This year marks the beginning of the first ever annual Swedish Developer Awards, hosted by the Swedish Games Industry (Dataspelsbranschen).

At a ceremony held in Stockholm this past Friday, a jury consisting of representatives from the Swedish games industry decided on who should take the first round of awards.

Personally, we couldn’t think of a better way to kick off this marvellous new tradition than by our being named Studio of the Year, and luckily…neither could they!

“With turnover increasing by nearly 100% per year over the past three years and with a newly established satellite studio in Malmö, Tarsier Studios have managed the feat of putting Karlshamn on the map. Through hard work and high quality productions, they have grown from a small and unknown Studio to a large and proven one, all by themselves. This year’s Studio is Tarsier.”

We bow our aching heads, bend our creaking knees, and dance an ill-advised jig in honour of this honour! Stuff like this makes all of our hard work…well, it’s still hard, but we’re at least smiling a bit more now!

We’re so happy with this award, and really hope it can help put Tarsier Studios on the map. We’ve not done much colonizing and putting flags in the ground yet, but we will soon…promise! Just have to get this game finished first!

Press Release in English
Press Release in Swedish

A whopping 1% of it to be exact!

The Kickstarter programme lets fans like you (and us!) make a direct contribution to games that simply have to be made! And since Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert are responsible for some of our favourite gaming moments of recent years, we felt compelled to cough up some cold hard cash. Our employees may starve for the next few months…but we’re okay with that!

You don’t have to be Billy Big Bucks to get involved either. You can pledge anything from $1 to $150, 000, and any pledge over $15 will receive a wonderful one/four/loads of-a-kind gift!

So put…that coffee…down! Don’t force your heroes to work for the man…let them work for the fans!

Pledge here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure

And check out Double Fine right here:
http://doublefine.com/

The Gazelle award, presented by the Swedish financial magazine Dagens Industri, is awarded to companies that “has achieved a continuous growth in revenue or gross profit for the last four financial years, and which has, in total, more than doubled the revenue or the gross profit in the period”.

We’re not quite sure what that means either. But it must be good, because they gave us flowers and a certificate and everything!

Onstage, representing for Tarsier, were Mattias Nygren, Andreas Johnsson and Peter Lübeck.  Upon receiving a bouquet of roses, Nygren fell to his knees and sobbed “You love me! You truly love me!”

No, Mattias, we love your continuous growth in revenue or gross profit for the last four financial years. But you’re a pretty good guy in any case!

The prize for quip of the evening, though, has to go to the flame-haired gentleman in the red velvet blazer – Mr Andreas Johnsson. Regular visitors to our site will know that Andreas has already made quite a name for himself in Malmö as the saviour of cat-kind. But he will now forever be remembered for his witty antics at this year’s ceremony.

When asked “What has been the toughest moment in the company’s history so far?”, Andreas replied “The first five years.”

The remark was greeted with much laughter. Although, curiously, not from Andreas himself. He merely pretended to break down in tears and curl up into the foetal position onstage.

What a guy! Deadpan til the last!

Click here to read the full article in Dagens Industri (in Swedish).

Photo: Peter Enckell

Upon hearing the distressed meow-ing of said moggy, our hero squeezed into his best spandex and leapt into action. Leading the massive 58 minute operation was Andreas, who had this to say…

“In situations like that, you don’t have time to think. Your body becomes an instrument of pure cat rescue. I just couldn’t let it suffer like that…and I didn’t want my engine clogged up with cat bits.”

Assisting the operation was Björn, who was tasked with pushing the cat’s rear end.

Björn has not spoken since.

Artist’s impression of what a recently rescued cat might look like.

Anyway, we will shortly be posting a thrilling tale of heroism and daring-do, hitherto unseen on Planet Tarsier; but until that time, we hope you enjoy this video as much as we did.

Cheerio for now!

First of all, can you tell these fine ladies and gentlemen a little bit about yourself?

Hi, my name is Sebastian, I am sixteen years old and have been a serious LittleBigPlanet™ addict for the last two years!

I spend most of my free time creating in LittleBigPlanet™. It’s such a great place to unleash your ideas and creativity. Before LittleBigPlanet™ came and filled my life with Sackboys and fluff, I liked to do a bit of drawing too, but ever since the first LittleBigPlanet™ hit the stores, I have barely had any time for my old interests!

Tell us a little bit about how you got started with LBP? Was it love at first sight? Is there room for any other games in your life right now?

Ahhh, my first meeting with LittleBigPlanet™. I read a preview of it sometime in 2008 and I had absolutely no idea what it was. Then when I watched a video I was absolutely super-mega-woop-hooked! The idea of creating anything was, for me, revolutionary. I spent weeks annoying the sack out of my friends, hyping this game that would turn my grades upside down.

I remember making my dad drive to the store that was somehow releasing it a day earlier. There was such anticipation before putting the disc in my PS3, and then watching that intro narrated by Stephen Fry. Then I sat up and raged at the Create mode until my dad made me go to bed. It was wonderful, simply wonderful.

I do have time for other games though! I am just about to beat Demon’s Souls and I totally bought (and loved) Portal 2. Then we’ve got Skyrim coming up on 11/11/11. I’m also going to mash through the new Batman game, the new Rayman game and probably a few Zelda games.
But yeah, I usually go through about four main titles every year, the rest of the time is spent creating in LBP2. It’s great to do something else for a bit of inspiration.

So you’ve sacrificed your school summer holidays for the the greater LBP good? How have you found your time at Tarsier? They didn’t treat you too badly did they?

Honestly I have had a fantastic time here. I had no idea what to expect before I came, but everyone was really friendly, helpful and supportive. It’s also interesting to see how all of the folk here are normal gamer people. They’re just a bunch of nerds teaming up to follow their vision and make something fun and enjoyable. Just like me really, but with more education and less hair!

To LittleBigPlanet™ regulars, you’re probably better known by your PSN ID. Have you found any big differences between working as a one man show and working in a game development studio?

Oh yes, yes indeed. When I create on my own I usually have a vague idea for a story and some small gameplay ideas. Then I create the gameplay motifs, scenery and cut-scenes as I go along. It’s a lot of fun working that way, but the thermometer tends to become all sad and overheated. When you have to ditch gameplay pieces that you have decorated nicely but just don’t feel fun, it can be a painful experience!

At Tarsier it’s a bit more professional. Here the designers create the motifs in basic cardboard, and then we look at each other’s stuff and give feedback. Lastly, we put them together in an order that creates a nice flow throughout the level, then we decorate it and then finally we add cutscenes.

It was pretty hard adapting to this new way of creating in the first few weeks (I found myself secretly adding visual effects to the gameplay pieces, such as small glowing dots and confetti. But I only did this in the evenings when nobody was looking!) In the end, though, I found this method worked better, since you have so much more control over your gameplay and flow. Sure it can feel a bit frustrating when you want to do everything at once, but it’s way more efficient if you want to end up with something amazing.

It must be pretty sweet getting paid to make games though right?

YES! This is pretty much my dream job and I’m loving it to bits.

As someone who’s worked with LBP as both a developer and a Community creator, you’re kind of in competition with yourself to see who can come up with the coolest stuff. Who’s winning?

It’s very close, but I think the ‘community me’ is just ahead! I have the freedom to create pretty much anything I want in my personal projects, so the possibilities are endless. I can also do the really crazy stuff that the main LBP story mode couldn’t contain, simply because it’s too random.

So, is this something you’d like to do for a career? If so, what kind of games would you like to make?

Yeah, that’s the plan right now! I know it’s sort of a hard path to take but there’s nothing wrong with trying! I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to create in the future to be honest. I’d like to introduce completely new experiences and ideas to the world, but don’t we all! The main goal right now is to learn as much as possible outside of LBP, so that I can create games in some form, and then hopefully get cracking. To be honest I’m pretty happy as long as I’m having fun, and I’m having fun right now so I guess I’m on the right track!

And how do you think the new features of the PlayStation Vita® is going to change things for creators?

The touch allows you to activate things without putting your sacky in a control seat or even moving him, making menu activation a whole bunch easier and a lot more fun. I also think that creating is going to become a bit faster with these new touch elements and, unlike the move pack, everyone in the community can enjoy the wonders of touch!

Finally, do you have anything to say to the millions of people who have yet to play LBP Vita? Should they be getting a little bit excited?

I definitely think they should! The touch is working great and adds a whole bunch of gameplay opportunities. You will be able to create masterpieces on the go and the create mode has been improved and customized with the new fancy touch controls. I am really liking this game and can’t wait for the final experience!

Visit this site right now and vote on your favorite game!

OK, so we’ve been totally rubbish at keeping you posted on the comings and goings of LBP Vita since E3. No doubt many of you have been staring at our site since then, hitting the refresh button every 10 minutes and being rewarded with nothing but a picture of a bowl of strawberries. To those people we can but stare at our feet and say “sorry”. You do have our heartfelt assurance that the strawberries did, in fact, taste absolutely glorious!

LBP Vita is being shown off at Gamescom as we speak, giving people the opportunity to see our really rather excellent Create mode in action. Yes, the rumours are true…it really is rather excellent!

To make further amends, we would like to offer you a gift…these two links:

IGN: LittleBigPlanet – Far From a Gimmick
The best use of the Vita’s unique capabilities.

Kotaku: LBP will show off your fancy new PlayStation® Vita
Every new console or handheld needs that one game. That one title that you show first to friends, family and co-workers. The one that makes them go “ohhh, that’s neat”, and makes you feel better about spending all that money you’re already slightly regretting. LittleBigPlanet is that game for the PlayStation Vita.

Both are full of praise for the game, and it’s great to see that our goal of making this the best LBP game ever remains firmly on course.

Anyway, enough of our jibber jabber, we’ve got to get back to work but we’ll see you again really soon. Scout’s honour!

Cheerio, and enjoy!

Hosted by our very own darling duo, Maria and Emilie, this particular day sprang to life with a bag-hand-out-ceremony in the summer sun outside the office. Bewildered by the bags and their contents (a map, a one-time-use camera, crazy sun glasses and a couple of beverages of your choice), the Tarsians were easily directed onto to a large bus before they knew what was happening.

What was happening, it turned out, was a guided tour of Malmö and its surroundings. The trip was narrated by a lovely, “unbiased” woman who took care to warn us of imminent dangers in the Malmö-area, such as “roaming homosexuals” in Slottsparken and an apparent abundance of lorries! We weren’t really sure what to make of any of that, but as you can see from the photos below, we were still quite happy!

When the tour was over we were treated to sparkling wine and strawberries outside the office, just to get us even more warmed up before the barbecue-infused dinner. The dinner and the following party took place inside our Malmö office, which Maria and Emilie had garnished with a wonderful Swedish-summer-theme (hence the umbrellas in the ceiling). The evening was spiced with schnapps, the Tarsier Achievement Awards and the grand opening of our brand spanking new Game Room (more info on that to follow in a separate post).

Great night, great crowd, great fun!

If You perchance would like to partake in next year’s Summer Party, you should see to it that you explore our Jobs section.

As promised, here now to You the Tarsier Studios Summer Party pics we deliver!