The version used at Minecon was v116 ALPHA, and is not yet available for download. Among other things, it featured a new game mode called Challenge. In Challenge, you focus on doing things as fast as possible, like getting from point A to B. Today we created more maps for the mode. Here is a sneak preview:

We have also added local high score lists with epic voice acting feedback by Kinten to all relevant game modes:

Huge thanks to all the volunteers during Minecon that made it all possible!

Thats it for today!

Good night!

/thewreck

Oxeye just attended No More Sweden and made two small games! No more sweden usually offers words to base your game around and we got Evolution, Simulation and One Button Game. You can see screenshots of Cells and EvoBeats and what we are up to now in the gallery down below!

Hanging out with fellow game developers is usually a fantastic experience and this was no exception! To everyone that attended that we did not get a chance to talk to but that still want to discuss something, just send us an email at info@oxeyegames.com

This week me (thewreck), Kinten, Tommo visiting from Italy, and Frall will be working on Cobalt out of a yellow house in the south of Sweden. Kinten found an old AM radio and is now in the process of making a long range antenna so that we can listen to some Italian radio. Mollstam from Mojang has joined us as well and has taken it upon himself to head the cinnamon bun department to the pleasure of us all. I am investigating camera placement for the outdoor map theme in the Cobalt map editor since that needs to be addressed before an update can be released. Frall is working on maps and experimenting with the new tiles that have been implemented over the past week. Tommo is working on the OSX and Linux port of the engine. Check out the gallery below for some on location photos!

As some of you may know, many in Mojang and the whole lot of them Oxeye went to GDC/IGF this year. For me (thewreck) it was mostly to visit enchanting San Francisco and meet (hug) other developers, while for others – like notch who had speaking obligations – things were a bit less casual. Even while engorging myself in all the casual fun I managed to fit a bunch of work on Cobalt, alas I managed to catch the flu and was knocked out for the better part of the weekend following gdc.

After the gdc, me, kinten and another friend moved our cobalt development operations to an apartment in San Francisco for two weeks. Armed with our laptops we went exploring the breakfast offerings during the morning

the office cafés during the day

the night life during the night

and the sights during the weekends.

We managed to snap a lot of reference photos and recorded a bunch of sounds for the future. In regards to direct Cobalt development, I worked mostly on improvements to the editor, which is why many of the changes we have made will not be appearing in the v103 change-log. For example, the tiles browser has been remade, now supporting selecting multiple tiles (randomly picking between them after each placement) as well as rather advanced free text filtering.

The last week in USA, we went on a road trip along highway 1, through Santa Cruz, San Diego, through the Mojave desert to Los Angeles and finally flew home from Las Vegas proudly sporting my minecraft t-shirt. Now, it is time to get v103 ready for upload. We have no current estimate, but our current goal is to simply wrap it up, test it, and upload it.

Thanks, Apoc!

Oh btw… We’ll soon announce the next round of secret gifts. Since the wiki went down we have had to change our plans slightly, but we have something new cooking!

/jeb

/jeb

In two weeks, July 16-19, there will be a indie game developer gathering called No More Sweden in Malmö. This is the second year of the event, and this time around it’s more than twice the size with 34 people signed up! The main purpose of the event is to meet interesting people and have a fun time, but there will also be some game development competitions.

I will post more about this after the event, with pictures and maybe video clips, but until then you can find more information at the NMS site: http://www.nomoresweden.com

/jeb

Yesterday and today the Nordic Game 2008 is running here in Malmö (Sweden), which means the “number of game developers per capita” has sky-rocketed for a moment. We took this opportunity to meet up with some of the indie celebrities, namely Petri Purho, maker of IGF 2008 winner Crayon Physics Deluxe and Crayon Physics, Erik Svedäng, maker of the very much talked about Blueberry Garden, and Martin didn’t-catch-his-last-name who runs www.grapefrukt.com and a lot of cool stuff in his blog.

Hit the jump for pictures!

Here’s Erik and Martin choosing which pizza that suits the day:

Petri and thewreck:

Me stealing pizza from Petri, muhaha:

We definitely need to do this more often! There are so many indies in the Nordic countries so it shouldn’t be so hard, we just need to get out more

/jeb

During last year we had an office in a barracks owned by the university. This was a great opportunity for us to try working together in a shared environment. Unfortunately this offer was only available for up to one year, so we had to move out sooner or later (we managed to get an extra two months, muhaha). Since we didn’t want to go back to working from our own appartments, we looked for a new office, and found one not far from where we had been.

Two weeks ago we moved our stuff to the new place and I took pictures. Hit the jump to get it all!

The last supper at the old office. Awesome kitchen! The frying pan was ours, so we took it with us. *giggles*

My steph-father helped us out with the move. We didn’t really have much stuff, but managed to find enough junk to motivate the trailer.

This is the new office as seen from the outside!

Peter and Daniel are getting the right feeling for the new room.

Alex (the Mac-meister) in the corridor.

Pontus getting that special treatment from Daniel!

This is my new workspace. We really need new chairs, but so far we have to live with the Swedish crap from pi-kea.

All in all, we’re pretty happy about our new office! It’s so refreshing to get a new environment, and despite the small room, it really makes Oxeye feel like the next big thing!

/jeb

The most recent mischief they’ve made is a “LED door sign,” which could be changed by various switches, placed on the toilet doors at a night club in Malmö. They recorded the event with a camera, and it’s quite fun to see people reactions when the “lady’s room” and “men’s room” signs switch places.

You can read more about the project on this link, or follow the jump to see one of the clips. Noteable highlight: the guy in the beginning (testing the signs) is thewreck!