Failed to sneak my way to the servers this time, and got tasered by the guards instead…

Eurogamer Roundup:

Our first fully playable prototype for ‘Off Grid’ demoed at Eurogamer Expo in London last week, we met some amazing folks, had people write and tweet about us, and we managed to get the build into the hands of lots of kind and willing gamers!

It was great to hear what people thought, see them enjoying the gameplay, and take note of the things that will be our first port of call in the next development phase.

This last month has been particularly tough, with Pontus and I pushing ourselves to get the game from being a disparate set of systems and prototypes and into a single, functioning level, and so the last couple of days have been pretty damn good for rest and reflection.

Eurogamer was a great reminder of the big picture. I can safely say we couldn’t have asked for more at this stage in development. Highlights include Mike Bithell tweeting us; big name players visiting the stand to try out the game such as Henrique Oliviers from Bossa Studios, Ali from Puppy Games, and Leigh Alexander from Gamasutra, among many others; and finding out in the pub that a good few fellow developers and journalists we admire had already heard of us, including Simon Roth - developer of Maia, and Daniel Nye Griffiths, UK Editor of Wired. What more could you ask for?!

We’re going to be working hard over the next few weeks to implement changes inspired by all the great feedback we got. We’re also up at Gamecity Festival, Nottingham, at the end of the month. I’m going to be heading up a panel discussing ‘Thematic Risk’ in games (or the lack thereof) and we should hopefully have a couple of exciting guests to announce soon! If you’ll be there, drop us a line to let us know and come and get involved!

Thanks for a great Eurogamer to all those who visited us, and those who made it happen!

Dis geym iz goin tu bi in Uzbeki langueyge?

Could be in the long run if you fancy localising it for us?!

Data Trails

After spending a few days trying to build a system to track all the data the player and in-game characters leave while using their mobile devices and other connected gadgets, and strugling with the multi-dimensional lists and complicated data structures involved, I finally decided to give LINQ a try.

After less than a day’s work we now have our in-game data tracking system working, gathering all the data and sorting and tracking each character’s movements and device usage over time.

I decided it would be appropriate to name the main script “PRISM”.

The abuse of Copyright, and the power of the web

It’s easy to get down with the current situation, and the #Miranda saga.

A friend pointed me to this story recently, which I think quite wholeheartedly sums up the sort of battles the internet is winning for people, and truth, and fairness the world over.

http://oliverhotham.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/the-sordid-tale-of-how-i-was-censored-by-straight-pride-uk/

It may be small in comparison to some of things you hear, from Iranian hacktivism to Egyptian bloggers, but sometimes the scale of that can be hard to grasp, especially here in the relatively benign and safe (for most) West .

Read on and enjoy how the free internet is something to cherish (and perhaps instigate and protect)