Hi from Seattle!

Hi all, I'm currently lounging around in Hotel Max in Seattle using the exorbitantly priced wi-fi.

Helen and I flew over on Sunday, it was a 10 hour flight and was fine, although I found some glass in my melon! I got some free travel vouchers for not suing.

So today I went to the Big Fish Games offices on 4th Avenue. They have a whole floor on this big central skyscraper with nearly 300 employees.

I finally met John Cutter, the designer who I'm working with. I also met Adrian Woods, the developer of the highly successful Mystery Case Files series (the one which kick-started the Hidden Object genre). I met the guy that made Blood (an old Duke 3D era game where you could play football with the heads of your victims). I saw Azada 2, and heard that Hidden Expedition Amazon has broken all sales records in the last 4 days - it's sold a pretty crazy number. Met some other developers, designers and nice people. There's this cool bit of the office where all the artists are working on huge TFTs displaying really lush graphics from up and coming games - some if which I got to see in action. Also everyone gets around on scooters!

So anyway it's been a good day although I feel very tired due to the time difference. I wanted to go to sleep after I finished at the office but Helen said we needed to go out and get some more sunlight to help us adjust. So we took the ferry over to Bainbridge island. It was really nice and the Seattle skyline looked cool. We ate vegetable burritos, yum. Reminds me, for the first time I had U.S.-style pancakes with maple syrup on this morning. We made the mistake of ordering a "high stack" which was just impossible to eat - tasted great though!

Naturally Helen's been shopping and bought some nice things whilst I've been busy. All the people are really nice here.

On Wednesday we are catching a train to Vancouver, Canada, to stay there for a few days and then we are flying back to London on Saturday. We heard loads of great things about Vancouver so are really looking forward to the visit.

OK, that's it for now...

Which guy was it that worked on Blood? Blood's one of my favourite games of all time :D

Sounds like an interesting trip !

Based on the credits (on the right-hand side of the page), it's likely Nicholas Newhard, given he was "Design" and "Lead Programming".

http://www.mobygames.com/game/blood

Ah, cool :)

Cool, its nice to see a company treating its developers well :)

Great to hear from you :)

Good luck on the rest of your trip.

10 hours flight is not as long as I expected. When I was checking flights to Vancouver I was under impression that it will take 18 hours to get there.

cheers
Roman

Yeah it was Nick who made blood, he's a really nice guy and has worked on plenty of cool stuff.

Anawiki: thanks! I woke up at 5:30 am today an I'm wide awake. Must be not quite used to the time difference yet. Yeah the flight was actually just under 10 hours and the time difference is 8 hours. I watched some inflight movies but the system crashed a few times when I tried to play games (Bejewelled was on the list of games!). Apparently going back is the killer due to jet lag.

Today I'm going over the powerups and enemies for my current game with designer and the artists which should be good fun. Then I'm meeting the CEO, CFO, CTO etc, all the C-level bigwigs. Helen is going wine tasting!

I'm currently debating if I should have pancakes again for breakfast...or eggs.

Wow that's some seriously interesting stuff. I'm a massive Blood fan here, too. Did you know sswifty worked on a commercial expansion pack for that game?

So what is your latest project, Grey?

Finding sunlight can be a challenge in Seattle, LOL.

If you have the time, you might want to take one of the underground tours of Seattle:

http://www.seattletravel.com/seattleundergroundtour.html
http://www.undergroundtour.com

john cutter worked on Might and Magic 3 didnt he?
he is a big rpg designer I think

Really? Was it Cryptic passage, or another? My brother and I did the fan addon 'Gods' back in the day, and planned on Gods 2 for Blood 2. We still have some original lines by Stephan Weyte lying around, which Monolith made for us. Ah, thems were the days ;)

Anyway, back on with this thread's topic...

Really good hearing what you`re up to over there. Hope the rest of your holiday is just as fun.

Jason.

Funny, you came to the States while I just got back from London. I really liked it, but I was there on a tour; not making money but spending it :(

Contact me if you want to have a beer. I live in Seattle and would be happy to show you and the family around. I just sent you an email.

Hello from London.

Our scores are:

Bosnia Herzegovina: 10 points

@Reactor- yeah that was the one.

Sounds cool Jake, welcome to the US of A.

What part of seattle you in? I live near seattle, about a 40minute drive. You're lucky to come now, seems that we're getting some nice weather, mostly rain over here normaly.

Hi all, phew another crazy busy day. Met loads of people today including the artists for the Mystery Case files and other games. I know what the next Mystery Case files game is going to be and some other secret projects too. I got taken up to the 20th floor which has all the email and phone support staff on it. It has an incredible view of the city and the sea - just amazing. They have 300 staff there and are soon moving to new premises. I met people in quality control who I worked with and also the Spanish, French and German translators who did the localisation for Fairway. Then this evening the VP took us to dinner, which was nice. I've spoken to so many people and been feeling the jet lag quite a bit so that everything has just been a blur.

In the morning we are catching a train up to Vancouver and having a look around. On Thursday night we are meeting a load of Indie programmers from Vancouver (from the Indiegamer forums), including the programmer of the Professor Fizzwizzle games that my kids and I love playing.

@John Galt: yeah I heard that sswift worked on something like that. My current project is a game I'm contracted to make for BFG. I've been having great fun working on the design with John Cutter but I can't tell you more about it at the moment.

@Duffer: thanks for the info but this is our last evening evening here and we have an early train to catch. However, it seems likely that we'll visit again soon...

@Jeremy Paxman: John Cutter has worked on quite a lot of classic games over the years since the Amiga days. He's a really great guy to work with, very enthusiastic and full of ideas + really lets me chip in with my own ideas too.

Quicksilva: thanks! It's been busy and fun for me and Helen's had a really nice time, she has just been treated like royalty. We bought some wine for our parents (who are babysitting for us this week) and BFG wil ship it back for us, cool!

Cartman: It would have been really cool to meet you but I've been busy all day and I'm dog tired now and we are off in the morning. However, next time I'm here we should definitely meet up.

Yahfree: I was inside most of today but at about 5:30pm I was out in the sun and it was very nice, summer has arrived for you! The weather is supposed to hold; so that will be nice in Vancouver.

You should plan to come back out for Casual Connect next month. Alot of the people from the Indie Games forum are usually there as well as your buds from Big Fish.

Yeah I heard about that several months ago but by then I'd already booked my family holiday and realised that the dates clashed, so unfortunately it's a no go.

So anyway, we traveled to Vancouver by (slow) train on Wednesday morning and went to the hotel which had only just opened on that day and so we couldn't check into the room. That was OK though because we took a nice walk through downtown to Granville island and then over to Kitsalano. Later that night we ate a meal in Robson street. The weather was great, really sunny.

Yesterday we were taken on a tour of Vancouver by someone who knows it really well and then we had lunch on Kits beach (well in a restaurant there). Then we took a sea bus over to North Vancouver and had a stroll around - it's nice a peaceful in the residential areas.

In the evening we went to the Indie developer meetup at Earl's restaurant. It was organised by Ryan Clark of Professor Fizzwizzle fame. I met some interesting people there. Most people weren't making casual games but were in fact making games for XBLA or I-phone or were making MMOs etc. Met some guys who used to work for Relic Entertainment including the programmer of N and N+, he was about my age and on my wavelength about making core games easier and more accessible because when we kids games were just waaaaay too hard. Also met the programmer of Eets who has given up on casual games and is now making an "mmo-thing" as I called it and they were horrified.

Yeah so lots of successful programmers here doing varied things.

Today we will go for a walk around Stanley part as the weather is really great, then it's a bus back to Seattle for one more night before we fly home.

See you round!

sounds like a great holiday Grey, enjoy the rest of it.

Wow that sounds totally awesome dude!

We discovered that lots of people in the U.S. say "Awesome" a lot :-) Seems to be back in vogue.

Anyway, last day we went to the Pike St. Market and bought a Zelda Ocarina for my eldest son, way cool. Then we visited the Japanese gardens which were really peacefull. It was a REALLY nice hot day so I bought a "life is good" cap ;-)

Flight hope was long and movies were sub-par, but we made it back fine!

It's a small world - I just found out one of my Uni friends who emigrated to Seattle spent a couple of years at BFG. I must ask him why he left.

Apparently not many people at all leave, although there were some layoffs a couple of years ago. I'm not worried about this though because I really liked what I saw and I'll work hard and if it doesn't work out, I'll do something else.

Hey Grey - you aren't laying over on in the Boston area on the way back across the pond, are you?

He's already back.

*shakes his fist at the sky*

Yeah sorry dude, I'm sitting in bed recovering from a Hernia operation. Next time! ...

I've heard of those 'Holiday and Hernia Operation' packages.

Would love to see some pics of your visit Jake, not the operation ones ^^

The op was when I got back ;-) I had it scheduled, it wasn't going to the US that caused it.

I'll post some pics of the Indie meetup on indiegamer. All the rest our of Seattle and Vancouver (lots of water in the photos) and Big Fish Games studio.

Yes we do say awesome a lot. Of course I throw a "dude" on the end of mine. :-)

Grey I'm really coming far with my 2D puzzle game. A couple more weeks and I'll be ready for a private demo (kinda like a private dance but....). I'd like you to check it out along with a few select around here.

Awesome dude!

Good luck with it. Sure I'll check it out.