Was I nervous? I would be lying if I were to say I wasn’t. I normally won’t be nervous at all for those that know me. If anything, I relish this opportunity. However, my main worry was with the state of my vocal chord. Being shot as it is, I was worried if the Publishers can understand me.

So, this particular blog is my shout-out to all the Publishers that came by. All of you were very understanding and accommodating. Of course it helps that the responses for all our projects ranged from not bad to very very good.

I think I’d been at it enough to know the difference between lip service and genuine interest (I would say 80%) of the time.

Only one rejection today from EA. However, it was still a big victory in my opinion. EA was pretty honest from the beginning that they’re only interested in working on their own IP or triple A licenses. However, he wants to see our work to determine our skills level. If it’s good enough, and we’re open to the idea, EA would like to look into a subcontract-type arrangement.

He was impressed with our creative capability. So, with EA, it looks like we’ll be able to get an outsourcing project for DS when it becomes available (assuming we meet all the RFP requirements of course). I hope we’ll have enough resource to tackle the project when the time comes.

Gotta give kudos to the team. I really drove them hard and they came through. Less than 3 weeks to have Housewife Superstar playable demo ready. Granted it’s about 70% of where it should be. Still, it’s good enough to give Publishers concrete idea about the game.

There’s no way we could do this 6 months ago. The experience from all the DS projects the past 8 months really helped. So do all the tools and engine that we’d created for the aforementioned projects.

How last minute is the delivery? How about 20 minutes before my first meeting. To be fair they delivered the build to me the night before. However, I gave fairly lengthy list of fixes. It was about 55% of where it should be. It’s a wonder they are able to address my whole list.

I ran into a JAL air hostess on the train who also helped me get proper hotel in Narita to sleep over night.  In a way, I’m glad I got stuck in Narita because it gave me the chance to visit Aeon. Aeon is kinda like a Japanese Factory Outlet. It’s heaven for shopping hound like myself.

Found some nice books (if somewhat expensive) for Housewife project. Got a nice jean with swath of Japanese kimono pattern. As typical of Japanese attention to detail, the stitching, cut, and material are immaculate. Like Evisu jean, it’s the jean’s made from those vintage cloth using old-school loom. So while it’s not cheap (at $60), I would say it’s more than worth the money considering I saw similar jean in Koenji that went for $200.

Finally, I also discovered this nice chic interior/clothing store where I got a nice jacket. I’ll visit it again for sure although I may have to do so at their Ginza location as it’s a bit hard for me to make my way to Aeon.

I only slept about an hour or two on the flight. After I woke up to eat my meal and started working on my laptop, the idea just kept flowing. So much so that the battery gave out on me. I continued using my pen and notepad. Hardcore. Old school. Despite lack of sleep, I must say the flight was super productive. Refined some really ideas for Housewife Superstar remaining game play.

I got stranded in Tokyo for one day. The lady at information counter gave me wrong gate information. It didn’t help that the transit time was 30 minutes. The combination basically resulted in me missing my connecting flight.

This would basically mean that I’ll have to arrive on Monday, the day before the show. My compatriots all got to San Francisco Saturday in order to cope with jet-lag. Me? I’m a big boy in little guy body, I’ll manage.

Shits happen in life. This is minor compares to other. I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the staff at ANA though. They were typical Japanese in going out of their way trying to fix the problem. I can’t say they’re most efficient at it but I can’t certainly fault them for their effort.  Despite the problem, I would happily take ANA again.

Despite last minute meeting requests, we’re getting pretty good response so far. As a matter of fact, zero rejection and even one request from a medium-sized publisher.

Now, the pressure’s on. The Housewife Team is cranking it out big time. I think we’ll have a playable in place although it will be about 75% of the actual. Still, 3 weeks to do this? I think that’s pretty good.

The Wii Project team is in a much earlier stage. So we’ll just bring concept for it. It’s partially due to me being knee deep in both Makeup and Housewife projects.

Overall I’m happy with the response and the progress on Housewife. As for the Wii project, I think I’ll bring it along base on interest.

Yes. I’d decided that we’ll bring the concept for our Wii title to GDC. Now let’s see if we can get it ready on time with all the ongoing madness here…

This is the first Thai movie I’m looking forward to seeing since the miserable Opapatika (see my previous post about it).

Besides looking awesome, I’m also a friend of the director, Prachaya Pinkaew. It goes without saying that I will be rooting for the guy to recapture the magic he did with Ong Bak. That and Chocolate will supposedly take a different turn for Prachaya with a lot of emphasize on scripting (gasp!) and acting.

While I love Ong Bak, it would not be a threat to garner best acting or best screen writing nomination in my lifetime, unless there’s some sort of Bazaro-like parallel universe.

Then there’s the story of sacrifice you heard that Jeeja made in order to prepare for this role. Great story. You can’t help but root for the girl. And from what I’ve seen so far, she does stuff in this movie that will definitely leave your jaw dropped (even though you’d seen some moves from Tony Jaa already but she has couple unique moves of her own too).

I’m getting quite a load of emails and questions about Housewife Superstar since we’d signed with Eidos on the other title. As some of you’d noted, the second title that we’d been holding off is Housewife Superstar.

So who will be the lucky Publisher? Those closest to me know who my front-runner is. However, nothing is written in stone nor will it be until we finished up with Game Connection San Francisco 08. You never know what will happen between now and then. For all I know, we could have Cloverfield like disaster attacking San Francisco or Bangkok!

Having made that lame pop-culture reference, you know how I love my front-runner. I love what they bring to the table, their passion/understanding of the property, and just a simple fact that they’re nice people. And you know how I like working with nice people.

What’s the progress on Housewife Superstar development? We already have full GDD completed and the first playable demo ready. I can confidently say that final hobbies I chose for the games can all be translated into unique, fun, and addictive game play experience.

Why is it moving along faster than Makeup even though you semi put it on hold? Since it’s my baby, it’s never out of my mind. If anything, the time I had gave me even more clarity on game play for each hobby whereas I had a kind of writer’s (game designer’s) block shortly after last year’s GDC. Since the game is a solo effort (as opposed to collaborative with two other studios like Makeup) and I have complete creative freedom on its direction (without possible influence of publisher), this all adds up to full development efficiency.

Of course the fact that the team working on Housewife didn’t sit by idly while I put it on-hold. Rather, they worked on 5 other DS titles while waiting for me…so the tools/engines created are very mature and the experience they gained are invaluable for this project.

At the rate we’re going, I can tell you that we’ll finish it before Makeup!

Ok. I’d been getting questions about Makeup Diva and what happened now that we got it signed. I hate to be all corporate PR flag on you…but…we’re under the agreement to keep mum on this project. I can only say that it’s now in full development. Anymore than that, you gotta contact our Publisher ^_^

Eureka!

After five long months of negotiation, we signed a deal with Eidos for one of our title.

Now I can focus on our second title. From the buzz, I’m sure you’d gathered that the second title is even hotter than the one we just signed. This is the reason why I’m holding off on signing the second title despite the offers. It’s my true baby and I want to make sure we go the right partner who fully understand it.