Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!
A Video Games project in Austin, TX by Replay Games

Shadowrun Returns
A Video Games project in Bellevue, WA by Harebrained Schemes LLC

The Banner Saga
A Video Games project in Austin, TX by Stoic

Wasteland 2
A Video Games project in Newport Beach, CA by inXile entertainment

And the one that started it all:

Double Fine Adventure
A Video Games project in San Francisco, CA by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions

I am so psyched at seeing how these games turn out and if Leisure Suit Larry will return, he has around 18 days to go and is over halfway there!

It’s quite amazing what can happen in a year! From March 2011 to March 2012, a lot of things have happened. My private life  and my professional life have changed dramatically.

Read on if you want to know more!

Private life:

I’ve been going out with an amazing girl for over 1 year and 3 months now and it’s just a pleasure spending time with her and her family  and friends.

I’ve moved in with a friend I met through taking Japanese lessons after work for a year, and we went to Japan together right after I moved in.

I’ve attended a 65 years of marriage anniversary for my grandparents in 2011 and in 2012 I celebrated my grandads 92 years birthday. All of my grandparents are showing me their way to enjoy life and that just makes me proud to be their grandson!

I’ve met some really exciting people and seen new places and I keep wanting to see more and more all the time!

Professional life:

In 2011 I said goodbye to my workplace for the last 3 years. I truly enjoyed my time there and I still keep in touch with my colleagues at my old job. It’s actually quite fun to see what they are up to and I hope to continue talking to my friends in the future.

I started 2012 in a new position, a game programmer, and it has been a fantastic experience, which has seen me spend as much time as I possibly can working on the game we are developing. It has been my dream for a long time to work with games and create those experiences and I’m enjoying every second of it!

2012:

I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a fantastic year! I’m going to China in the summer with my girlfriend, to concerts with family and friends, to birthdays with my family, to enjoy the company of my friends and be part of creating a fantastic gaming experience!

Happy 2012 from the birthday boy!

My Birthday

During the next 6 weeks, my entire focus will be on work. I will therefore be shutting down my posting during this period and maybe it will go on further than that since my birthday is coming up in March.

I hope to come back with more updates!

Update: I’ve decided to extend the period of inactivity. I will post a few updates in between though. I don’t know when I’ll be back with regular updates.

I’m writing blog posts for my company at www.heroesandgenerals.com check them out if you’re interested!

Just outside of the main train station of Copenhagen lies Istedgade. Istedgade is famous for a history of prostitutes and shady types selling substances that are not quite legal. Recently a lot of restaurants and shops have begun eating into that territory and one of these is Magasasa. Magasasa is a Chinese restaurant that I have very fond memories of.

A romantic story

1 year and 2 months ago, I had never been to Magasasa before, but one day I invited myself to join a dinner for mainly Chinese people. This dinner was to change my life quite substantially, I met my girlfriend in there and we started talking that night and have been together since not long after.

The restaurant

Ever since, I have enjoyed several meals in there, it’s a very pleasant and calm restaurant. The food is both traditional Chinese dishes, but also a lot of inspiration has been taken from other Asian countries. The prices are quite good and you can get a substantial meal for a very fair price. The staff is pleasant and you can always mix and match your dinner to try out a variety of pork, beef and seafood dishes.

I can only recommend you check out their website and see if there isn’t a dish or two you would like to try out in their menu! Otherwise, if you’ve just arrived by train to Copenhagen you and feel like a bite to eat, it’s just down the stairs and to the right of the side entrance of the main train station of Copenhagen!

Website: http://www.magasasa.dk/

In my effort to locate and try out the multitude of sushi / Asian restaurants of Copenhagen,  I have stunbled upon Fuji Sushi, which is located at Pile Alle 21,  2000 Frederiksberg. I’ve been there quite a few times and it’s a well run place with a good variety of hot and cold lines of food.

It’s been a success all the times I’ve been there and it’s really a good price for all you can eat Sushi.

In January 2005, my gaming life was changed forever. I took part of the European Final Beta and my first 26 levels as a Male Dwarf Hunter was wildly different than the following 6 years of raiding, grinding, guildleading, casual’ing, laughing and meeting new friends. World of Warcraft was my first real MMO RPG experience and I highly doubt I will find or play a game like I played World of Warcraft.

Below you’ll find a few screenshots, a video and some of the best memories I have of the game, that I spent close to a full year (24 hours a day) in.

The Timeline

Period: February 2005 – September 2005
Guild & Realm: Night Shift, Al’Akir
Character: Muldav, Troll Shaman

Immediately after the game was released in Europe, I was guildless for around the first 20 levels, where I explored mostly on my own and found everything new and fascinating! The sense of exploration and being almost lost in a new world was extraordinary. I stumbled upon a group of dedicated players, who were in the guild Night Shift, a guild compromising mostly of Lithuanian players. I made a good impression and joined in on the guild. I reached level 60 with the company and help that the guild provided and soon we entered Molten Core. We wiped horribly on the first Firelords we encountered and it was simply glorious! Through the summer and autumn we progressed and finally killed Ragnaros the Firelord. It was without equal and it was great fun. The guild encountered Razorgore the Untamed and this was when I wanted to play with my Real Life Friends who were all playing on the realm Sunstrider. I decided to make the switch and start a new character with them.

Period: September 2005 – February 2006
Guilds & Realm: Trials of Sunstrider, Eternal Flames, The Second Renaissance, Sunstrider
Character: Vashu, Undead Priest

I switched to Sunstrider to play with a group of my friends, leveling was a lengthy process back then, but thanks to a previous knowledge from Al’Akir and a stable group of friends it went twice as fast as the first time. We started out with our own little guild and moved across various guilds. In Eternal Flames and The Second Renaissance we had our first proper raids of 20 man and 40 man. I was the only one with a full Molten Core raid experience and quickly helped with tactics and what to do.

The group of friends and I weren’t quite happy with the leadership in the guilds we were in and decided to try get our own thing up and running. This led to the period of my WoW time that I have the fondest and saddest memories from. We talked to a lot of the people we had met in the guilds and gave them the offer to join us, many of them had seen what we could do and the way we wanted to lead raids.

Period: February 2006 – November 2006
Guilds & Realm: Endless Corporation, Sunstrider
Character: Vashu, Undead Priest

We founded Endless Corporation and quickly started recruiting new people from Orgrimmar and seeing if they had a good grasp of the game and the endgame. Many of the people that joined in this wave had nothing but blue and green gear, but they had dedication and enjoyed playing the game.

I still remember the quick kills in Zul’Gurub and the first run into Molten Core with around 30 people, where we surprisingly killed Lucifron and Magmadar. This started the quick rise of Endless Corporation, which more or less killed a new boss and cleared existing bosses every week. It took us 3 tries to kill Onyxia, which back then was something of a small Miracle:

The best part of Endless Corporation was definitely the spirit of comradery, we didn’t use a sign up system, people just showed up! We always had a constant lack of various classes, but we managed! It was extremely fullfilling. We ended up killing Ragnaros in style.

It was like having a full time job being the guild-master and class-leader of the priests in Endless Corporation. I was raid leading and managing the members, as well as dealing with mounting frustrations between the leaders (most of us were real life friends). After a fantastic period of progress in Blackwing Lair, the guild suffered a blow it would never truly recover from, half of the officers quit just after our 2nd Nefarian kill and joined the best Horde guild on the server at the time. Much blame and harsh tones were spent, but most energy and a truly amazing effort was done to keep the guild running and intact.

We luckily recovered and kept progressing for some time in Ahn’Qiraj. One of the most satisfying and fantastic kills I have ever been part of was our kill of Princess Huhuran. I think 1 person died during that attempt and everything just clicked perfectly. Along with this was our biggest and only world PvP encounter with Nightshade, a fearsome alliance guild on the server:

We emerged victorious, but then we encountered the Twin Emperors and the toll of holding the guild together was becoming too much. My good friend and I decided to seek an established guild that was further progressed. Fate would have it that we ended up going back to Al’Akir and actually going back to the same guild that I left in 2005.

Period: November 2006 – May 2008
Guilds & Realm: Requiem, Al’Akir
Main Character: Vashu, Undead Priest

We joined the result of a massive guild merge, Requiem, which was Fists of Retribution and Night Shift, and the keen reader might notice that I had already been in that guild. We joined a guild that had just 2 weeks before, killed C’thun and were progressing in Naxxramas. The rush of joining a well oiled machine and seeing new content instantly was extremely gratifying.

Burning Crusade was released the 17th January 2007 and completely changed the game. At the time I was priest class leader in Requiem, but quickly lost the position as I was simply not able to do what was needed for the guild, so I became another member and kept playing. It was a fantastic time.

The smaller raid sizes meant that the group was much more focused and I had the best raiding period of my WoW time in this expansion! There are so many kill pictures and videos I could link to, but I’ll keep it brief.

Kael’Thas was such a tough nut to crack. A month of dedicated days of wipes and frustrations. Fighting for 20 minutes across 5 phases only to die and start all over was an incredibly frustrating process and that only made the kill that much sweeter.

Meanwhile I also made great friends, many of which I have visited several times in real life. I have been to England, Holland and parts of Denmark to meet up with them from both near and far. It is one of the best experiences I have had and it has been so much fun!

Killing Illidan, was what many considered the endgame at the time and it was such a fantastic fight. Everyone was dedicated and the morale was exceptionally high. Going through the Black Temple and the bosses was a blast and the challenge was fantastic.

Then Sunwell Plateau came and the hardest part of World of Warcraft was introduced. We threw ourselves at the challenge and the cracks appeared in the guild. The leadership changed and the requirements became too much. I decided the time as a hardcore raider had come to an end and a new period of my WoW career would begin, even though I never really let go of Requiem and came back once in a while to talk to them and generally hang out, since the guys and girls there, were amazingly good company (and still is).

Period: May 2008 – April 2009
Guilds & Realm: Pride of Denmark, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, Order of the Blackrose, Tyralyon
Main Character: Fyndhorn, Night Elf Druid

I leveled my first serious Alliance character since the Final beta with my girlfriend at the time. We rapidly progressed through the levels, beating any leveling speed I had managed before. I jumped around in a lot of guilds and met a lot of great people. Especially the Order of the Blackrose was a great time, where we raided. I started playing a bit with my real life friends again, but it was never the same as back in the Endless Corporation.

My interested for WoW started fading as the interest for single player games or other multiplayer games increased. It was after a longer period of inactivity I decided to take a break from WoW. I was finishing my education at the time and was also starting to interact a lot more with girls and friends than before (outside the game). I had also gotten a full time job, which took a lot of my time.

I ultimately decided to stop as well because the game had become nothing more than just getting more achievement points.

Period: August 2009 – September 2009
Guilds & Realm: Without any real relation to any guild, just back and talking to people
Main Character: Various characters

I came back for 1 month to see how things were going, but I quickly lost the interest again. I decided to stop again.

Period: January 2010 – April 2010
Guilds & Realm: Playing for fun, just cruising about
Main Character: Various characters

In 2010, I decided take a 3 month stretch and I caught up with friends again. I think I got excited about Cataclysm and Deathwing, since lore was always my main interest in the game. I went back on break and decided to wait until Cataclysm.

Period: December 2010 – September 2011
Guilds & Realm: Casual, Al’Akir
Main Character: Vashir, Troll Rogue

Cataclysm, the destruction of the world I hold so dear. New content for all levels and a huge amount of lore updates for the game. I was hooked again. I started a completely new character, a troll Rogue and started seeing all the zones again. It was fantastic.

I joined a small guild of dedicated guys. It was great and we started killing bosses left and right, though it wasn’t very intriguing. Even when Ragnaros 2.0 was introduced, I couldn’t keep the interest to keep raiding and decided to just fall away from the game.

The memories:

Since August 2011, I have done so many things and changed my life in so many ways (as you can read in the blog). Even with the announcement of Mists of Pandaria, I couldn’t even get interested. I think I’ll never return to World of Warcraft again and only time will tell if I’ll join their new production called Titan.

World of Warcraft in Vanilla and Burning Crusade was so amazing, it’s hard to put into words. The people were there and the content was great. It will always be in my memory as the best gaming experience of my life, because I’m finding it harder to get excited about games like that again.

The best thing is that I still have contact to the fantastic people I met in the game and I hope to keep those friendships intact for as long as I can.

Japanese cartoons and tv-shows are so different from their western counterparts, it’s quite incredible. A lot of overacting is common, the meanings and actions are exaggerated wildly and it all makes for often amusing, touching or disappointing scenes. Train-Man or Densha Otoko is an amazing show and I’ll explain why if you read on!

The Geek inside us all

Densha Otoko won’t appeal to everyone, that’s a given. Some people like Japanese / Asian culture and some don’t, this is a very basic difference in taste and will probably see you switching away from this show quite quickly.

If you manage to not stop watching, you will meet the main character Tsuyoshi Yamada, who on his internet chatboard is known as Densha Otoko. He’s an Otaku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku) with a capital O. His entire life is dedicated to watching and obsessing over Japanese anime and manga. He goes to conventions, maidcafés and generally just hang out in Akihabara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara).

He has no experience talking to normal girl and he’s incapable of completing sentences when he speaks to most people as he’s afraid of talking to real people and find comfort in the chatboards on the internet and his 2 best friends (who are also major Otakus).

I could on a lot of levels relate to all his feelings of anxiety (though they are greatly exaggerated in the show) and apprehension in his encounters with both bosses, women, family, enemies and friends. My inner geek was cheering him on and wanted him to succeed, just as the rest of the people on the chatboard.

The fateful metro ride

One day everything changes, Tsuyoshi finds himself in the metro on the way home from a great day with his friends in Akihabara and he looks up and sees the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He is completely mezmerized, until a drunk old man comes in the middle of the beautiful moment. He starts to abuse the girl and Tsuyoshi overcomes all of his inner hesitation, doubt and anxiety for a brief second where he stands up to the drunk man and distracts him until he is apprehended by the metro guards.

The girl is extremely glad of his intervention and gets his address to send him a thank you gift. She is the very image of innocence and purity. She is also very shy and is afraid of men ever since a traumatic experience in her life.

The story of the show

Every situation that Tsuyoshi and the girl (Hermes, see the show and find out why she’s called that!) has Tsuyoshi running to his message boards asking desperately for the help of his friends. The journey on which both Tsuyoshi and Hermes undertake is both touching and sweet. It also feels so real in a way because it’s so pure and simple. I found myself smiling when things were great and hopeful when things were bad. I even laughed out loud at some of the situations, I had chills whenever the “roar” of the internet sounded to boost Tsuyoshi’s confidence.

I wanted to be the best I could be after watching how Tsuyoshi did everything he could do to either change or be as good as he possible could to hold on to divine being he wanted nothing but to be near and see her smile.

Why you should watch it

I’ve rambled enough about this show. It’s 13 episodes of around 50 minutes each. It has an alternate ending, which I can highly recommend and it features both a fantastic intro song, the Imperial March from Star Wars and a great cast of characters. I hope you watch it and give it a shot.

It is not for everyone, but the ones who like it will absolutely love it!

I picked up this little title during the Christmas sales. It’s a sort-of simulation of how the worlds began and how a small asteroid turns into a massive solar system or even a black hole, if the mass becomes too great!

What Solar is about

Solar 2 isn’t a very deep game nor is it a very story driven game. It’s basically about you and your tiny speck of dust in the infinite space that grows by absorbing asteroids until you become a star, then your prey becomes the planets you evolved from and soon you’ll be nurturing a whole array of planets dependent on your radiant light!

You can fly around, defend planets, destroying alien invaders or just enjoy smashing your carefully nurtured planets and stars into the neighbouring constellations or you can try to complete the mystery quests. It doesn’t go towards any highscore, it’s just there for you to spend time drifting about serenely or destructively.

The thing about Solar 2 that has seen me spend hour after hour just drifting about is actually the music and the desire to just get another star in my system. Combined they have quite a pull. I would just like to repeat the part about the music, the whole atmosphere is just relaxing and very peaceful, it makes for great relaxation, after having a long day or just being in need of some quiet time.

Is the price right?

It certainly was for me during the Christmas sales, the longevity and replay value is minimal, but it’s nice to bring out the game once in a while and just look at my collection of stars grow and being capable of violent destruction or benevolent creation!

There is a demo, so you should try it out, before you buy, but I’ve heard that the demo was awfully limited, but then again, the gameplay / depth doesn’t get massively more complicated than what I’ve seen.

I am the featured developer of my company this week! Read more about it here:

http://www.heroesandgenerals.com/community/5715/featured-developer-henrik-skov-jakobsen-reto-vashu

In Denmark, the prices of eating, going out and living are quite high. So someone came up with the idea of making a discount book where you get a very simple deal, buy 1 meal / drink or experience and you get the second one for free. The book can be bought in any book store called “Bog & Idé” and I’m sure you can get it other shops as well.

I bought the book for the first time in 2011 and it has given me opportunities and ideas for places I wouldn’t have gone at all during 2011, especially restaurants.

I am hoping that I’ll get even more more out of the book this year and I can only recommend that you get a book. The book is especially good for couples, but in the adventure section there’s a lot of stuff for a couple of friends or if you want to go to Cocktail bars, there’s an entire section for that as well. I could go on with all the take-away options as well!

Check it out on their website twoforone.dk and see if it’s not something for you!