Archive for September, 2006
Saturday, September 30th, 2006
A couple of things. First, huge Kudos to Paul for getting the new website sorted, I think it looks great. He had to piss about a lot with HTML to get it working – something he liked very little – so good work.
For a few reasons why I love staying in San Jose, here’re some things that have happened in the last day:
- The FDA have apparently “declared spinach safe for eating” – that’s a headline in the Mercury News so I guess there’s some sort of back-story
- For breakfast I went to a Bay Area Safeway (not to be confused with the horrible UK Safeway) and had:
- A jalapeno and cheese bagel
- A diet Sobe (juice drink) with two ingredients currently illegal in the UK
- The News Of The World tells me that the US government are digging up Steve Irwin’s body because they think he may have been hit by the Mafia… and that it’s tied in with Bobby Hoffa
- The Globe News tells me that Steve Irwin’s son is the product of genetic research going on in his farm in Australia
Just so we’re clear: the News Of The World and the Globe News are conspiracy-papers. Both of those stories are at least ten times less ridiculous than the 100% true stories about “revenge-attacks” against Sting Rays.
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Saturday, September 30th, 2006
I am now in the US, where I shall be staying for two months while marketing Determinance and, er, having some kind of a good time as well.
I’m staying with my very good friends Bob and Bryan here, and San Jose is my favourite place in the world that isn’t my village in England. I’ll be going up to Oregon in a week for not-IGC with GarageGames, which promises to be a lot of fun, and then visiting Santa Barbara, LA, Vegas, and the Grand Canyon. Luckily – what with the US understanding service in a way the Brits don’t – there’ll be free wireless internet in all the hotels I’ll be staying in, so the remaining technical issues with servers and what not will be on my todo list.
Having this trip “in the distance” the last three months has really helped us focus on getting Determinance to where it is now: done. I’m not so great with arbitrary deadlines, so “get it done by September 29th or you have to code for 10 hours a day while in California” worked extremely well. We basically hit that deadline, which is fantastic, but as I say there’s still plenty of stuff left to do on the management side… I think I’ve got it under control.
Probably the thing I like least about being in America – in fact, definitely – is the NFL coverage. You’d imagine that it would be better than in the UK, but whereas at home Sky show me the best games on each week – and I can always use Field Pass to watch anything – here I get to see the best 49ers and Raiders games each week. Which are usually terrible. A sports bar is the only answer.
It’s bagel and Sobe time… the zone is free of fools.
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Friday, September 29th, 2006
Sorry about the slight mess around here while we get the new site up, but it should be resolved very soon. I don’t know what’s causing the funny nav-bar at the top of this page, but I’m sure it’s my fault and I’m also sure I don’t know how to fix it. It’s in-hand though.
I think the new site looks awesome, and we have Mr Jason Arber and Simon Collison to thank for that.
EDIT: Funny nav bar FIXED! Something silly had happened which has now unhappened. Happy days!
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
We shortly should have some content on Gametunnel, which is a big plus for us as we’re long-term browsers of the mad, mad world of indie gaming. Getting the chance to speak our mind on somewhere other than…well, here….is always potentially dangerous both for you and us, so we look forward to that one.
My goal of getting this game all over your RSS reader is now coming into view somewhat.
ON PR JUGGERNAUT! ON!
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Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
If you are a member of the media/blogger/highly vocal person with too much time on your hands and you would be interested in writing a preview of Determinance, get in touch with me and I will happily send you out the installer.
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
Done for the day and holding the fort slightly while my esteemed is away – the blog feels wrong without sudden, explosively-opinionated reports about what he’s playing.
I don’t get time to play anything at the moment – that’s not a dig at him, I just have “too much on”, which is a shame because I was thoroughly enjoying my re-education consisting of Thief and Far Cry.
Today’s PR push will hopefully result in further previews soon – it’s nice to see what people are making of DT, and we’re lucky enough to have positive “vibes” so far – we are still waiting for the “OMG, why are there no GUNS” preview…I’m sure it will happen.
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
Today’s been quite tough: soldiering through the ever-expanding PR lists trying to create eloquent, unobtrusive and useful spam about DT for any journalists who might want to even consider looking at the game.
I know I’ve been on about this before, but trying to get in touch with people about your product is much harder than you might imagine. I’m lucky in that I believe the product I’m working on has worth, but attempting to convey this to someone else is almost nightmarish.
Some people tend to post inspirational musical moments on their blogs, and mine today was a Finnish Nu-Energy (FiNRG) version of Barber’s Adagio for Strings thundering in at the moment I thought I might not physically be able to press down in Excel another time to get to some poor, poor person’s email address.
You might want to check out Alek Szala for similar experiences if you have the inclination. His set at Mayhem 2006 is violent and beautiful in the extreme. But that’s a whole different blog…
Back soon.
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
I returned Just Cause yesterday and swapped it for Call of Juarez. Games publications – both here on the net and in the real world – seem massively divided over Just Cause. Eurogamer’s view ties in most with mine – there’s plenty of cool stunt stuff here, but that really is the only draw. I happen to think it looks absolutely atrocious, while everyone else seems to think it looks great. This is fairly typical of the wrong opinion on game graphics: it’s not about how good your best effect looks, it’s how good your worst effect looks.
I’ll be in the Lake District for the next two nights, probably spending most of the time trying to get Lizzie to allow me to watch the Falcons game tonight. Yes that is my idea of a romantic break – normally I would just tell her I’m watching it.
I’ll be back Wednesday, but then depart to the US for two months of contract negotioations (hopefully) and whiskey-drinking. I’ll be online as much as I am here though, so you shouldn’t see much of a drop in service.
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Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Just a quick note to say that Defcon is extremely beautiful. If you turn off the lights and get into the pretence that you’re in a bunker a mile under the ground and all of it is actually going on, the atmosphere is incredibly impressive for a 2D title. I need to work out how the game should be played to have further opinions, but that’s a good start.
I think we fixed the master server: good news for testers.
I think the summer game drought has finally finished. I went into EB today and found two new PC titles I wanted to play – Just Cause and Paraworld. That’s two more than the last month… very exciting to be able to start off my perioid-of-considerably-less-programming (DETERMINANCE RELEASE PERIOD) with a freeform PC game that looks as cool as Just Cause.
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Friday, September 22nd, 2006
We’re currently playing Defcon review code. It’s certainly the best-looking 2D game we’ve ever seen – I think that’s a completely fair statement to make at this stage.
Ian obviously wants to qualify that, because qualification is his game, however, if something comes across that strongly then hyperbole is OK BY ME.
Gameplay is currently intriguing us – it needs to be fathomed and explored. You’ll be able to get my personal take on it when I write a review for Pixelsurgeon at some point soon.
EDIT: So, that was a little hyperbolic. Maybe it’s the best-looking 2D game with a simple line-drawn aesthetic we’ve ever seen. Who cares? It just looks so damn good.
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