OK, I'm back, and at least slightly less jet-lagged than yesterday. So time for a little low-down on what the Bink's been up to.

A few weeks ago, TT Games invited me to visit their studio and publishing offices. Since I had a valid passport and available vacation time, I obviously jumped at the chance. The trip was about five days long, all told, and I just got back yesterday. The eight hour time difference is still playing merry havoc with my body, but it was a great journey.

Oh, to jump ahead - I haven't written the stories yet that detail Bionicle Heroes (or LEGO Star Wars II), those will take more time. This blog entry is more about my own experiences and perceptions of the trip.

Last Monday I hopped on a redeye flight from the US left coast to the right coast ("Hi Newark!") and then got on an international flight that landed me at London's Heathrow Airport almost exactly one day later. Except my body thought it was eight hours earlier. Jet lag is a funky thing. Sleepy-eyed, I went through Customs and managed to meet a TT Games marketer by the name of Richard Earl. He's my main contact and was my guide throughout the entire trip.

We hit it off right away, which was fortunate, since we spent a lot of time driving and talking throughout the week. An enthusiastic Englishman in his mid-20s, Richard works at TT Games, and is part of the team working on the Bionicle Heroes video game. He'd lined up a full itinerary, and was there for my many questions. On the drive from the airport to my hotel in the heart of London, we chatted about lots of things, and I was impressed by his extensive knowledge of US politics and history. In contrast, I was able to name England's Prime Minister and where he lived. I tried hard to not be the Ugly American, but didn't quite pull it off in this instance. Ah well. But we had similar views of lots of things.

That evening, there was a mixup with the hotel... some malarky about a flooded room. So I was trundled off to an "economy" hotel a couple of miles away, one of those flophouse types you find where the less monied travelers spent their evenings. You know - college students, backpackers, Australians. (That there's a joke, son.) Even though it was hot and sticky, I managed to get some sleep, and it turned out to be a good thing in the long run that I was there, since it had free wifi access on the ground floor. I ended up using that quite a bit.

The next morning saw us up and about early, hitting the motorway by 6:30 a.m. Richard picked me up in his rental, and I got to experience London traffic as only a foreigner can appreciate. It was fortunate Richard knew what he was doing, since most of the rest of the drivers seemed to have little regard for those pesky little things like street signs, traffic lanes, or pedestrian right of way. I'll forego the detailed descriptions of just how interesting it was to be driven through London, but it was quite the experience.

Driving on the left didn't bother me, at least until we were out on a two-lane country road, where cars zooming around a corner appeared to come right at us. I think I only stomped on the imaginary brake pedal on my side of the car half a dozen times, and I'm sure the indents made by my fingers grasping the door handle will eventually pop out.

It was a three hour drive to the development offices just south of Manchester. We chatted, enjoyed the rolling countryside, and even talked about Bionicle once in a while. The trip went by quickly. We reached the small town of Knudsford (I'll need to check the spelling, but I think that's it) and turned off to a small road that led to the office. The building itself was... not exactly what one might expect of a video game development environment.

But it was cool.

The two-story brick building was, essentially, in the middle of nowhere. It was well maintained but still obviously not a "modern" construction. Inside, we went up a staircase to the Bionicle Heroes development room, which took up a large part of the upstairs. Not to give too much away, the room was pretty much every BZP member's dream... a good dozen people bent over consoles, with an average of three workstations per person. Posters (Lego-related and otherwise) dotted the walls, and Bionicle toys of all descriptions were on every available desk, monitor, or other flat surface. Individual developers were testing and coding different parts of the game, and I got some excellent screenshots of some, which will be published later (in the next week or two). I also managed to get a video capture of a test character walking, even if it does have some moire effect from filming a screen. I'll post that later as well.

The day was spent talking with the teams of both Bionicle Heroes and LEGO Star Wars II (this is the same company that developed the first LEGO SW game, and is sprinting toward the finish of the sequel). The majority of that will be detailed in stories and pictures on BZP's home page shortly, so I won't delve deeply here. It was a very long day, especially after traveling several thousand miles the day before, but it was most certainly a terrific day. Everybody was friendly, even as busy as they were, and I tried desperately to remember names and faces as each person whooshed past.

They even put me in front of a video camera to ask some questions. At first I wasn't worried, since I'd done this before... big world-wise Binky had already been filmed at Creative Capers during the making of the first Bionicle movie, so I figured I was an old hand at it.

But then I remembered the Creative Capers footage of me wasn't actually used. By the time the shoot was over, I think I figured out why. I felt very stiff and phony during this video shoot, especially in contrast to Arthur Parsons, the lead designer of Bionicle Heroes, whose interview was very smooth and interesting.

I had absolutely no chance against charisma like that.

Anyway, aside from the video, I managed to squeeze in time to interview both teams working on LEGO Star Wars II and Bionicle Heroes. (The LSW2 interview will most likely be published in the next issue of BrickJournal magazine, and the Bionicle Heroes interview here on BZP.)

The drive back to London went just as quickly as the drive up. It's days like that that make you feel like you've accomplished something worthwhile.

One more little detail about my visit, and a question for you... during my time at the office, I had the opportunity to play a dev version of Bionicle Heroes (and no I'm not saying anything about it yet), and I noticed they'd used the word "constraction" in the dialog. I've heard LEGO employees use the word before, but to my knowledge it hasn't been widely used by fans.

I was wondering what you guys thought of it, and if it made sense to you to use it as a combination of "construction action". I've put up a poll here, please take a second to make a choice (or answer here). I'm just curious.

That's it for day 1 in the UK for Bink. I'll have more exciting tales later, since I know you find this stuff riveting.