Puzzle Pirates

Hello, blog readers! Here I'd been wondering what to post on the blog, because I wanted to post SOMETHING. I had been planning to go with Hi. I like soup. Do you like soup? However, that seemed a bit dull, so I perused the Cask of Blog forum, and lo! A Question of the Day was suggested, and I saw that it was good. That said, daily seems like I'd get a bit strained after a few weeks, and so I plan to make this a weekly thing. So far, the question I've been asked the most is Hi! How's

As an oceanmaster, I deal with quite a few complaints every shift. Aside from the valid swearing and theft complaints, I get a lot of complaints in which it's very obvious that the complainer just wants the complainee to be punished by a higher authority. Reasons for complaints range from she wuz meen to he did something and stopped when I threatened to complain to threating to report me for no reson. We all live in very pacifistic societies. I remember being told over and over in school to not respond to teasing or attempts to pick fights, but to

Sharp readers spotted the news that Three Rings acquired new investors last month, but they didn't seem to notice the awesome Three Rings profile picture on the True Venture website. (You'll have to scroll down a bit, as companies are listed alphabetically.) We're looking to expand the Three Rings team now, with a slew of job postings up on our website. Please pass them along to anybody interested! The big news last week was naturally that Whirled went into open beta testing. Please join us in testing out some games, making things, and giving us feedback. I've particularly found the

Happy Wednesday, good pirates. Many of you may have noticed that we experienced a traffic bump this month. This has resulted in a bit of a population rise, with every English ocean seeing a rise in average online population. If you can, get out there and run a pillage or two to welcome the newcomers! We're not precisely sure where all of this traffic is coming from. It may be some stepped-up advertising, or a lot of young people all over the world starting spring break. Regardless, it's a welcome burst of noise. This week, the question I'll be tackling

Spring comes to San Francisco! Recently the days have become warm and sunny, though the nights still bring in the signature fog and damp cold winds of the city. The theme of springtime and growing things is not lost on us here at OOO. As a response to an inquiry in the Cask of Blog forums, Domokun of Sage's As Clio and Dio sail into the sunset, a new chapter of Puzzle Pirates begins. With the addition of two puzzles to production, a new round of Ocean Master hiring in progress and with a sprinkling of Forum posting from the

It was a crazy week. I couldn't capture the feeling in a photo, but if you'll look at this picture of the morning meeting with about 350 volunteers in a room, you might get an idea of how large the conference associate program is. Every year a veritable army of bright-shirted folks flow through the Moscone Center, checking badges, staffing talks and sessions, giving directions, and generally doing work that you might call behind the scenes except the shirts are so bright that we're not capable of blending behind anything. The Puzzle Pirates flickr page is updated with pictures of

Yesterday afternoon I listened to a panel as part of the Casual Games Summit on which our own Captain Cleaver took part. The topic of the afternoon was the changes that casual games will make in the future, particularly the way that the business will change. As always, the Captain was a compelling speaker. Even while some of the information presented was a bit dry, he managed to remain entertaining for his portion of the talk. One nice point he made is his continued dislike for the term 'User'. The people who engage in our games are 'Players' and it

Hey there mates, Hypnos reporting in from the GDC this week. Monday and Tuesday are all-day summits and tutorials, some of which Captain Cleaver took part in. I managed to snap some pictures and upload them to our Flickr page and take a brief video of the Casual Games Summit. The Flickr and Youtube pages will be updated with more photographs and videos as I take them this week. So far everything has gone very well. Bia and Hermes switched sleep patterns from night shifters to getting up at dawn with little complaining and no noticeable side effects save the

When I took part in helping out at the Game Developer's Conference last year I really had little idea what I was in for. The following week was somewhat surprising, very tiring, and extremely enjoyable. It was a learning experience throughout that I found aided me in surprising ways with my work as an Ocean Master. This year I came and began to see faces that I had not in the past year. Friendships that began then picked up immediately, which created a wonderful sense of camaraderie. The group I found myself with last year congregated again, and we spent

My, it has been a very long time since I have written a post here. The winter has been especially busy, with extra shifts, December events, and the inevitable family and friends taking time away from work. As such, this post has been much delayed. I believe I intended to write it sometime in November. In my last post I discussed the importance of analogies in puzzle designs, at least within the context of Puzzle Pirates. This time I will attempt to wrestle with the more important side of design: the mechanics. The mechanics are everything when it comes to