently introduced in the new GamesCom Co-op trailer.

In this video we show you how this gnarly beast was made, all the way from the concept art to something that you might not want to meet in a dark alley.

-Mikael

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Making of Trine 2: Level Art Part III
August 26th, 2011 by Mikael | Category: Making Of, Trine 2

This Level Art video is from the tutorial levels and more specifically the one that introduces our female lead, Zoya the thief.

It’s a night level so the end product is fairly dark, but in the game this shady town looks pretty incredible.

-Mikael

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Focus Home Interactive doing the retail publishing in the EU
August 25th, 2011 by Mikael | Category: Trine 2

Frozenbyte Ltd. and Focus Home Interactive have joined forces to publish the PC/Mac retail versions in the European Union. The release date for now is Q4, with more specific dates to follow soon.

There will be a normal and a premium pack, the premium will include at least the OST made by Ari Pulkkinen and likely other goodies also.

More info on the Focus website.

The console side is published worldwide by Atlus and Frozenbyte is self publishing Steam and various other digital channels.

-Mikael

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GC11 Recap and PAX this weekend
August 24th, 2011 by Mikael | Category: Frozenbyte, Trine 2
GC11 was last week in Cologne, Germany, and it was huge. I mean lots of people, approximately 275k for the whole duration.

Me and Ari Pulkkinen were there and spend most of our time at the business side in meetings, but then on Friday the business side closed and we had to venture out to the show floors. The first 2 pics here show a little bit of what kind of crowds we encountered.

After making it through the sea of people we finally got to the Microsoft booths were Trine 2 was being demoed. As you can see from the pic, Ari was very happy about that and we stayed there for a while talking to fans. We handed out some Trine 2 postcards and took some photos, until we ran out of cards and energy.

All in all GC11 was an awesome experience, plus I am slightly tired still.

This weekend Atlus will have the game available at the PAX in Seattle, so if you are there, be sure to drop in and test the game.

-Mikael

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GamesCom Trailer!
August 19th, 2011 by Mikael | Category: Trine 2

GamesCom is going on and you can actually play Trine 2 at the Xbox booths in Hall 8. Me and Ari Pulkkinen will be there also now that the business side is closing and most of our official meetings are done.

If you can’t make it to GamesCom then the new trailer will keep you grounded for a bit. We wanted to make an EPIC! trailer with focus on co-op and think that it looks pretty nice.

-Mikael

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Reaching for the Stars
August 15th, 2011 by Susie | Category: Splot

A quick Splot update.

As you may already know, Splot’s task is to help Nettle the fairy. Nettle has had an argument with her mother, resulting in her making all the stars fall from the sky (or so she thinks!).

In the game you are supposed to collect golden stars and return them to the heavens. Each new star ups your overall score, and when you have collected enough of them, you can obtain new characters. You can also combo when collecting stars and this gives you a better multiplier and thus more stars.

Golden stars are floating in the air at the beginning of each level. When you collect them they become silver stars, so if you want to play a level again you can easily see which stars have been picked up already. Silver stars can be collected to get better high scores in a specific level.

-Susie

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Vice President at Your Service
August 11th, 2011 by Susie | Category: Frozenbyte

Pic: Joel being intensively focused in answering all the fan questions.

I want to introduce you an interesting person.

Every day Frozenbyte gets feedback via different channels, from which the FB community and the good old e-mail are most popular ways for fans and other people have their say. And every single day Joel, Frozenbyte’s Vice President that many of you know quite well, uses his precious time to respond to these queries.

He calms people whose computers do not want to run Frozenbyte’s games and gives them advice and tips. He answers questions about the company and the games coming out. He reads every single e-mail he gets and replies personally if possible, even the mean ones. And that is not all. In addition to all this, Joel works as a producer and takes care of many other things as well.

I guess he works 10–12 hours a day. I do not remember when was the last time he went on a vacation. He is an avid candy and soda consumer, and still surprisingly fit–but hey, hard work requires lots of energy!

Is it worth everything, you might ask. To tell the truth, I ask the same question every so often (in my mind). But Joel keeps doing this customer service thing, because a) he loves his job and b) he wants everyone to be happy with Frozenbyte and its games. Eventually this thought has grown into a part of the business strategy, and nowadays one of Frozenbyte’s goals is to serve its customers personally (read about Humble Frozenbyte Bundle’s support here).

This is a real challenge, because as the company is growing, it is easy to leave the whole thing for “someone else”. As long as Joel is running the show, there is no need to worry, but I guess he will need some help in the future.

-Susie

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Making of Trine 2: Level Art Part II
August 10th, 2011 by Mikael | Category: Making Of, Trine 2

Pontius the Knight. The royal ale provider of the kingdom. His humble abode is a serene farm with pumpkins so big that Cinderella could have had a yacht instead of a carriage.

When Pontius is not off on his adventures, he takes pride in maintaining his tiny ranch in top condition and tends to his various livestock/lunch meats. After all, he has a certain armor size to maintain.

This video is a little look at how the farm landscape was put together.

-Mikael

Comments (2)
Nonspatial-Oriented Writer Testing a Puzzle Game
August 9th, 2011 by Susie | Category: Splot

I just had another chance to play Splot on iPad. As I have told you earlier, Frozenbyte’s project manager Tero and his team have been busy with Splot for a couple of years now and hopefully the game is coming out at the end of this year at the latest.

There are three worlds in the game at the moment. Each world has twenty levels. I played world number two. I have to confess that it was not the easiest task for me. You see, I am certainly not a spatial person, so leading Splot and Nettle through the fields was a real brain game for me. But I had lots of time to do that, so it was not impossible at all.

Two different characters with different abilities made it more interesting as well, because I felt that they really worked together as a solid team.

Not to mention the kind smile on Splot’s face that made me smile too!

-Susie

Comments (2)