About o2 customer service (aka. The undead post).

Trying to blow some dust and bring this blog back from the dead, here’s an off-topic rant about the customer friendly practices of the mobile operator o2 in Germany (or is it O2? I’m not sure, and they don’t seem to be either – I’ve seen both styles used in the communications from their we-really-dont-care-customer-services department).

I brought an iPad with me on my recent family trip to Berlin, and despite the WLAN connection at the hotel, I found myself in need of data connection of the more mobile kind for checking out Google Maps or an odd restaurant review while on the move. Surprisingly, “prepaid data SIM for an iPad” doesn’t seem to be a concept sales people in operators’ stores are commonly familiar with, so when I ended up in the o2 flagship store and my query was finally met with more than questioning, panic-stricken looks, I decided to take the plunge – despite the steep price of the thing (O2 o Prepaid Startpaket with an additional 1 GB of data transfer, for 29,99 €). At least I wouldn’t have to waste a minute thinking about where to find the nearest WIFI access-point.

Not long after, my relief turned back into frustration, as exactly one occasion of briefly using Google Maps later, the connection stopped working, and trying to open a web-page would lead to a text telling me to top-up the card. Now, I know maps can be quite data intensive, but 1 GB for one short session? Sounds ridiculous.

I was ready to aww-fuckit the mobile data idea and enjoy my time instead (which I did). It was only back in Finland a couple of days later unpacking when I noticed the prepaid packaging and I thought of the issue again. Going through the materials, I found a small black-plain-text-on-white piece of paper which said something about activating a data package by entering some number code on a phone keyboard. I’m pretty sure there is no such keyboard on an iPad, so I concluded the product I was sold was not suitable for my use to begin with. And this is where the fun, which is the o2 Prepaid Customer Service Experience, really begins.

After some web surfing, I found a contact form for the customer service, and wrote a message explaining the situation and requesting for some compensation. 30 euros is not that much of a money, but it’s the principle, dammit. This is the first response I got:

Thank you very much for your e-mail. Please excuse the fact that your experiences are not exclusively with one of our dealers. We assure you that our sales partners are very carful selected. We want to ensure that questions are directly, friendly and competent resolved.
We have forwarded your concerns to the appropriate places, were necessary measures will be taken. We very much regret that it came between you and your dealer to a misunderstanding. Since we can not reconstruct the advice in detail, we ask you to contact dealer where you bought the stick.

Kind regards,
Prepaid Customer Services o2

I also was quickly starting to very much regret ever stepping into the o2 store. Here’s my reply:

Thank you for the reply. It’s unfortunate if all the Prepaid Customer Services can do is to avoid responsibility and blame the dealer.

The carefully selected sales partner was in fact the o2 flagship store in Unter Den Linden 16 in Berlin. I tried to find an email contact address for the store, but the quite unpleasant shop search on your site returns only phone numbers and street addresses. On a positive note, I found the “o2 can do” title on the search page pretty funny. I would appreciate, if you could at least get me the email address?

If it’s of any help, I can also forward my concerns and o2 experiences to appropriate places (Twitter and Facebook) so that other customers can avoid such misunderstandings in the future.

Thank you for your help,
Juho

I reckoned making calls to Germany would quickly cost more than 30 euros, and I wasn’t that interested anyway. But still, it’s the principle. Here’s the second reply from my new friends at the Prepaid Customer Services:

Thank you very much for your email.

Unfortunately, we can not provide you with the E-Mail address of a specific store.

As you already found out, we can provide you with a telephone number and the address of our shops. The address of our flagship store in Berlin is Unter den Linden 16, 10117 Berlin. The telephone number is 030/23691800.

Kind regards,
Prepaid Customer Services o2

Being a tele-COMMUNICATIONS store and not having an email address? I think there is some irony to be found. I still don’t find making long-distance calls or returning back to Berlin to sort out the issue very practical, so I was about to bow out of the debacle.

That is, until today when I checked my emails, and opened a new message from o2, which turned out to be spam advertising o2 Prepaid. To finish this post, I quote my final email to o2:

Dear o2 prepaid team,

I’ve contacted you only trying to get a fuck-up on your part compensated for (to no avail), and you decide it’s a good idea to use my email address to spam me with advertisements? Go fuck yourselves. No, seriously. Fuck you.

Sincerely,
–juho

HBD, Psycho!

On June 16th, it was 50 years since the original Psycho hit the silver screen. A groundbreaking movie back then, a must-see still today.

Another character sketch.

Another lazy blog update, a recent character sketch drawing. Clearly too realistic in style to fit the rest of the game, but no worries – this is just one of the early iterations on this character.

Update: Here also I added the final character design for comparison, more in style with the rest of the comic panels I’m drawing.

A Quick Character Sketch.

Haven’t had time for proper blog updates for a while, so I thought I’d just post something I’m working on.

Initial sketch and the finished drawing.

Update: I added the final drawing for side-by-side comparison. The first few coloring attempts were way too realistic and complex, the final one has far fewer tones, with simpler shading and highlights for that more comicy look.

From Sketch to Scene.

I have a sketchbook full of all kinds of sketches from quick doodles to character studies, iPhone interaction diagrams and user interface wireframes. There’s also a lot of messy handwriting, from plot outlines to character descriptions, names and lines of dialog. The sketchbook is where almost every idea for the adventure game first starts to find its form. Scene graphics are no different. In this post, I’m illustrating the development of a scene, especially the visuals, from the first sketch to the almost finalized graphics. In order to spoil as little as possible, I chose a scene already seen in one of the screenshots.

HBD, Mr. Kurosawa!

Inside the Mask.

Another one in the series of more technically oriented blog posts, this time I thought I’d write about the mask image system I’ve developed for my game. Mask images are handy for various things, especially in point-and-click adventure games.

Scene Types.

I’ve been thinking about starting to write about game design and technical implementation as well, so here’s my first foray into that direction – a brief description of the high level structure of the adventure game for iPhone I’m developing. Like I’ve written earlier, I’m a total newbie when it comes to video game development – and blogging, for that matter – so some of this might be quite obvious.

The Best (Free) Comic Book Fonts.

(No, Comic Sans is not featured..)

Recently I spent some time looking for a nice font with that classic hand-texted, comic book lettering feel for the texts in the game. Originally I was going to just use the Felt Marker font, which is pre-installed on the iPhone (it’s the one used in the Notes app), but I never really liked it, and finally just got sick of the look of it.

Screenshots!

Note: the graphics are still under development, so the visuals may not represent the final product and all that jazz..