News

Sep 24 2010

Neill Blomkamp, Eat Your Heart Out!

I’ve been waiting for this moment for almost a year.

Back in November 2009 I officially incorporated Undead Labs and announced our intention to build the world’s first (and by default, best) zombie-survival MMO for game consoles. My first thought after the website went live was that I should invite George Romero, Max Brooks, and Robert Kirkman over to my place for a weekend of zombie video gaming, movie watching, and poetry recitation. My next thought, after shaking that little fantasy, was that I wanted Doug Williams to be the art director for this game, and that nobody — and I mean nobody — else would do.

Sep 24 2010

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

With the passing of the equinox, fall is finally here. The sun and the warmth have begun their yearly retreat, giving the rain and the gloom free rein over the Seattle skies, and even here in the Evergreen State, soon the leaves of the city trees will be turning and bathing the streets in a red and gold carpet of autumnal splendor. But these things are just the backdrop. The real beauty is that for the next two months, the world will be ready to fully embrace its love of all things dark and scary and creepy.

In short, it’s zombie season.

Sep 16 2010

Juice

Steve ran across this story on Lifehacker the other day.

Is this really efficient enough to be practical? I don’t know, but I do know that it’s awesome. Once the power grid goes down and zombies are roaming the streets, electricity is gonna be in short supply and the more ways you know to get around that, the better. Let’s face it, despite the fact that shake-to-charge flashlights exist, most still use batteries.

And darkness isn’t your friend.

Sep 16 2010

You Make Fun By Having Fun

When I first started in the business (Jeez, is it really fifteen years?) making games really was, well, a lot of fun and games.

There were, of course, plenty of creative frustrations and long hours, but back in those primitive days game development was just like what you want in a game: adventure, exploration, and immediacy. When I look back at the kinds of stuff I did in the Wild West days of games — like the Mechs in MechCommander, the Ospreys in Half-Life, or the animations in Counter-Strike — I remember it almost the way you do a great gaming session: a lot of drama, laughing, cursing, and pushing yourself hard.

In a word, fun.

Sep 16 2010

What A n00b

Today it’s my pleasure to introduce our technical art director Steve Theodore, also referred to as the “king of all technical artists” by our art team.

(With apologies to all other technical artists out there; I’m sure you’re awesome too…)

It’s a distinctive pleasure to have Steve onboard at Undead Labs, because I’ve been trying to recruit the guy for at least five years. Can you believe he turned me down to take a job at Bungie working on Halo 3? Really, what was he thinking?