Happy Belated GamesCom everybody!
August 23, 2009

I’m writing this the first night of GamesCom, after the Konami press conference and our big trailer reveal. (In case you couldn’t tell, this and previous entries have been written on a time delay – but the timing should tighten up soon and we’ll approach realtime). It’s fun to read all the reactions to the trailer. The concept was something Ray and I thought of many many months ago, long before E3. Still, after so long it’s kind of weird to switch gears from “I can’t wait to see what people think” to actually seeing what people think.

It’s been difficult to explain the psych profile without spoiling it (I want to avoid any giant Irene head screenshots this time around). Hopefully the trailer gets the point across in an intriguing way. The system itself certainly deserves it.

I’m a little sad I couldn’t be there in Cologne to present the trailer in person (making the game takes precedent, though). I went to Leipzig last year and it was a great experience. I met a lot of fans who love Silent Hill dearly, and I could feel their expectations for the series. When I got home I’d gained a real drive to make sure Shattered Memories became something special that would resonate with those fans. I also made a lot of friends at Konami’s European branches. It was cool to learn that even people very far away from me who grew up in very different places knew the correct order to defeat the robot masters in Mega Man 2. Also, I love wandering around (if you couldn’t tell from my Japan musings in previous blogs), and Leipzig is an interesting place. Where else can you find old architecture, a guy running around with an inflatable doll, and a gigantic mall/train station?

But! What I remember most about my trip to Germany is the food. I love sampling food anywhere I go, but for example in Japan, you would expect the food to be different from what I was accustomed to. In Germany, though, it all seemed familiar. Lots of American food came from Europe or was based off European foods, right? But even though it seemed familiar, it managed to be very different compared to what I was used to. While not everything edible in Germany appealed to my tastes, I quickly learned the following:

Meat in Germany is sooooo good.
Germans take their chocolate seriously.
European bread and cheese is the best.

That last one might seem strange to our European readers (who read it and thought “duh”) but seriously Americans – our stuff just doesn’t compare. And I LOVE bread. But apparently the attitude around these parts is that bread and cheese are “just” bread and cheese. In Europe though, they’re something special. Especially in a sandwich with meat and followed by chocolate. I’m just saying.

And so whenever I think about going to Germany, I remember the food. It’s what I missed most about not returning this year. Which is strange to think about – how people get so attached to very specific details of a place, then whenever they think about that place, those details are what they expect to see. I wonder what it would have been like, going to GC Cologne, if the food was much different from GC Leipzig. Or my Konami friends weren’t there, or there weren’t any Silent Hill fans. That would seem very strange, and I’d have to re-learn everything I thought I knew from last year. It would be like starting over.

Silent Hill is a mysterious place; maybe all of this will make sense one day!

-Tomm

PS. Seriously you guys, it’s part of the trailer. Of course Mary Elizabeth hasn’t left the project.

source: SHSM Blog – Happy Belated GamesCom everybody! | 08/23/2009