TWO THIRDS THROUGH!

Enjoyed London

2011-02-24T13:36:00.002Z

Every day things are falling into place with regards a number of exciting things I'm working on, only one of which has been discussed. It's a really interesting and exciting time set to the backdrop of largely bad news elsewhere in the games industry, but a bunch of us are hoping to help deliver something positive and vibrant - I can't express how great it is working with similar minded people intent on change, with strong vision and passionate commitment.

What's also refreshing is that whilst there's a level of finance, funding and structure behind all of the things, there's very little talk of any of that on the coal-face by the people doing the driving, which is extremely liberating and reminds everyone of the reasons we're all doing what we are.

London was great. I enjoyed a number of meetings with excellent people, not only great at what they do (or what they've done) but their attitude in going about it - and being entertaining to boot. Sometimes I really have to pinch myself, I'm very lucky.

On the train, back up to Yorkshire now, for another meeting... it never ends - and I like it.

Pre-travel travel!

2011-02-23T11:22:00.002Z

Am very much looking forwards to returning to what is perhaps my favourite city in the world thus far - although I imagine I'll not feel the same about any another place, San Francisco on Monday.

Before that I'm overnight in London for a bunch of meetings about new stuff, meeting with old friends about other new stuff and having dinner with another old mate who recently got an OBE, so I better be on my best behaviour.

Tomorrow I swap the bright lights of the capital for Doncaster, which I believe is still in the mid-80's for another meeting which may involve a pint or two...

Friday and it's off to see my new friends Double11 in Middlesboro' and whilst I can't hang about and wet the new relationships head in traditional style, i'll ensure I manage that during March - am very excited and pleased to be working with the Double11 team and look forward to very promising times ahead.

Sunday and its an evening journey down to Heathrow before jetting out Monday morning, to apparently a cold and wet west-coast, although there's always a warm, dry welcome in Vesuvio, my favourite bar in San Fran.

Harsing about

2011-02-22T10:28:00.003Z

One of the great benefits about working with a start-up is the energy and drive about the place. Double11 are a real breath of fresh-air in that regard.

Take for example my business card, which is a real collectors edition (as are many of their own, which have all manner of nonsense on them).

I think it really shows what the guys are about and kudos to them for having the gumption to be a little different.

It certainly makes my own business cards for Insight For Hire look a little dull in comparison :-)

Two decades of history.

2011-02-20T12:59:00.003Z

Rooting through my old office drawers, rummaging through personal effects and then the hoard of stuff I'd stored in the warehouse over the years ensured a ton of memories came flooding right back.

I expected to be slightly emotional, but oddly, I wasn't at all. It just felt that I'd finally dotted the i's and crossed the T's. In truth, I guess I'd mentally divorced myself from the place a little while ago and if anything it's made me stronger.

The real test will be sharing a drink with many of my former colleagues next month. Colleagues who became - and continue to be - very close, hopefully life-long friends - and it's those people I'll miss most from the incredible time I had over two very short decades.

Great people, great times.

I'll drink to that, if only because I'm such a lucky bastard, it's happening all over again. They say lightning doesn't strike twice, but I've seen cases where it happens three or four times, so let's see eh?

Double 11

2011-02-19T09:47:00.004Z

After leaving my former employers, which for certain reasons I cannot discuss or mention, I am delighted to announce that my first new role will be helping Double11, a highly talented group of experienced developers based in Middlesborough, grow, develop and expand.

I'll be working in an advisory/strategy role and they're a great bunch to work with - I couldn't be happier or more excited. They are working on a bunch of projects for Sony and I have great faith in both their ability and potential to be one of the UK's strongest indies. So for me, it feels like starting over.

Home Work?

Working from a base at home has been something I have found very natural and I guess it's helped having Facebook since that's kept my social need for 'craic' going strong, so I really don't miss the office environment although of course I do miss a lot of the great people I worked with for such a long time. I'm having a drink with many at my favourite pub next month - and occasionally run into them on the odd day.

Double 11 is likely to be just the first of a few things I undertake as I ramp up my new company, I am delighted to be offered the opportunity to work with true talent and hope that I can play some part in making their businesses better, stronger and perhaps even more fun.

Double11 Press Release (which got paraphrased in GI.Biz)

Double11 Website

My new company

Wow.

2011-02-06T22:54:00.001Z

Yep, stuff happened.

Passport out, entering Lancashire.

2011-01-19T07:52:00.002Z

Off to Manchester this afternoon, catching up with a couple of friends and maybe having a curry. I fly out to see some other pals in Sweden on Thursday (very early flight) so am staying over nearby the airport. As a consequence it's meant that I'll miss the Leeds-Arsenal FA Cup replay, but fortunately it's televised - it'll be interesting watching it in a Manchester pub to see who the locals prefer (especially after Leeds knocked Man Utd out last year).

Am very much looking forward to Sweden & Malmo, although I'm generally there in late spring when the weather is nice and reasonably warm. No chance of that in January, so hat & gloves at the ready.

But first I have another retinal screening (part of ongoing diabetic stuff) which will hopefully be largely clear (as it has been to date).

Axe-wielding Monday

2011-01-17T10:56:00.002Z

Had a grumpy Monday so far. Firstly, I managed to finish off sorting all the home network stuff, each of the devices/computers having their own ID (the last lot got wiped by a power cut when I was in Canada). And most importantly, I've backed this info up so I can restore it if calamity strikes again.

Once I'd done all this, one of my mac's (which is also a printer server and has a 2TB back-up drive on it) just wouldn't appear on the network, causing all manner of angst. I tried everything for about 1.5hrs before yep, you guessed it, I turned the router on & off again. Worked fine again.

A while back I ordered a large canvas print of one of my all-time favourite photo's I've taken (one of a small boat in San Francisco Bay, with the skyline silhouetted) and today the canvas arrived. Well, I'm totally deflated because the colours don't match - and I'm a stickler for colour-space, monitor calibration and all that stuff - the result is that lacks any of the vibrance I hoped it would and has in return, coloured me a deep shade of pissed off.

The afternoon can only be better I'm sure.

Hospital Experience

2011-01-14T17:47:00.002Z

So, I've had this cyst on my ear for a few years, no great shakes. I'm not particularly worried about it, nor do I let vanity get the better of me (it's me, right). BUT every now and again and for some reason, usually when a hair sprouts, it gets a little infected and swells up. When it does, I can hardly sleep since it makes my head throb... which explains why enough was enough, I had to get the bugger removed.

So, there I am at Wakefield's new Hospital, all mod-cons, shiny & contemporary, looked nice. Sits down after checking in, to a big area... which looks like a departure lounge. Then, ping! my name pops up and I'm told Go to Gate 8... Like I'm boarding a bloody plane!

So, I get's to Gate 8, when I'm expecting them to xray my wallet and blackberry, but no, more sitting down (this plane is delayed, I thought to myself) and finally I'm ushered through to the consultant. He has a look, usual questions and all that and OK's the work, quite mystified why I've not been in before.

Then I had to go to another Gate to await a form so I could have it photo'd. They sent me to Gate 19, which was Neo Natal, wrong gate... Gate 15, Medical Photography. If anyone's seen Dexter, this was it, big room, lots of lights, bloke who actually looked like Dexter and took lots of photos of my offending lug with his nice Canon DSLR.

Then more queues and another form before I go to see the duty nurse, where they test you for MRSI infections before they allow you into the hospital (too late suckers, I'm in) and this involved swabbing my groin. I was shaking my head at how this can happen when going in to see about a cyst on my ear, but still.

I then remembered we've got medical cover and I could have got it done elsewhere. Now on a waiting list, but with all the travel, I might be cyst-less in May.

I'll see if I can get the bugger mounted. I'll also have a little scar, arrrgh! (pirate stylee).

Back from Toronto, Canada.

2011-01-14T06:54:00.011Z

WAKEFIELD-TORONTO

6th Jan-11th Jan 2011.

2 cabs, 2 trains, 1 plane.

I got back from Toronto earlier in the week - and had an absolutely fantastic time out there.

I was out for my old mate's wedding, where I was best-man and also took a few pictures. The wedding was brilliant, great fun and I also managed to meet a bunch of great new people who I'm sure will turn into good friends over the years as I get to go back to that area and terrify the locals some more :)

It was my first time to that part of Canada and it made for a really interesting trip given a couple of days were spent with Scott Simpson, who's also become a great friend. Scott runs a studio in Ottawa and has just joined forces with another in Toronto (I'm not sure it's official news so I can't mention who).

The trip started smooth enough but all that ended Canada side when a sudden snowstorm had closed one of Toronto's runways. This meant a 1.5hr taxi/wait for the gate since planes had to cross each other coming in/out and there was a fierce blizzard.

Getting out of the airport eventually to find one half of the cabs on strike was a surprise and I had to enlist the services of some dodgy taxi, which was hair-raising for a while, but I finally got to the Hotel and it was with some relief I quickly got myself sorted and met Mr Simpson in the lobby, to go "for a pint". That was around 9pm and at around 3am, I was finally getting to bed (after 'several' pints and Jameson's along with great conversation as ever from the man-bear) which made it the usual 25hrs up, so a great start but not wholly unexpected.

GADGET FRIDAY.

Friday arrived quickly and I went and did my shopping (a new grip for the D7000 camera) and finally a MacBook Air for my travel use - taking advantage of much cheaper prices than in the UK. I'd convinced myself to get an Air after finding the iPad just not quite enough to do any heavy duty work on longer trips (and I like it on my desk with the keyboard thing, tracking to-do's and the calendar stuff) and my now-ageing Macbook Pro is just too heavy to haul on long-distance trips - the difference is incredible. The Air is so light, so fast and lasts for ages on the batteries - it's an astonishing piece of kit. It also allowed me to edit the photos pretty quickly, which I took at the wedding, which was a bonus.

So much for not buying any more gadgets in 2011, I'd lasted a week - kneel to my willpower! I also kept being asked if I was cold whilst walking about Toronto, I wasn't wearing shorts or just a t-shirt, but presumably I wasn't typical. My response of "No, I'm from Yorkshire" had most stumped.

MET THE BRIDE.

I met Andy and Jane for lunch - the first time I'd met his bride to be - and whilst we went for lunch, I ended up just having a couple of beers given my body-clock was already out of kilter. Anyway, it was nice to chat with Jane at last and obviously put her right on all the folklore and stories that appear to precede me :)

OUT WITH TREV & Co.

Later I got together with Scott and we went out with a bunch of his Toronto friends, including Trevor Fencott (another nutcase and ace new pal), some guy who looked like Mrs Doubtfire and an actual Knight of the Realm (I kid you not) who it's best remain nameless, but won "best story of the night" for his early sexual encounters.

This was in a former distillery imaginatively called 'The Distillery' with a ton of beers on tap, nice place.

Food came and went - and I think I managed just one "hot" wing, which was so bloody hot I've still got the scars.

Mrs Doubtfire (actually an investment banker) left early, presumably sensing the way the evening was going, I swapped shirts (a new theme) with Trevor and I'm not 100% sure what happened to Dave the Knight. We did a late visit to Trev's nearby studio and I don't really recall much after that, but it appears I have the T-shirt to prove it.

OH MY GOD, I FACEBOOK-RAPED A KNIGHT OF THE REALM.

At some point it seems that I also did the usual facebook status-rape on the Knight (who better go un-named) and we played one of those electronic shock-games for shots, which I just started drinking indiscriminately. It ended up pretty messy all told. And this on a night where we'd discussed taking it easy because (a) we had to be up around 6am to catch the Arsenal-Leeds F.A.Cup game and (b) I was to be best man at a wedding so needed to be capable of my duties - and take some wedding photos.

I think we finished around 2-3am again and I'm not quite sure how I managed to get myself up at 6.30ish, maybe because the UK time was 11 or so... Anyway we staggered out of the hotel into what was quickly becoming a blizzard as we headed to "The Footie Factory" a bar around the corner (meaning 20mins walk in Toronto, something I learned) which opened at 7am, showing the game live - which I was very excited about, there's something special about watching big games abroad and meeting other fans.

ARSENAL 1-1 LEEDS (F.A. CUP)

Fortunately the bar was only serving tea, coffee and breakfast, which was the first food I'd eaten in 24hrs as I'm notoriously bad at eating when abroad for some obscure reason (I've lost 11-12llb since the Lyon trip in November).

We then watched the game, taking the piss out of a Man U fan (there's always one) and greatly enjoyed a tense game where Leeds almost shocked Arsenal, before they got a late penalty to earn a replay back at Leeds. There wasn't much of an atmosphere in the bar to be honest, it was early, the weather was bad and myself and Scott were pretty low-key after 2 heavy/late nights. Trev popped in on his way back from the night out - which was incredible given we'd left him 3-4hrs earlier!

During the game I also noticed with some tension that the blizzard outside wasn't easing any and I began to get more than a little worried about the wedding - or even getting out of the bar we were in, thank god they were not serving real drinks at that time...

So after the game, we walked back in the snow, which had got pretty deep pretty quickly (maybe a foot or so in 2-2.5hrs) after pausing for my photo in just my Leeds top. This took longer than it should have done since Scott kept stopping to try and get a cab, whereas hailing a Snow Plough would have been easier.

Getting back to the hotel, it was obvious that we weren't going to be able to squeeze in an hour or two of sleep (given the previous two nights drinking) so quickly changed and headed out for PJ O'Brien's, the Irish Bar selected for the ceremony and festivities. That's right, a wedding in an Irish Bar, never let it be said that Andy Davies hasn't got any class :-) Brilliant!

THE WEDDING.

We were first there, we'd scrubbed up well (especially Scott, who even had a tie on and Andy told me not to bother, presumably so he looked better!) and we lasted 15mins before one of the (very) attractive Irish bar-maids asked if we wanted a drink. How could we refuse?

Anyway, 5-10mins on from this and the first other guest arrives, who had an air of "I know you" about her, even though I didn't. So I opens with my traditional faux-pas "ah you must be Jane's mother".

Bombshell. Not Jane's mother, but good friend and only 12 months or so older.

Several squirmy minutes later and gritting my teeth, she relaxed once she had a rum and coke. To be fair, Jennifer (for that is her name) was a a great sport and later (presumably after more Rum) told me it wasn't the first time it had happened, so I was pleased to be left off the hook - although it became a humorous theme across many photos and comments throughout the day.

Eventually the bride and groom arrived in a very casual and relaxed way, guests trickled in and we got to meet lots of new friends - and as usual tried to buy someone's hat, but he couldn't be bought. I think Scott got up as far as $500, but it wasn't the point that it was a $7 hat.

At some point into the day (and we'd had a few drinks) it was time for the main ceremony, I was ushered to the front, met the maid of honour (Dianne) and we were given rings to hold. The guy doing the ceremony was a guy from the Toronto Police Force so I had to be on my best behaviour (ish). Despite pretending to have lost the ring in the very few seconds I had it, the marriage went without any problems. There was lots of laughing, clapping, cheering and it was all laid back and a ton of fun - just as Andy and Jane wanted (both their 2nd marriages).

Then it came to the speeches and at the very last minute I decided to drop the one I'd agonised over writing for some time and just went off the cuff. (I later found that the women had found my original script and 'marked' it).

I banged on about friends and the fact that all these cool people in the Toronto area were gaining an awesome new friend (I did mean Andy) and then did a toast to friends and family, it seemed to go down very well and people enjoyed it - I really am not one for sticking to the script.

A bunch of women were purring about my accent too, I really wish that would happen more often :)

APRES-WEDDING JAPANESE KARAOKE ACTION

At around 9pm, the wedding festivities were coming to a close, but the Simpson-Brown roadshow continued as a bunch of revellers including "Take one for the team" Miguel and "Jane's mom" descended upon a great Japanese karaoke club somewhere in downtown Toronto. 4hrs went by in a flash and after a lot of crooning and Tom Jones shirt-throwing, we were done around 2am or so. Pretty pricey, but a fantastic time had by all.

SUNDAY - DAY OF REST!

Sunday was a complete write off for me. So hyper I couldn't sleep (maybe it was those Vodka-redbulls) and I felt lousy all day after 3 pretty big days with my pretty-big friend. Scott flew back to Ottawa around mid-day and left me to weep into a towel (i had pretty horrible hangover). I had recovered enough by later in the day to start editing and uploading photos of the wedding I'd taken and these were well recieved.

TORONTO THOUGHTS...

It's a big, BIG city. Canada has this "Tonka" feel to it, everything is big and chunky, large, making stuff in the UK look almost tiny in comparison. The city was sprawling but it's people very welcoming, full of fun and good nature. The people were great and I have a lot of new friends. I'll certainly be back and I barely scratched the surface of the city in 4 days, I'd need a lot more time...

Freshening up the blog.

2011-01-05T11:49:00.003Z

New year, new energy.

This blog was previously called 'Halfway Through' given I was around 40 when I started it.

However, it seems that on a daily basis, heroes are going in their 60's so maybe 80 is a bit of an ask. Seems crazy to think it's only 16years to that point, when my eldest will be 33 - when 20years at Team17 went by in a flash.

So, with that in mind and my impending 44th birthday in January 2011, it's time to grab life by the balls.

I'll be updating here more often, particularly since I have quite a bit of travel coming up, starting tomorrow when I fly to Toronto, where my long-time friend Andy Davies is getting married. I'm best man and semi-official photographer, so I'll have my hands full, if only keeping the imitable Scott Simpson at bay.

I'd actually hoped to spend a few more days in Canada this time rather than the 4/5 day jaunt, but I'm sure I'll get chance to go back, maybe to Scott's hometown, Ottawa, next time. I've only ever been to western Canada before, to Vancouver, which I liked a lot and have very fond memories.

I've decided to really get my arse into gear in terms of photography and take plenty of images, some will be through the Blackberry and hopefully a lot with my decent DSLR (Nikon D7000).

In the meantime, stay tuned and apologies for the way the blog petered out before, a mixture of being so busy, some degree of apathy and life in general played it's part in it's slow and painful winding up.

Twitter and Facebook

2010-10-04T20:32:00.003Z

I've decided to try and update once in a while.

In the meantime, I'm tweeting random crap at @martynT17

I've also fired up Gowalla on Facebook too, for those I'm linked with.

Business contacts are all on Linked In.

what to do...

2010-03-04T18:11:00.002Z

Blogs, so mid 2000's it seems.

I just don't know what to do with it anymore. The world has moved on and people are used to tweets of information these days, rather than waffle about nothing much.

I'm not sure if it's because I haven't got much to say these days, actually it's quite the reverse, but that is mostly about my work and that has to be reasonably timed according to what we're doing, which is a lot. However the time I spend on Facebook, with comment snippets here and there, photos and more is certainly to blame.

Am about to travel to San Francisco again, along with Paul & John and face a very busy week over there, which will make a change from a very busy week at T17 towers; it's been non-stop for some time.

Bad blogging. Sorry.

2010-02-17T22:45:00.003Z

I'm considering winding up the blog since I'm simply rarely finding time to really think about posting. I think it's really suffered at the hands of Facebook, whereby news and info and photos and such are updated frequently, so much so that I don't feel a need to blog.

I'll have a think about it.

A much belated welcome to 2010

2010-01-11T21:53:00.003Z

Wow, 2010 already and my slackest blog update period ever. 5 weeks or more.

Well, mostly it was due to totally winding down at Christmas and vegetating, something I do when I run out of steam, which I had done by the end of November, not helped by a particularly high blood-sugar reading (related to my diabetes). I've spent the last 3-4 weeks on new medication and it's only finally settling down.

When my blood-sugar reading is high it not only is very bad for a wide variety of physiological reasons, but it also leaves me listless, un-energetic and totally demotivated. It leaves me procrastinating over things and just not doing things because it just feels a great effort when it isn't really - it can lead to depression also, so it took some effort to drag myself into the various blood tests, consultancies, retinal scans and new medication.

Fortunately I'm the other side of that now and starting to feel a lot more like the old self, which depending on which self you know, is either a good thing or a bad thing :)

December was a pretty busy month, we finally saw the release of Alien Breed on XBLA (to come on PC, PS3) and this got to No.2 in the XBLA charts, kept out only by Worms Armageddon, which was Xmas No.1. We also had our Team17 party and I don't recall too much.

Christmas at home was nice and quiet, with the weather crippling any plans to visit Speyside and our friends up there, we just didn't wish to risk the lengthy travel on hazardous roads.

Other than a night with Bry & Gordon in the land that time forgot (The Leopard pub in Doncaster) and an unbelievable afternoon in The Poplar (Altofts) to witness Leeds beating Man U in the FA Cup, I had a very light christmas booze intake - and didn't even buy any cans in.

The weather/Ice-Age in the UK has put a dent on the restart back in the office, but am hopefully that will be over soon and we can get our teeth into things once more. I'm also looking ahead to the now annual trip to Galway at the month end with a bunch of mates for birthday booze-up. After that I'm away to San Francisco & Seattle again.

Whoah

2009-11-28T20:56:00.003Z

Almost a month went by without an update. Clearly, I'm slacking.

Tons going on though, with a new management appointment at work, a new FD will join us in Feb. Been to Dublin, getting ready to go to Lyon and Alien Breed finally certified and ready to release on Xbox 360.

Also swapped my car, since I've been contemplating getting all practical with four doors again. Of course I went with common sense (considering a diesel) and walked out with a 5litre guzzling monster. Ah well, you only live once. It does have 4 doors and plenty of room for 4 adults though (which was a problem on my 2+2 former car, which I did like and will miss). I've had a ton of problems with it though, since it's got large wheels/tires and it obviously wasn't set up right when I bought it, which resulted in the suspension rubbing on the wheels etc, this is still in the process of being rectified - and it's a been a real shame because I love the car (if not it's fuel consumption).

The news about Alien Breed was a huge relief after a fairly tiresome few months and it remains to be seen when we'll launch, but well be on with the PR soon.

Lyon's Game Connection looms and for the first time we're attending as prospective publishers.

After that it's wind down to Christmas, a ton of Leeds matches and also the Team17 party.

And I'm back on bloody facebook. Pah.

Standing still.

2009-10-30T19:15:00.002Z

I can't believe that I have a full month with no international travel, I think it's the first one for quite a few years. To be honest, it will feel good to not have to pack & sort. There's just one short(ish) trip to Lyon this year and that's that, although that won't happen until I sort my new passport out.

It's been quite a positive week in the office, with Alien Breed getting a tremendous response at the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds - and a ton of coverage as a result, it was great for the lads in the office to hear players first hand loving the game up.

Oh and I crept back onto facebook. Pretty poor show from me, but I do aim to moderate it.

Twain now awwiving at Wetford.

2009-10-28T11:44:00.002Z

Its not often a coach load of people on a train break out laughing simultaneously, but the genius of the North Eastern line hiring a guy with a lisp is to be cherished, particularly as it slows into Retford on a sunny Wednesday morning.

Thing is he said it loud and "pwoud" as he confidently announced that the "Twain was now awwiving into Wetford. Wetford next stop. This is Wetford". It was very funny seeing peoples eyes go wide and eyebrows raise up on the first Wetford, mouths open on the second and everyone piss themselves in unison at the third when everyone realised that they had really heard it.

Perhaps Porky Pig does work on a train after all.

It's finished up a good 24hrs or so for me, after the radio & TV PR yesterday, then down to London for the London Games Conference, then beers with old mucker Mick Morriss and friends (including Gareth the posh geordie) in a very swanky private members club late on. Even Leeds managed an emphatic 4-0 away win.

Am currently still on the twain, heading for Wakefweild then the Eurogwamer conwerence.

Give me a (tax) break

2009-10-27T06:36:00.002Z

I was interviewed on two BBC radio programmes this morning, more or less with regards to the attempts by the video games industry to lobby government for tax breaks.

TIGA handles this for the body of developers so I had to have a bit of catch up on where things were at, I've obviously been aware of the incentives offered in Canada, France and other regions - and the investment that's occurred there rather than in the UK, a more traditional hub of technical & creative excellence.

The UK film industry has had substantial support and as another leading creative industry, it's time the government backed us too before it's all too late.

Until then, Indies like Team17 will continue to fight the fight :)

BBC-tastic!

2009-10-26T15:19:00.003Z

Somewhat of a BBC frenzy tomorrow (Tues 27th Oct) since I'll be on "Wake up to money" on BBC Five Live at around 5.45am and then there's a Team17 featured piece on the games industry airing at 6.50, 7.50 and 8.50am respectively on BBC1 Breakfast Time TV.

Later I head off to London for the London Games Conference on Tuesday evening (which we're sponsoring) and then back home on Wednesday.

In other news, the beard has been shaven off and Leeds lost their unbeaten status - I believe both events to be unconnected.

Back to the blog

2009-10-23T19:08:00.002Z

Well, I've managed pretty much a week of cold turkey with regard Facebook and I've been fine, despite the odd twitch about getting back on. It's been a lot better since I put a message on saying I'd gone, since I had a ton of people asking if i'd cut them off :)

[Above: Bryan Reynolds, left and Gordon Hall, masquerading as Basil Fawlty]

I survived the weekend trip to Amsterdam to celebrate Gordon Hall's 40th, 15 of us (more or less) partied for 3 days and incredibly enough there were no major casualties, save for the usual suspect being a social time-bomb on the last day. I can't imagine the battery he got when get back from his missus who advised me she'd flipped the "bitch switch" or something on the phone... Nice one Debs.

We spent most of the first day in the Old Bell pub in a large square, given that we started drinking before we got on the plane (it was a 7am flight) it was no wonder that for most, the first day was over by about 9pm... not that I remember.

Day two commenced around 11am and we spent pretty much all day in my favourite Amsterdam bar, "Cafe De Dam" which is the smallest pub in town, just off Dam Square. We did adjourn for a rather fantastic steak, ironically just across the road after we'd googled for "best steak in Amsterdam" - it was 20secs walk to "Gauchos". Hijinks, drinks and laughs followed well into the night before the fog of war got the better of me in particular and I was safely escorted back to the hotel.

Sunday was very slow, a collection of zombiefied revellers and people slowly made their way to different flights during the day, with our lot leaving in the evening and most quite jolly by the time our plane was ready to board. Cracking group of lads, great trip and nice to see Gordie in such good spirits.

Back at work and this week saw a few highlights, notably being interviewed for a spot about Team17 on national BBC news (aired Tuesday 27th, ironically the day we sponsor the London Games Conference at Bafta, which I'm also attending), a great chat with Keith Hackett, ex premiership ref who is now in charge of the Ref's association and good movement on our titles, which include a new edition of Worms for iPhone (with great 3GS visuals), a new update for Worms 2 Armageddon on XBLA and also good to see Alien Breed edge ever closer to release.

I was also at Elland Road earlier in the week to see a winner 3rd minute into extra time over Norwich, despite being 2nd best most of the game. Great stuff, top of the league and looking good to start a long overdue return up the league and back to where we belong.

Out tomorrow with Trina, JD and his missis. Another trip to Akbars (cue Fish Masala, Giant Nan and fave Balti) and then likely on to Reform, Mojo and Sandanista bars... nice end to the week.

Got a fair bit on next week, including two days in London, which means I'll miss the T17 booth at the Eurogamer careers fair at the Armouries, although I'll try and get there to show my face.

Faceless.

2009-10-14T20:47:00.002Z

Yesterday I decided to close my Facebook account, I know I'd got into the habit of spending way too much time on there and at the end of the day decided that enough was enough and I had to get on. It's always there if I want to go back, but I don't intend to - it's not like I'm a difficult person to get hold of, having had the same email address since almost forever and a day.

Off again.

2009-09-28T23:03:00.002Z

Another lapse in blogging, although I've promised myself to keep up on this a little more and cut down on Facebook updates (I recently culled 60-70% of the contacts on there) since that had gotten difficult to manage and had become just 'noise'.

I'm pretty much ready to fly out to New York tomorrow and attend another conference discussing digital distribution, which is the last of quite a few this year. I've got a couple more in London this year before Game Connection in Lyon and that is that. I like New York but it only seems 5 mins since I got back from Florida - and I did so feeling very fatigued - the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a drag & effort. Anyone who's taken kids on holiday will know the energy expelled entertaining them and not relaxing yourself!

Long time no blog.

2009-09-10T00:43:00.002Z

Well, it's been a while, 3 weeks or so...

In that time I attended Gamescom in Germany (Cologne) which replaced the usual jaunts to Leipzig/Prague (a bit of a shame) and also have been on holiday with the family in Orlando at Clearwater Beach & Orlando, with a couple of days on Marco Island & Everglade City.

Germany was hot and humid and I didn't prefer the show over the one held in Leipzig, despite hotels and transport being a hundred times more efficient. Maybe it'll be better in future now that people know the layout.

The holiday was OK, I'm not a huge fan of Orlando and it was pretty much a last minute affair, with the wife/kids wanting to head out that way. The weather was pretty mixed, stormy, very warm, humid and we had torrential storms in Orlando. Fortunately it abated for the kids to get to their beloved water parks but on the whole, it's not an area I really wish to revisit and struggle to understand those who return to Orlando year on year. I'll make sure I put more effort into planning the family holiday much earlier next time, although to be fair we'd had more or less a week in Scotland, a week in Ireland as well as the time in the states, so I guess there's very little reason to grumble.

Back at work and plenty to do, lots in the pipeline and Alien Breed to get out.

At home, I've continued my largely good behaviour on the booze (and even food) - and am sleeping reasonably well, again not suffering major jet-lag although it's been a bit odd today (its coming up to 2am now).

I played Beatles Rockband earlier, as it was released today - and almost completed it. I'm not sure what to think of the experience as a solo guitar player on it, the music & presentation is sublime, but it's not like the tracks are really sympathetic to the RB experience... hopefully better with more people playing.

Been good on the football side of late, with Leeds winning all 8 of their opening matches and drawing Liverpool in the cup at home. Even England have qualified for the World Cup next year... amazing.

Next travel is a conference on digital distribution in New York in a few weeks (I've turned down the opportunity to talk in Dubai) and that's pretty much it I think until Lyon in December for Game Connection - will have to see if I can cut the travel back next year... I did a lot of panels and talks on our digital distribution stuff this year, when it was seemingly flavour of the month - I guess a lot of eyes will be on the cloud-computing tech next year and we can get our heads down and on with a number of projects.

The Moderation Game

2009-08-14T18:38:00.002Z

Well, I've just about completed two weeks of very steady moderation on pretty much all the finer, bad things in life; late-nights, no-sleep and the booze. I've probably had the best sleep in years, suffered no jet-lag and seen my blood sugar levels (I'm diabetic) tumble from a silly high level to something more approaching respectable, which makes me feel better, sharper and er, quite well.

I guess i take for granted what my somewhat cavalier approach to lifestyle has on my body from time to time; the traveling, the irregular food habits, all those time-zones and the booze-fueled meetings which seem to litter the bizdev side of the games industry.

Anyway, I've kind of kick-started myself in time for a few days away at Gamescom, which is a show/conference in Germany and replaces what has, for five years, been an annual jaunt to Leipzig for a similar event. I have many fond memories of great trips over there, by train, plane and car - which we always did via Prague. We visited Colditz, odd places in Czech, all-nighters in Leipzig/Prague, tried to steal Enigma machines from a gothic absinthe bar - and experienced all manner of oddness when Bryan and Craig joined for trips.

I don't plan anything outrageous this time, maybe a few beers on Tuesday night and the Nordic party on Wednesday where a lot of friends will be. Two very busy days Weds & Thurs (before a late flight back) will make sure I'm not out of control - which is a good thing since the day after I get back, the family leaves for two weeks of heat (and no doubt humidity) on the west coast of Florida.

Gotta love press reactions.

2009-07-29T06:23:00.003Z

I've tried in recent times to be as diplomatic as I can be regarding press comments - and in addition to that, been very straight about how things are, although I'm covered by various non-disclosure agreements and such.

There's been a lot of press going mad over my denial that we've been in some way "bribed" by Microsoft to have exclusives on their formats ahead of PS3. This simply isn't the case. It's true that we've led on XBLA to a certain extent and that we have a very good 1st party relationship with them and because of this, we tend to get better promotional support (mainly due to it being a 1st party title). With respect to Alien Breed, it was very nearly a Sony exclusive entirely, a few years back prior to us independently developing next generation editions.

We're of course delighted that PS3 owners want to play our games and they will be able to do so but timed exclusive launches have been part & parcel of the video game industry for years.

It's almost tempting to simply clam up and say nothing. People don't like the truth it seems.

Wow

2009-07-17T20:06:00.002Z

Well, it's been a crazy busy week. Spent most of it in Brighton for the Develop Conference where I did a talk on indie digital development (which I think went well - despite press picking up one comment out of context as usual).

As ever, saw the many great people in the business circuit and had too much fun at times - and really felt the pain of it on Friday, I was completely shattered. However, not much time for rest as I head out to the USA (via Vancouver) on Sunday morning, spending a few days in & around Redmond/Bellevue, attending the Casual Connect Conference (another talk) and then onto Comicon before spending a few days with Gordon and the lads at R* San Diego up in Carlsbad.

Showed Alien Breed to a few press guys and it got what I felt was a great reception. Did a bunch of interviews too - we've gotten a lot of press of late, so I think it's finally dawned on people that we're really taking this digital distribution stuff really seriously.

Oh and Worms got released for iPhone, not only that but it's currently sat atop the charts. Not bad, making it 4 indie digital releases and 4 chart-topping successes (Worms2 Armageddon for XBLA also hit no.1).

Phew.

Breeding brilliant

2009-07-09T19:42:00.003Z

...we had a terrific response to our Alien Breed announcement that we made today, which basically just confirmed that the game was coming on digital platforms and we let out 3 screenshots. Well, people seem to really like the look of it, so I can't wait until they see the video and all the lighting, particles etc - it really does look great - and so compelling to play.

Makes it a good week really given both our XBLA Worms titles are sat at no.1 and no.7 in the charts at the same time :-) And Worms iPhone is just around the corner.

Things are crazy busy in the office, but that's a very nice problem to have.

Next week I'm in Brighton for the Develop Conference and then it's a flight out to Seattle (via Vancouver) for Casual Games Connect and then onto San Diego for Comicon - and a night out with pals in Carlsbad, just up the coast before I head back to Los Angeles and home again.

Its very exciting times and there's more to come, too.

Independents Day

2009-07-05T07:01:00.002Z

Well, time flies as usual. With so much going off, I hardly have any time to catch up with the blog - so many updates via Facebook, now bloody twitter and so many emails.

This week saw the eventual release of Worms 2 Armageddon for XBox Live Arcade and it's proving to be quite the hit. We never had the sales stats for the first Worms game so we can't compare it's sales profile, but we're advised that its doing very well after 3-4 days on sale now. We're hoping too that the first game hangs on to its top-10 spot and we can maybe see two worms games in the top 10, even if it's just for a week, that'd be quite cool.

We know there's a lot of very good XBox Live titles coming over the summer, so we just hope that we can stay in the charts during that period. Worms also arrives for iphone later in July. Review wise, W2A is scoring pretty high (mid 80's average) with user scores even higher.

We're also getting ready to start showing Alien Breed, which we're very excited about.

Tweeting.

2009-06-25T03:37:00.002Z

Well, i've finally bloody sorted this Twitter thing out. I swore I wouldn't do it, but I've decided to in terms of promoting the company and what we're up to. So, if you use it, follow 'team17' and you'll get news and updates.

Am just back from 2 days at the Game Horizon conference in Newcastle, a city that grows on me every time I visit, although it does help staying in a nice hotel down on the Quays, opposite the Baltic Flour Mill & Sage centre, which is where the conference was.

On the first day, once I'd got there (I almost didn't as I was flagging whilst driving and almost fell asleep at the wheel) I bumped into a ton of friends and eventually got lured out to lunch in the sun with Gareth of Ubi/Reflections Newcastle, Rich Sturgess, Phil Elliot (Gi.Biz) and later Mick Morris. Suffice to say that the rather fantastic lunch at 'La Tasca' rolled on until late in the day, with a few people passing by and we finally finished about 7.30pm... all pretty merry. I, however, was completely shattered, what with the erratic sleeping patterns so not only did I check in at the hotel, but I also fell asleep at about 8.30pm, waking at 3am to find that I'd missed not only the charity poker, but also the main conference party. Still, I'd had a decent sleep - and it was ironic that given a bunch of people had banged on about it 'being a big night' because I was around (to which I'd tried to play down).

The second day was much better, got off to a great start with a fantastic breakfast from a dodgy looking kebab shop that myself and Sturg found, then I went into the conference and attended the sessions, with my own session (part of a panel regarding self publishing) going on from 2-3pm. I think it went ok, I got a few comments, mainly for dissing 3rd party publishing and got a few laughs by suggesting that 'astro-turfing' (some phrase for seeding viral marketing) was 'something you'd expect George Michael to be up to'.

I left promptly at 3pm, giving Jamie Sefton and Craig Albeck a run back down to Leeds, with Craig managing to actually fall asleep in the car, in the back, with the roof down - pretty incredible. I got back to T17 in the nick of time to do a phone interview with Larry Hyrb at Microsoft (more commonly known as Major Nelson). We seemed to spend more time talking about Amiga's and iPhone's rather than Worms and Alien Breed but never mind.

Speaking of Worms, the new game for XBLA ships next Wednesday, July 1st for just 800pts/$10 and judging by the online reactions to date, it should prove very popular. News about the game's release is hitting online game sites now. We were very sensitive about the pricing of the game and at that price, it should be a no-brainer in terms of entertainment.

At Game Horizon, I also showed a video of the new Alien Breed for the first time, we do not plan any other public releases of footage until late July, but it was nice to finally show it, even if the video looked a little choppy on their system.

Well, full, busy day in the office today with a stack of stuff to chase up, then it's AC/DC on Friday. Let's RAWK :)

Doghouse vanquished.

2009-06-21T09:18:00.002Z

Well, I finally managed to pull clear of the doghouse by booking the family holiday. I'm not sure how much fun the kids got out of Ireland (mainly due to the weather) but I've now booked us 2 weeks in Florida, on the Gulf Coast, away from the throngs of folk at theme-park central (since my kids prefer water based stuff - and there's a water park fairly near).

Am hoping to get a day or two in the Everglades/Florida Keys (we're staying on Sand Key, Clearwater) and do some kayaking in the Mangroves just north of where we are... Alligators and Manatee's excepting.

It's fathers day today and I've had nice cards, a Match of the Day music compilation (?!) and a box of Thornton's Special Toffee - not sure if that was for me, being diabetic, but the kids (and the dog) have already been into it. About to walk the dog down on the meadows and hopefully have a chilled out day, despite having a bit of work to do on some presentations for later in the week/next month which are due in now.

Better end to the week considering I've had a couple of unexpected big nights (one on the wedding anniversary), a trip to the house of commons and 2 stints in the doghouse.

There's a bit of travel the next two months; Newcastle this week, then London for AC/DC, then up next is Develop in Brighton, then Seattle/Bellevue (via Vancouver) and onto San Diego. A few weeks after that it's Gamescon in Cologne, then the holiday. We've got 2 game releases in that spell and then build up to the bigger one; Alien Breed - can't wait to show people it...

Great response... Great times.

2009-06-20T08:23:00.003Z

We released a trailer for the new XBLA Worms game, "Worms 2: Armageddon" (which is released very soon) and it had a fantastic response pretty much everywhere, so I'm really looking forward to that going live. We're also just about done with the iPhone edition of Worms and that should be predictably well recieved too.

On other matters, Alien Breed is at the code & content complete stage, with only minor balancing/tweaking and polishing left to do (not that it isn't super polished already!) and I really cannot wait to get videos out for that since I can't imagine seeing much on XBLA that looks visually better, it really does look beautiful.

Had an odd week this week, spending the day at the House of Commons on Monday, getting drunk with Andy Eades (on my wedding anniversary, which went down well - cough) and then out with Tom Gluckmann on Thursday which ended in furore again, mostly because I coincidentally ran into good friends from Rockstar Leeds when I was out in town... and it was a mess at the end.

So, a quiet weekend is in store - particularly given that I've a ton of work to do (presentations for numerous talks) and a video to put together for my spot at Game Horizon in Newcastle next week. Also off to see AC/DC and I'm quite excited about that.

Back on it.

2009-06-14T16:47:00.002Z

Well that's about the most neglecting period for my blog ever, largely due to Facebook which I keep updated due to the ease of it.

Anyway, since last time I've been out west again (3rd time this year) to E3 in Los Angeles, which was a good old jaunt and I also, for the first time ever, managed to not suffer massively with Jet Lag.

How did I do this? Well, I think it was a combination of taking it easy for a couple of days when I got there (on the booze) and also stopping overnight in New York both going & coming back - the trip back meaning just a 6.5hr direct flight rather than a very long and tedious day with layovers and other travel. I got back and felt fine rather the near death as usual.

E3 was pretty good and back to pretty much it's flashy formal self. I didn't really spend too much time around the event as most of my meetings were off site, but Beatles Rock Band looked amazing, can't wait for that.

The trip had its fair share of parties, including the Noridic in Figueroa Hotel and we spent a fair bit of time there on other days, liking it's mix of non-pretension and locality to the conference centre. We stayed in Santa Monica and had a couple of nights out there, with the lads from Sony and on another night, Gordon & his lads from R* San Diego as well as a bunch of marketing & bizdev girls from Microsoft - we had an awesome dinner and the waiter wore the horse-head, job done.

On Friday we drove through the Mojave and to Vegas, which for me was pretty uncomfortable as I had a rollicking hangover, the 12hrs we had in Vegas were ok, spent most of it in Centrefuge/MGM with a bunch of Lucasarts fellows and had an early night at 3am given we had to be up at 6am to fly to New York.

We had a good walk around New York and I took a bunch of snaps (on Flickr/Facebook now) and I really love the place. Met up with friends from Sega in the evening and ended up in Greenwich village Karaoke bar until 3.3am... but wasn't so drunk. We'd had a spectacular room upgrade too, having an enormous suite at the Hilton for a paltry sum (I'd booked an offer on a room ages back). The next day we flew back at 10pm, so had plenty of time for sightseeing and a bit of shopping, before the straight forward flight & return home almost jet-lag less.

Back at work and there's tons on, with the new Worms for XBLA (Worms 2: Armageddon) launching shortly, iPhone Worms nearing completion and Alien Breed nearing Beta & entering the formalities of it's certification process... and with 3-4 other projects in various forms of undress, it's meant a very business period for all at T17.

Tomorrow (Mon 15th) it's our 13th wedding anniversary and I'm somewhat controversially spending it in London at the House Of Commons, part of a meeting to represent the games industry to the UK Govt. I'll be meeting Lord Puttnam and a bunch of the other MP's, moat-filling, expense-grabbing buggers that they seem to be.

Wednesday is Jack's 12th birthday and we're out to Leeds for a meal. Thursday evening Tom Gluckman is over to discuss some concept work on a couple of projects and the week after is both the Game Horizons conference in Newcastle (I'm talking there) and later in the week, the AC/DC concert in Wembley... woot. Busy times...

Neglect!

2009-06-09T21:15:00.002Z

Apologies for the lack of updates in here, it's the longest I think I've ever gone without posting - blame Facebook and this time a week in Ireland with no 'Net - quickly followed by a week in E3 which was pretty busy. I'll get around to updating sooner or later, its a very busy time right now - and all mostly good.

Nordic Game

2009-05-21T01:36:00.002Z

Back from Nordic game and I'm buzzing about it - not ideal at twenty to three in the morning.

I've been to the event a few times and have always really enjoyed it, this time I got asked very last minute to speak & stand in for a couple of absentees, a guy from Capcom Japan who I assume was avoiding the chance of getting Swine Flu and I think one of the guys from Avalanche.

The trip was made with a few great friends so it wasn't a surprise to find that come 5am Monday morning, myself and John Li were still up and helping ourselves to a lot of fine Irish whisky... not ideal running into a day long event called '.EXEC' which was basically the CEO's of all the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark) who were going to discuss/debate topics of the day in a round-table format, eased along with plentiful beer (these boys know what they're doing).

I'd say the .EXEC thing was a great success and it was both a pleasure and a priviledge to contribute, I don't recall enjoying a day long business session as much as that, ever. The night was a bit of a non-start as I apparently began throwing food at people in the bar and then went back to the room and crashed. However, despite the food incident, people were full of good words for my contribution at .EXEC.

On to Tuesday and I spent most of the day at the conference itself given I'd a talk to do at 2.15. met loads of old friends and great people during the day and given I'd had a full nights sleep, I was pretty much on the ball. The talk itself was pretty short and pretty succinct given that I'd put it together quickly and wasn't sure how long my spot was. I raced through it (discussing platforms, opportunities, positives and negatives) and it seemed well received and I even had time for some Q&A at the end.

As a result of the talk I met a few new people and it certainly appears that Team17 are in a pretty unique spot right now with regards self-publishing, which is nice.

Tuesday night was the event party (after a great meal with a bunch of top people) and I hardly got more than 3 metres into the venue as I kept running into people, so I never really got going. We left late on and hijacked a cab full of students (as it was hard to get a cab) and took them all back to the hotel for beers, music and a bit of partying until late-on. The hotel were incredibly patient with us, that's all I have to say on that one.

Wednesday was just a case of getting back and riding the pretty fowl hangover I had, given I was driving from the airport. The 2hr flight was living hell as I fought the urge to throw up - nice. There was still had time before I left to have a good chat about things with friends from various companies and there was a ton of rumouring about Apple entering the console scene given the spate of games-related exec hires they've made recently... so we'll have to see on that one.

So, back to the office later for me, a ton of stuff to do and ensure goes on while I'm away in Ireland next week and at E3 the week after.

Off and running again.

2009-05-16T22:15:00.002Z

Well, am about to leave tomorrow for Nordic Game, a conference I've enjoyed in the past having so many good friends out there. I'm due to catch up with old friends, new friends and also give a talk on Digital Distribution/Self Publishing, which I seemed to have got caught up in a lot recently, despite trying to avoid the 'speaker circuit'.

This week was really good on a few fronts really, things are really starting to shift at Team17 and it's going to be a really exciting period for us.

Best laugh I had this week was on the train with John and Paul, when I got call from Graeme Boxall - and it was obviously from his pocket or whatever. After taking it, I says "I'll leave it on, he might be abroad in Hong Kong or something, it'll cost him a ton" - we then got on a train and unfortunately we went through a tunnel cutting him off after almost 14mins. Anyway, I didn't think much of this for 10mins until i went online with the mac (a story in itself, for another day). There, on Facebook is a message from Graeme, saying he really should stop calling people at home from his pocket when he's in China... LOL. Fortunately it seems he found the funny side.

After Nordic, I've got 1.5days in the office before I leave for Ireland at Spring Bank, for a week in Kerry, South West Ireland - another bit of pay back for the family. Hopefully the Irish weather will have a break and the sun will come out. I'm only back a day from Ireland before I leave for the USA and E3. When I get back it'll be mid June and I'll be wondering where the time goes (again).

Das Jackpot!

2009-05-08T20:01:00.003Z

Had a fun call this morning, basically we've been contacted about licensing Worms to have a themed gaming (fruit) machine made from the IP. Its very exciting and to sit there with all manner of other notable IP (Star Wars, Monopoly, Indiana Jones, PacMan etc) would be brilliant, so fingers crossed all that works out and we end up with a machine in our reception and also in The Brewer's Pride (our favourite pub).

On other things, it's been a very busy week and it's flown by. I had a long day in Sheffield on Tuesday, judging the game design section of the Yorkshire region Games-related degree course showcase. The standard was high and as usual, it's nice to be able to contribute to that aspect of industry development. Afterwards was the usual spiralling out of control with the usual faces and a 4am finish - I was only (marginally) saved from the full effects of the dog-house by virtue of the fact that Harry's hamster, Sonic, had escaped at 5am and I slept through Trina and the kids trying to find it before the cat or dog ate it. Sonic was finally found and returned and I dozed downstairs, blissfully unaware.

It's Harry's 8th party tomorrow (a couple of weeks early due to unforseen circumstances and the kids hecic social calendar) and that's directly after the Leeds Utd play-off final semi, which is on the TV. Given Harry's party is a pool party, it means I'm enforced into a quiet night and best (non doghouse) behaviour.

Fingers crossed for Leeds...

Busy busy

2009-05-05T06:17:00.002Z

This week starts a bit of a hectic spell of one kind or another.

It's a busy week this week, with it being a day short due to the May bank holiday yesterday, I'm at Sheffield Hallam today (part of a judging group on the regional University games-course projects) and on a panel about digital distribution/publishing in the evening.

I've essentially got Wednesday free to get on with my to-do list (which by the end of last week was larger than it was at the beginning of the week despite feeling like I'd accomplished a lot - very infuriating) and then have a few visitors on Thursday/Friday.

Next weekend sees the Leeds play-off semi first leg prior to Harry's 8th birthday party at the local baths and likely a night out.

Next week is currently clear in terms of appointments and obligations, but that's a good thing with Alien Breed, iPhone Worms and the new PC 'Armageddon Decade' edition all needing some form of attention as well as that hefty to-do list.

The end of that week and I'm off to the Nordic Games Event in Malmo, Sweden, which involves a flight to Copenhagen and 3 nights over there. There's a couple of talks, discussions, panels and what-not, as well as a party and usual networking stuff. I do enjoy seeing the old Scandi bunch having amassed a lot of friends and contacts over the years. It hasn't been lost on me that in the year we're bringing Alien Breed back, the original was largely created by the team over in Sweden in the Amiga days.

After returning from Malmo/CPH on the Wednesday, I'll have a day or so in the office before I leave with the family for a week in Kerry, South West Ireland. We usually spend Spring Bank holiday in Cornwall (although we toured California last time) but we fancied a very quiet change and hopefully it should mean that. I'm only back 24hrs from that before I leave for the USA and a trip to E3 to discuss new titles and projects, so that means about 6-7 days in the office in the next 4 weeks.

Here, there and everywhere.

2009-04-29T19:27:00.002Z

I've just spent a busy couple of days up and down the country, first of all visiting London yesterday (27th) to attend a discussion on digital distribution at Bafta's HQ in Piccadilly, London and then, after a stay-over, up to Bradford University where I was part of a local industry networking/collaborative meeting with the staff of the computing/media/games-related courses over at Bradford Uni.

The talk at Bafta was preceded by a pint with old mucker Matt O'Disco who had his first day at Square-Enix after his 3 years at Eidos, funnily enough the week after Square had announced their purchase of Eidos, it's a funny old-games-industry... Also, as I had checked into my hotel, I was walking up to Piccadilly Circus from Leicester Square and I got a text from Craig Albeck, who coincidentally was in London and asking if I knew a good watering hole in Covent Garden... so we arranged to have a pint later.

The talk itself was fairly interesting even if I didn't really take much from it myself, given that we've been heavily into the digital download scene since late 2005 and it's almost all our business from here on in, so the "Do developers really need publishers?" tagline of the talk was already answered by ourselves as we're very definately digital publishers these days. It was quite amusing that David Lau-Kee (ex Criterion/EA) described 3rd party traditional publishers as 'leeches and parasites' - it drew gasps from the audience. David also used Worms success on XBLA to highlight what's possible, including asking if I was in the crowd and quizzing me over sales figures... which I avoided (got slapped wrists last time!).

Afterwards I took time to have a chat with a few people then escaped off for a pint with the Albeck Monkey, we had a ride in a rickshaw to Covent-Garden and then into some club thing as all the pubs were shut (what IS all that about in London?).

An early start today took me back up north (including dreadfully slow train internet) and then onto Bradford for the advisory panel meeting, which is an annual event. I actually really enjoyed the talks and felt the input by all was positive - I'm hopeful that we can get something going with Ian and his team.

Back in the office tomorrow before a long-weekend and plenty, plenty to do...

Incidentally I had a bit of fun putting an iPhone sneak peak together last Sunday (took me about 20mins) and its had about 50,000 hits in just a few days on Youtube and made news absolutely everywhere, with a stunningly overwhelmingly positive reaction. Should do well when that hits, then...

Oh and yes, footage of Worms 2 Armageddon (360) and Alien Breed (360/PC) will be coming soon!

Still hotting up...

2009-04-26T06:19:00.003Z

And I don't mean the weather!

This week we leaked a few pics (here)and a video of Worms running on iPhone (here). In the office it's been pretty busy with Alien Breed again, as the title starts to near the point where we're purely balancing it, a little more work on audio is going on and its receiving a lot of embellishment.

We're awaiting a new HD capture card at the office and once we have this, we will be able to get some quite delayed footage of 'Worms 2 Armageddon' and 'Alien Breed Evolution' out there - looking forwards to that...

chance

2009-04-24T17:02:00.000Z

Hello there,

We're currently re-building our database of usability testers, and are
looking to recruit people to take part in usability testing to help us
judge whether the mechanics of our games are easily enough understood, and
to better judge (amongst other things) difficulty, something notoriously
hard for game developers to gauge themselves.

The invite's open to anyone (friends, family etc.) although anyone under
the age of 18 will need to have their parent or guardian sign a consent
form before they can take part. Anyone you think might be interested should
mail:

test@team17.com

Anyone mailing will need to send their name, age, address, and some sort of
contact details (email, phone number, mobile, or all three if they like) so
that we can get in contact with them the week before the test to check
their availability.

The tests are likely to be 1-2 hours long, and will just require the test
subjects to sit and complete tasks that we've designed to focus in on
problems we see with the game.

If there's anyone you think might be interested, please pass the mail
address on... in fact, throw it around like confetti! We can never have too
many testers on the database.

If anyone's got any questions about what the tests are or why we do them,
drop in and I'll be only too happy to explain.

Many thanks!

John Dennis (message pimped by me)

Business end of the Breed...

2009-04-21T00:41:00.002Z

Spent an enjoyable few hours with some of the team looking at and discussing the finer points of the new Alien Breed today, with most of the conversation being about the audio atmosphere. Generally we're highly pleased with the way the game is shaping up and with so much emphasis on audio atmosphere, we're really trying to nail that. I'd say we're about 70% of the way there, with the general background ambience really helping drive the atmosphere (especially through 5.1 speakers - when we finally hooked them up, but that's another story). Right now a problem in the game is culling the Alien sounds and other atmospheric sounds, so work will need to be done on ensuring the Alien sounds get heard and that they're as satisfying as we mean them to be.

The game itself looks really nice and aside from a few pointers here and there, it remains to be seen just how much improvement we can really muster in the visual side from now until the game is completed in the early summer. I think once some of the audio is sorted out, we'll certainly be ready to unleash the game upon a few select press and release some gameplay footage, for a download title, it should set a new benchmark one hopes.

We're all pretty excited to learn what people will think of it, it's had a great reception to those who've seen it at various stages - and people thought it looked good last summer :)

Hotting up.

2009-04-18T06:33:00.002Z

With Worms now available on PS3 (and performing well, by all accounts) in the USA and Europe, with Australia and Asia to come (demo's coming soon for all regions btw), we are shifting focus to the next releases, including Worms 2 Armageddon for Xbox 360 and later, Alien Breed - which we're getting increasingly excited about as the game just looks better and better by the day. Worms iPhone marches on too...

I'm back after a really chilled out break in Scotland, with our friends who live up by Banff/Speyside and I managed to reset my body-clock and get a ton of sleep.

There's a ton of stuff to sort and arrange and it's going to be a busy few months, but all pretty exciting with a few things going on in the background too.

Setting the record straight about Al Lowe.

2009-04-13T08:23:00.002Z

I'd just like to confirm that Team17 never rejected any advances from Al Lowe regarding the latest Larry game - however the game's direction was undertaken by Vivendi since it was their IP and as such, any request for involvement would have gone through them. Al Lowe confirmed this in a recent email exchange to me and blamed the publishers for not wanting to discuss the title.

As far as I'm concerned, Mr Lowe lost all right to input on the property once he sold it to Sierra/Vivendi. I do not know the full details on that deal, nor do I wish to, I just know that's basically how it works. Selling it and still directing it is what is known as 'having your cake and eating it' - something which happens rarely in the modern games industry.

I'm disappointed that Mr Lowe has since taken it upon himself to implicate Team17 as obstructive in his efforts to get involved.

As far we're concerned it's water under the bridge now - and we've moved on. The latter period of development for the title in late 2007 to mid 2008 was difficult given the circumstances (Activision-Vivendi merger) and the drive/energy for the title perhaps suffered as a consequence of losing the initial development/management team at Vivendi and later as many questions hung over Vivendi's internal dev group as staff slowly left the organisation - and the future of Larry and other titles lay in serious doubt.

A degree of satisfaction.

2009-04-07T17:59:00.003Z

It's not often I'm so smug (well, ok, occasionally) but I have to admit a great sense of satisfaction at seeing Worms atop the weekly sales chart on the US PlayStation store, in it's first week, with minimal sales & marketing effort.

One of our previous publishing partners was at pains to point out that they believed it was a Euro-centric title, so it's brilliant to finally prove that sentiment to be utterly wrong, as the XBLA edition pointed out, which still rides high in the top 5 some 25 months after release.

It lands in Europe over Easter and it'll be interesting to see if it does well there, I hope so, because it's a really nice version of the game. A demo should follow soon after.

Old habits die hard.

2009-04-07T02:21:00.003Z

I'm not sure what it is about people on forums. I think it's the pseudo-hidden persona, the ability to hide behind a screen. I occasionally make the foolhardy mistake of posting on a forum or two and inevitably it ends up in irritation at some zealot who has it in their head to argue anything and everything to make some bizarre point. I need to really make sure I don't get drawn in, but I'll vigorously defend what we're about, if needs be. Anyway, enough of that. Interestingly enough, people on the facebook site have been rather more polite with their posts.

It's been a mixed week on product front, Worms for PS3 (USA) hit no.1 on the PSN store in the first week and at the same time, Leisuresuit Larry (360, PS3, PC) snuck out at retail and has come in for a bit of a mauling in reviews, which is disappointing and probably predictable at the same time - I'm sure a certain number of reviewers were licking their lips in anticipation of giving it a kicking and duly obliged. Larry wasn't a particularly smooth development ride over the last 12-18months after a great and very positive start with the Sierra team in early 2006.

No-one enjoys a bad review and largely speaking we've had a pretty good track record, so we have to take this one on the chin and move on. Larry was always going to be a challenge, so having all kinds of delays and issues through the Vivendi-Activision merger didn't really help matters. It is a shame because a lot of people extended a lot of effort in sometimes trying circumstances. We also had a year when we weren't even sure if it would be published or finished, it's difficult to keep momentum and energy up in those circumstances.

Fortunately we have projects on the way that will address the balance in terms of reception. We've not shown Alien Breed publicly yet and I'm looking forward to doing so - equally, the new Worms on PS3 is doing well and we have Worms 2:Armageddon in the loop for XBLA, as well as iPhone Worms. Our other stuff in development is probably over a year from being discussed/aired, so we'll have to wait on that.

Oh and it's 03:40am, still jet-lagged it seems :(

Back from the west coast...

2009-03-31T15:06:00.002Z

Well, that was a blur. A good one, but I can't ever recall GDC passing so quickly. I guess the reasons were that we had a pretty busy schedule and almost every hour outside of the event was crammed with a wide variety of social hook-ups, talks, parties and dinners. It's left me pretty exhausted and it'll likely take me a week to recover... I do wonder if I'll be able to manage to carry on this stuff in the future, I'm not getting any bloody younger!

A few things happened of note, in particular the PS3 PSN edition of WORMS went live in the USA last week, passing cert on the Tuesday and going live on the Thursday... the European one should follow soon. Reaction has been very positive from those who have played it and I imagine press and further comment will emerge shortly. I do laugh when people on forums grumble at the price or suggest it should be this or that price. Having just been to the USA, I think the title delivers remarkable entertainment value for what it is, £8/10euros/$13. It certainly wasn't a quick/cheap port, there's a lot of extras, additional content and love over the original $10 XBLA edition released in 2007. It's the price of 3 pints of beer for god's sake. (That's the barometer for everything, surely).

At the show, we were delighted with the reception that Alien Breed got from those we showed it to (press, other devs, publishers and our pals at Epic, given it's an Unreal3 title) and it's fair to say that everyone thinks it'll be pretty successful when it launches later this year. We didn't allow video footage, nor screenshots, that will be managed internally over the coming months. It was very nice to demonstrate something of high quality and totally polar-opposite to our much loved Worms series.

Also getting a fine reception was the new Worms game for XBLA, "Worms 2: Armageddon" which was subject to some very close scrutiny by a number of journalist/worms-fans who took extreme notice of the new physics changes and more... but the outcome was all very positive. And we didn't even show Worms on iPhone :)

The week was great on a business front, with a ton of stuff going on in the background as we continue our push into becoming a wholly digital publisher/developer, other than one title currently nearing completion, I don't think we'll see too many more traditional 3rd party retail games from Team17 - certainly not as retail-led development, although I wouldn't rule out things ending up in a box just yet, it's just not going to be our focus.

It was also heartwarming to hear that many people thought we were in a really enviable, strong position regarding the digital marketplace and I'm confident that we're set fair over the next two years - this coming from other devs, media and 1st party platform holders. The strength of our line up helps give me additional confidence and given that we've been working hard behind the scenes for a few years on the move to digital, it's all really starting to build momentum now.

Right now I'm knee-deep in catch up and sorting out all the loose ends and opportunities as discussed at the show - and looking forward to resetting my circadian rhythm (that's Jet-Lag to you). Interestingly enough it appears that they've been testing hamsters in attempts to cure/reduce Jet-Lag (something that really knocks me for six every time I get back from the USA) and they've basically been using Viagra. I'm not sure about it working, but it might keep me 'up' a bit longer at night... seems a long way from the Hammy Hamster series on TV and I imagine if we give our Hamster (Sonic) a viagra, he'll need a blow up rodent, not a wheel. Not sure how I'd explain that one to young Harry...

Scotland soon. That'll be a nice rest, I just hope I've recovered by then - last time we went I slept for the 4-5 days we were there!

Day of despair...

2009-03-25T13:53:00.002Z

I'm over in San Francisco right now for GDC and things are going well - although on Monday/Tuesday the same couldn't be said as we had technical problems with our demo Xbox360. Firstly, we'd neglected to consider that the power supply wouldn't work in the USA and the transformer is a special one for the dev kit, so this led to frantic searching for a transformer, which took most of the day. We had some very kind offers to help (responding to facebook pleas!) and Microsoft even arranged to send us a full loan kit which was brilliant of them.

Anyway, with the 360 now powered, brilliant we thought... until we got to our booth on Tuesday morning to find that the rental company we'd hired a plasma from had neglected to leave any connection cables and in addition, there was no audio/speakers hooked up. Cue more frantic cable buying, stress and a large amount of swearing as we raced against the clock to get it sorted. We eventually got things up and running after various dashes to shops and hardware stores to see that the display quality was rubbish and that took ages before it was acceptable.

Anyway, its all working now and we can relax going into a heavy schedule on Weds/Thurs. Things at the show are going very well, there's been a fantastic reaction to the games we're showing and we had news yesterday that Worms PS3 will go live next week, which is really cool.

On the social side it's been as expected and we've enjoyed some good company. I've been reasonably moderate too, but that resolve may be tested over the next 3-4 days when the heavier parties and get-togethers are planned.

Today, I'm taking the Horse-head...

Jetting off, again.

2009-03-22T04:57:00.002Z

Coming up to 5am and I've been up for a while, getting ready to leave for San Francisco & GDC in ten minutes or so.

I am wary that I've forgotten something, I don't know if it's simply because there's not much documentation this time and the trip is pretty straight forward (i.e. Leeds->London->SF, one hotel, no car hire) compared to the last few (and certainly the E3 one looming).

Leaving on Mother's Day has caused a bit of ruction, especially given I was in the USA for Valentine's day too, but I really don't plan this stuff (incidentally I was in Lyon for Trina's birthday last year too, which didn't go down well either).

It was a shame that I had to miss Grant's wedding reception last night too, but with so much on I simply had to capitulate and get stuff done at home, as it was, I didn't pack until early evening.

Oh well, hoping everything goes well, we're showing 3 games for the first time and we've got a ton of talks lined up. Its been pretty busy and positive of late (barring one or two things) and hopefully this week will further underpin that. I'm (as ever) looking forward to seeing a lot of my industry friends, meeting new ones but this as ever, is countered by missing the family. Still, won't be long as we're all traveling up to Scotland again at Easter.

The weather is set to be nice all week, which makes a real change - last 3 times in San Fran it's been bloody awful; really heavy rain, wind etc. Its fortunate that its a great city whatever the weather, but the sun shining really opens it up. I'm risking it and going coat-less and I suspect that John will bring his massive coat, which I'll enjoy winding him up about.

Interesting times.

2009-03-21T02:43:00.002Z

It seems like 10mins since myself and John headed out to the USA in February, but here we are again and it's time for GDC. I'm really looking forwards to showing Alien Breed and also revealing the new Worms for XBLA (Worms 2: Armageddon) as well as Worms PS3 getting it's first airing. We're working on a bunch of different things and it's all terribly exciting, particularly with the self-publishing angle.

Also got the first version of Worms on iPhone this week and that's going to be great.

First things first though, there's Grant's wedding reception to attend today and somehow get some sleep before the 4am alarm on Sunday... It was his stag-do on Wednesday with fairly predictable results (am still recovering).

Getting ready for GDC

2009-03-15T07:43:00.004Z

Well, we're a week away from GDC and life's pretty busy right now. Aside from getting everything together for GDC (as I write, in exactly a week I'll be en route), there's a pile of stuff to sort for our upcoming releases, PR to do, things to discuss business wise and at home a queue of jobs for me to attempt to sort.

I don't actually mind being very busy, although it's kind of got to the point where there's so many little things its pretty difficult to know what to do and in which order, so I kind of peck at them, it's a little bit like those plate-spinning acts.

Part of my problem is that when I'm in the office, it's so easy to be distracted by passers by, people popping in for chats, messenger pinging every few minutes, the email going at least once a minute that I find it really tough to get into solid thought processes. I know I could turn all that off (and in times of extreme need I do) but a lot of what I do means ensuring that I provide a quick response to all manner of questions and opportunities.

I've struck a nice balance of late by getting into the office around 8am, which tends to give me 1-2hrs of quiet time before the studio (and externally, the industry) is in full flow. At that time, my email is under control since I'll have kept up with it the previous night and tackled most of the overnight ones during the morning over coffee.

We've also had a bit of a change of direction at work in terms of what we're going to be doing and who we're doing it with. It has to be said, I'm pretty confident, bullish and happy about all that - the full detail of that will come out over time, but in many ways I almost feel that our 19yrs in existence at Team17 was all about being here for now and the opportunities there are - despite the mood in the economic climate. This will mean a few subtle changes around the place (and that process has begun) and long-term it will make us stronger and able to deal with whatever is thrown at us.

GDC is going to be hectic. It always is, but always in a good way. This year we've got the added workload of a ton of PR meetings about our titles and whilst it's always fun, doing demos and chatting through the same stuff can sometimes wear thin, so we do try and make each presentation unique so at the very least we can enjoy it.

Given my liking to cram as many catch ups with contacts and industry friends as possible, it means socially we're almost at the human limit - so it'll be a real test of endurance and I'm not looking forward to how shattered I'll inevitably be on the return journey and a dreaded 4hr layover at Heathrow, but as usual I'll take one (or two) for the Team :)

Incidentally, I really can't believe that it's almost 3yrs since I started the blog. It serves as a reminder as to how fast this life goes by, so I continue to cram a ton in. Fortunately things like Facebook mean I can keep up with everyone quite often.

That goes for mates like Gordon, who runs R*Leeds (the guys who did the handheld GTA games including the latest DS one) - I was out with him (and coincidentally been good friends long before they became R*) and old mucker Bry Reynolds on Wednesday since he's heading out to run another studio for a while. We inevitably drank far too much and Bryan lost his iPhone (again) - such is the cost of these fairly full-on evenings. That was wrapped by two visits by companies to Team17 which involved a few pints too, so it made for a little 'relaxed' end to what had been a difficult week up to that point.

This week we have a couple of socials, Grant a designer who joined us as a young lad at 16 (and that must have been over 10yrs ago now) gets married next weekend so it's off into Leeds again Wednesday night with a lot of the Team17 folks and then his Wedding do on Saturday, which is the night before we have to be up at 4am to start the long journey to San Francisco and a day that will inevitably end up in Vesuvio Bar, on Columbus in North Beach... but I've got two kids bedrooms to kit out with furniture back in the real world and I better get that done if I don't want to be decorating my dog-house again.

Viral tactics

2009-03-03T17:22:00.002Z

Trying to do things a little under the radar with the buzz for our two new Worms games (for PSN and also XBLA) and its started creeping around the net, especially after the news piece last week when the Aussie certification board 'outed' the new XBLA game.

Best way to watch for anything new is on the Team17 Facebook page, where we're posting stuff, collating links and more.

Nothing on Alien Breed to reveal just yet... but both Worms PSN and Worms 2: Armageddon, should both have some visibility at the forthcoming GDC in San Francisco.

Full features, videos and stuff will be forthcoming for the Worms games in due course.

Hey big fender...

2009-03-02T00:31:00.003Z

Finally, it's happened. I went and got an Electric Guitar. I've been on about it years, it's been the subject of a 'will I, won't I' thread of conversation with Kilburn for about a decade and for one reason or another, I never got around to it until today, probably due to Guitar Hero & Rock Band supplying my fix. Having recently moved onto 'Hard mode' on Rock Band, I felt compelled to get off my arse and get a guitar.

Anyway, I got around to selling the little HD Camcorder I got last summer, which I'd only used for a couple of hours at the most, much preferring my still frame photography hobby due to lack of time to really spend time editing stuff (and then, obviously watching it). As a result, I thought "bugger it" and went and got a cheap Stratocaster copy from town and I've started on the road to having a go with it. I've had an hour or two on it and some strained riffs of 'Smoke On The Water' have been heard, probably the easiest thing to play.

I also bought a keyboard (one with teaching modes and keys that light up showing you where to play) and have put this in the room where Harry's drums are, the aim being that the kids can mess around with this stuff and hopefully get an interest in it. I'd always been annoyed with myself for not really taking something like that up when younger, when it's easier to learn.

Mole strike?

2009-02-25T17:34:00.003Z

Twice in a month, 2 of our undercover titles have been outed. Fortunately they've had an excited initial reaction, but full details, videos and content will follow.

For the record, Worms PSN is an enhanced edition of the hugely successful XBLA edition, with more levels, additional weapons, audio, 1080p support and more besides.

The new title for XBLA is subject to a potential name change and it's a vastly expanded edition of the game which mixes classic weapons and features from Worms Armageddon (released 1999) and some very new (and rather tasty) new content.

The original XBLA edition of Worms is available for a stupidly good value of $5/£3.50 or something, so warm up on that!

We hope that people will be delighted.

20 years on, the world is a tiny place.

2009-02-24T23:50:00.002Z

It's quite incredible really when you consider how things have rocketed on in the last couple of decades. I mean, when I first got into this industry, Email wasn't really around (although I was on 'Compunet' a bulletin board service - and very much the geek for being so), the Internet was something in a University Lab and the whole communication supernova had yet to really get going.

Flip to now and something like Facebook which allows you to nag, tease and keep up with the Jones' pretty much all day long. Other than that, it's also an incredible way to promote product by 'word of digital mouth' for want of a better phrase. I was incredulous to find out that a 4 month old 'page' for 'Worms' (a base for people to become 'fans' of our game) had something like 365,000 people as fans, from all walks of life, from all over the world.

Thats pretty stunning, it also reminded me of a conversation I'd had with John whilst we were in Seattle, or San Francisco, or between the two, in a car, up in the air, wherever, that we should be using the likes of Facebook more, to allow our players to become closer knit with our games, to interact more.

We've had forums for years and they're different kind of places, people hide behind silly names and troll (abuse) other people wantonly, in effect, these forums are ironically 'faceless' and I've yet to see much in the way of abuse on Facebook because in most cases, you can relate to a human being as you stare at their profile picture (as long as, say, they aren't wearing a horse-head mask).

So we've started building a Team17 Facebook page, with links to pages of our product past and present, we'll see how popular they get and how much they get noticed. They'll be accessible to the 175m facebook users (50m in the USA alone) and the standard interface means people are more likely to get involved and share images, files, comments and anecdotes with fellow fans. I hope it will be the start of something special and that the ball will keep rolling.

I certainly think that the days of dull, stale corporate sites are on the wane, so lets see how this goes, it might be pretty good once we tell people it's there too - as of now it's about 24hrs old and a best kept secret.

You can find the Team17 Facebook page here.

From there you can check a few of the game pages up there, we'll be growing those in due course, with many to include info from the horses' (or donkey's) mouth and exclusive shots, videos and items.

Super happy

2009-02-20T20:13:00.002Z

That's right folks, super happy.

Things are going well, on a number of fronts.

Had a great trip to the USA, moderately behaved, saw old friends, made new friends, travelled a bit too much and bought a new coat (and didn't lose it).

I'm probably more excited about the future of Team17 than I have been in years, there is genuine excitement ahead in a way that rolls me back 15-16 years. A lot of the changes are yet to affect the studio and it won't be felt for a few months, but I know it's on the way. I couldn't be happier.

The only problem right now is that I've so much to sort out and do, I'm struggling to know what to do first. I've managed to avoid jet-lag for the first time ever too.

I'll try and update more often, blame Facebook...

First big trip of the year and other news.

2009-02-07T21:46:00.002Z

After first recovering from the hedonistic beer & gin swill-a-thon that was Galway '09 last weekend, next up is 3 flights to Seattle, Washington, on the west coast of the USA. I've spent a few days worrying about the trip given the stop-start weather and fortunately the signs are that we should be OK, as a very cold, clear night is forecast. I'll just need to take it steady on the drive up there since Leeds-Bradford airport is somewhat out in the sticks.

It'll be a very long day, a 4am start, 7am first flight, 10.30am flight from London to San Fran, 3hr stop and then onto Seattle, picking up a car and then driving to Bellevue, east of Seattle, where we are for 3 nights (we have a 6am flight on Weds to Los Angeles, before jetting back up to San Fran for the rest of the meetings).

Anyway, touch-wood it all goes well, we've got a bunch of meetings and catch-ups and it's going to be pretty whirlwind. In 7 weeks we're back to SF again for GDC and that's already looking like a busy week as usual, I'm not normally booking meetings 7 weeks in advance though.

Also this week, the german ratings board (USK) unwittingly revealed Worms for PSN, which I can confirm is in the works and we'll reveal more in the official press release. It's pretty sweet and should do well, Alien Breed is also coming on well too :)

We're discussing these and other titles over in the USA, news of that stuff will eek out over the coming weeks/months.

Jet Set Willies

2009-02-05T17:59:00.002Z

I was supposed to be going to London today, for a bunch of meetings and an industry jury tonight, but the bloody weather put paid to my travels. No refund on the train ticket, nor hotel, due to me cancelling, despite "severe disruption".

So, after cancelling all my meetings and apologising all day, I get around to trying to avoid similar issues on Sunday whereby I'm due to fly Leeds-London-San Fran, given Leeds is forecast to have heavy snow this weekend. We have an important meeting on Monday (in Seattle, where we fly to shortly after landing in San Fran) and I'd really not have the stress of not knowing what's going on - I have travel detail OCD and hate it if I know there's a chance something may go awry.

So, to pre-empt the fact that Leeds airport is highly likely to be closed, or heavily delaying/cancelling flights on Sunday morning, I booked a hotel at Heathrow and decided that we'd go from there rather than the shuttle-plane from Leeds... all well and good until I double check that's fine with the airline. Of course it isn't, my ticket has a no route alteration to it, which means I can't skip a section and have to fly from Leeds, no matter if the airport has been hit by a nuke or not. It's left me pretty angry and stressed - and had to cancel another hotel. So now I'm just on tenterhooks until Saturday night/Sunday morning and it'll all depend on the weather at 5am Sunday morning (we're on a 7am flight).

Jet set my arse. If the Leeds flight is delayed or cancelled, we could end up anywhere and if they ask us to jump on a bus to Heathrow, I don't know what I'll do...

"What about the pig?"

2009-02-03T00:35:00.002Z

Well, back from a fun-filled 3 days in Galway with a pretty impressive hangover, albeit not from where I am sat.

Kudos to those that assisted in a variety of social crimes that helped us create a not inconsiderable tidal wave of fun. So thanks to Andy (Vad), Slatts, Joe, Koops, Bry, Gordon, John L, Ste, John P, Law, Mick and Micky W.

Amongst the very many highlights, few compare with the look on the citizens of Galway as we paraded around in a Horse mask. Having young kids run up and point shouting "Harse!" was unforgettable, as was the nonsense we got up to with it.

Everyone was on great form and we managed to all pretty much get back before the country was closed due to the bloody snow that's now causing havoc.

I've been back 24hrs and am only just starting to feel a little better now. I've got a ton of work to do and am also worrying about my travel plans coming up with the transport system in a right mess. Oh hum.

Galway edges closer

2009-01-26T07:24:00.003Z

The birthday weekend away with the lads to Galway is just a few days away and I'm really looking forward to that - and I'm also feeling a lot better after a largely well managed/behaved month on the diabetes front - much needed after a pretty slack 2008.

We didn't manage to get away for a family walk this weekend as Trina wasn't well (blaming some garlic bread rather than copious amounts of Cava on Saturday night) and with me being away next week, the walks will resume in February. (God, February already!)

Work wise and it's starting to get to the 'business-end' on a few projects (where we submit the titles for final approval) and getting very close to announcing one or two in more detail, which will probably be some time next month.

The onset of February also means the start of my usual work-related travel cycle, with a trip out the USA and then GDC again in March.

Top Gear episodes

2009-01-13T10:50:00.004Z

Not the fact that we're starting to prepare for the release of a few new Team17 titles (in the coming few months) but the fact that I had to scamper for my haircut as my 11yr old son said "god, you've gone a bit Clarkson". Shamed... even the missis said if it got any longer it'd be a bit "James May". Am pleased to report that I'm "more of a Hammond again" according to Jack.

Back to the new games and they'll be on numerous formats.

We've still got a few unannounced things going on too, it's going to be a busy year.

Val-der-eee! & Craic to the future!

2009-01-09T22:46:00.003Z

Finally. I've finally bloody gone and convinced the family that we should give walking a try - I don't mean around the house, or with the dog, but proper walking days out - nice locations (rumour has it there are plenty in the region), fresh air (plenty of that) and by way of bonus, chance for me to take some photos. We're going to start (all being well) on sunday with a trip to Bolton Abbey near Ripon and a walk up the Wharfe, through Strid Wood and up the Strid. We've even been to the outfitters and got the kids walking boots and some comfy socks, they must mean business, even Jack appears to be looking forward to it. One casualty of this is Harry's Sunday football matches (and possibly my photos of the games) but he is still keen to do training and I can help coach, but it does mean we get Sundays free again - which is a relief. Saturdays still remain a blur with football training, swimming and then the odd Leeds match every other week.

Only 21 days remain to the trip to Galway and 11 hardy souls (friends and mates' pals) will make the trip over to what has quickly become a beloved drinking haven of mine - I really bloody love that town. 3 days of laughs, perudo, chilling out and creating a little bit of havoc. The atmosphere is simply great, it's also top that a mate from Germany is making it over and both beardy Pickfords are coming along. Great stuff, can't wait.

Booked a business trip this week, we're due to see some folks in Seattle, San Francisco and possibly Los Angeles all within one week, which will mean 6 flights (2 of them transatlantic), 2 hire cars and 3 hotels in 6 days, which is a bit much - but sleeps for the tired, eh. Am actually quite looking forward to the trip, we've got some good stuff cooking and this should kick start a lot more stuff for what we've got planned later in the year. Onwards and upwards, I'm reliably informed.

Oh, finally, GO SEE SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, it's a bloody great film.

Too much like hard work.

2009-01-05T22:13:00.002Z

Selecting a family holiday, that's what's too much like hard work. It ought to be a pleasure.

After being thoroughly rained off in our last few attempts to holiday 'at home' (i.e. in the UK) we've been contemplating where to go this year. In truth the family was lavishly spoilt last year when we toured the US West Coast - and much of that was really making up for the last 3-4yrs when I've travelled approx 3 or months of the year through work - a bit of pay back if you will.

But this years a real stickler, the holiday period has to be arranged around a fairly busy work schedule, the kids holidays (they differ now that my eldest Jack is at secondary) and what the Mrs can get off at her work. Then there's where to go; last year it was dirt cheap in the USA because of the £:$ rate and now its not great for holiday makers, but then again Europe is pretty much as bad.

The Mrs likes to go somewhere where there's things to do (shops, Argos is a bonus) and she won't get burnt.

I'd like nothing more than to book a nice cottage in Cornwall but there's just the massive uncertainty (or certainty!) of the British bloody weather.

At this rate, we'll be holidaying in 4 different places. I've got no further with any ideas... and whilst August seems a long way away, I know it'll be here before I know it.

Welcome 2009

2009-01-02T09:41:00.002Z

Well, 2009 at last and what will be (for a change) a busy old year on the work front with a number of challenges ahead. We've a bunch of releases this year and that means a ton of PR, marketing and so-on, as well as working on a host of new titles.

Personally speaking, I've got the usual bunch of new years resolutions (lose weight, cut down on drink, take more exercise etc - I've done OK on the first two over xmas, funnily enough) and I'm hopeful I can keep other minor ones (spend less time on Facebook, for example) also in trim.

I'm finally loosing my Christmas cold too, thank god...

Back to work on Monday after a very quiet Xmas/New Year.

Christmas over, roll on 2009

2008-12-28T10:27:00.002Z

All that fuss and preparation and woosh, it's out of the way so quickly. As usual, the last few frantic days were centered on trying to make it a special time for the kids and I think both Jack and Harry have enjoyed themselves. We threw a party last night (27th) and rocked out with Rockband and Singstar til after 3am, a top night.

Out for an Indian tonight and then on the piss with Simon on Monday, before Wednesday's new years' eve party in the village.

After that it's 2009 and quite a busy year to look forwards to and hopefully a surge by Leeds after a disappointing end to 2008.

Happy new year and best wishes for 2009...

Winding down.

2008-12-15T14:24:00.002Z

Whilst I spend most of the year winding people up, it's finally time for me to wind down and recharge for next year, which is going to be pretty hectic again. We've a bunch of games going out on various formats (a ton of PR to do for that) and the first six months of most years is littered with Industry events; there's a trip out to the West Coast in February, GDC in March and a small matter of yet another jaunt to Galway for my birthday at the end of Jan.

But right now it's a case of looking forwards to a week or two at home with the kids, family and friends, a drink or two and a few hours of Rockband into the bargain. It's been a funny old year, much of it seemingly preparing for a busy 2009.

In the gap since the last update I've had cold, had a flu-jab (which I get due to the diabetes), seen Leeds go from bad to ridiculous and finally sort all my Christmas gifts out, so no last-minute faffs for me.

This week I'm down in London with JD and Kilburn on Wednesday and there's a Perudo session planned for Thursday. Friday may be my last day in the office (although I never escape the mails) I'll have to see where work things are - I could do with a few days to sort out the house pre-xmas.

Christmas is almost upon us

2008-11-30T06:36:00.002Z

Well, the tree's up. I finally relented.

It usually goes up the first weekend in December and thats usually preceding a trip to Lyon for Game Connection, but like the tree being early, that was too. We're now making plans for our xmas party, which will happen a few days prior to new years eve.

It's been a bit of a slow week this week, mostly due to the US Thanksgiving holiday slowing my email down somewhat, but I'm sure that will kick start again on Monday. It's also been really, really bloody cold - football training with the kids wasn't very pleasant.

We went to a Christmas market earlier in the week and the sausage I had played all kinds of a merry dance which led to me having to take a day off last Tuesday - something that doesn't happen often, even with a lot of the drinking scrapes I've got myself into over the years.

Today Leeds play Histon (a high flying non-league part-time club) and I'm rather worried they'll knock us out and as it's live on National TV I suspect 10-15million others will be delighted if they do. I've got a few quid on certain results at 500-1...

Oh Lordi!

2008-11-22T01:39:00.003Z

Back from my quick trip to Finland, which I really enjoyed to be honest. My hosts were great, we had a fantastic meal at a swanky Italian restaurant (Sasso, downtown Helsinki) and then met a few friends from Housemarque and went to the popular Kalle club until the early hours where I chanced upon Dean Bent and a bunch of the Nokia boys. The night ended pretty vaguely all told (given I'd been up way early in the day) and since my shirt stinks of Sambuca, I rather imagine a good time was had.

The next day tested my professional metal, having to be up at 8am for a 9pm meeting (given that this was +2hrs GMT) but manage it I did and I was on time, it a little rosey from the entertainment the previous night. Fortunately my meeting went really well (I get the impression that this was reciprocated) and a good lunch also followed before I jumped in a cab for the airport.

At the airport, I was in a long check-in queue when I got a message from Pelit magazine (Finland's premier gaming mag - who we know right from our Amiga days) and they asked why we hadn't visited them (I think Tuija had seen my Facebook update) so given I had 2-3hrs before the flight, I thought' "Bugger it" and jumped into a cab to go and say hello for 30mins. Unfortunately having googled the address of Sanoma (the company that Pelit is part of) the taxi took me to the head office and not the Pelit location, so I didn't get to see them after all :( I've promised to drop in the next time I'm ever in Finland/Helsinki... it meant another 30mins in a cab too, which amusingly enough saw a confused looking driver collect me on the return trip - the same one who had dropped me off minutes earlier - and surprisingly (for a Finn) spoke little English.

The flight, tax-free shopping and everything went mostly according to plan and even the traffic played ball on the way back home, which I was fretting about - the M62 is bad enough on a quiet day, let alone 5.30pm on a Friday evening...

Got home to find the missus had 'booked me in' to take some pics of her nieces for a family xmas present for her brother (large canvas of the girls) so I had that to arrange and am actually quite pleased with the work given I rarely do portrait shots. - am thinking of getting a couple of decent studio lights and a backdrop and offering my services to family and friends since I do enjoy it. A pal recently told me that he'd been asked to do a few 'glamour shots' for a friend... but I don't think I'm quite ready for that!

In addition to the shoot, I also got chance to wade through my email inbox and along with the positive meeting in Finland, there were a bunch of other things which have contributed to making it an official "good news week". Hopefully this also means that Leeds will win tomorrow :)

Welcome to Hell(sinki)

2008-11-20T05:40:00.002Z

As usual pre-trip, I'm up too early - a mixture of anxiety about sleeping in and missing the flight and thinking about the trip itself.

This time it's Helsinki, Finland where I have a business meeting on Friday morning before I fly back on Friday afternoon. That makes for a very short overnight trip, but knowing the Finns it'll involve a nice meal and more than a few drinks in the evening when I arrive as I'm meeting up with a few old Finnish muckers. I'll need to get a beer coat on only for the fact that it's allegedly going to be -9 over there, I don't care about that so much, more the fact that it's pretty windy - I hate windy take-offs on the plane.

I'd imagine that this trip also wraps up the year in terms of travel with it being just 5 weeks to Xmas day although I've done all my xmas shopping (the ones that count, for the wife) but I need to sort out a new bike for Jack.

I like the Finnish people, they've got a great appetite for fun and just don't stop. Just as well it's one night then...

Looking back it's been another fast, busy year, with a lot of travel under my belt and the jokes about my carbon footprint getting ever larger, especially after the purchase of my non-green motor. I imagine it'll be similar next year too, but maybe not as hectic perhaps, given there's no big family US tour planned (although I greatly appreciated the holiday) - we're booked for birthday Galway again though and there's the usual smattering of trade events that just won't go away.

2009 also brings quite a few Team17 published titles with it and we'll be on with the PR for those in the new year. On a week when Worms for XBLA went back to the top of the weekly chart, on the back of it being discounted to a ridiculous 400pts.

Kippis! (As the Finns say)

Breeding success

2008-11-15T04:01:00.003Z

Lyon, Game Connection 2008

Another day another blog and again, almost 2 weeks have marched on in the blink of an eye. I had a short, sharp trip to Lyon with John Dennis, when we attended 'Game Connection', the speed-dating conference for developers and publishers.

It marked a first for us in recent years in that although having Worms related software in development, we actually demonstrated none of it - and primarily the work done to date on Alien Breed and a demo of the stuff on Leisuresuit Larry (which contrary to games-industry myth, isn't dead).

I'm super-happy to report that Alien Breed went down a storm and there was a real buzz about it - I think we've really captured the essence of the original and delivered it with a thoroughly modern production value. A lot of people came and had a look and had a play and we think its safe to say certain bars have been lifted with regards to digital download titles, which has been the aim from the off. We're looking forward to releasing video, images and details in the coming months.

Lyon itself was good as ever, but staying just a couple of nights meant we were very busy in terms of the event, but I think we managed to catch up with all the old friends and even found time to have a very nice dinner at some posh-nosh place - they say there's no such thing as a free lunch and I suspect that's true, although we weren't grumbling too much.

Best laugh of the time over there was a prank I played on poor John Sanderson (whom I wind up far too much). We tend to think he looks a little bit like Eddie Large and whilst in Leipzig, earlier in the summer, I'd seen a picture of a clown that reminded me of John (it was on the hotel-tv schedule) and took a photo of it on my iPhone, which is where it'd sat ever since.

Anyway, cut to Lyon and we're in our favourite pub, the St. James on Rue St. Jean and playing Perudo with John, Pete Smith, Pete O'Donnel, Sten, Mick and Nina... Perudo is the liars-dice game we play quite a lot and it involves 'wearing' the dice and cup 'bag' on your head as a hat/forfeit when you are almost out of the game and onto your last dice. Well, when people wear the hat, pictures get taken... this carried on until John wore the hat, I took a picture and then he asked to see said picture. Immediately I showed him the picture of the clown I'd taken in Leipzig, rather than the one seconds earlier. The result was hilarity uproar, with John and Pete(s) almost puking up with laughter.

The joke went down so well (rather like the famous 'war joke' in Monty Python, which was lethal) that the photo of the clown was used anytime ever anyone wanted to see their picture wearing 'the hat'. It got better and better and more funny as the night/drinks wore on. You had to be there. I've included the picture of the clown here -apologies in advance - it's way too dangerous and I wouldn't want anyone coughing/spilling drink on their machines whilst observing it, although without the context of it's 'use' and/or knowing John 'Eddie' Sanderson, perhaps it's power is greatly weakened.

The following night I also had a very long night with Mick Morris and Marc "Coops" Kuepper, leaving the pub in the early hours and managing to move onto 3 other bars before calling it a night in the very small hours, somewhat of a record, which involved the 'club roulette' game down by the old-town river again, which is so much fun. (See earlier Lyon posts for what that is). Coops later thanked me for the state he was in on Thursday... :)

The event was very successful for us in terms of promise, really elevating the studio's skills and I guess many were surprised after years of Worms products :) We're discussing a bunch of stuff with people right now and are optimistic we'll get some of it away and in progress. Great as ever to catch up with all the gang out there and look forward to hopefully doing it all again next year.

And so to Spain.

The day I got back was Katrina's birthday - you can only imagine the grief I'd had by being away on her birthday, but I'd promised to treat her and make up for it. The surprise was a weekend away in Barcelona. I'd got a very good deal on flights from tiny Doncaster airport, so off we went, flying to Gerona (85km from Barca), renting a car (a nice 1 series BMW, that she also liked) and we stayed in the posh Hotel Arts, right on the marina near Port Olympique.

The weather was nice, much better than the cold, wet and windy Doncaster we'd left behind and we had a relaxing time taking in the sights and way, way too much tapas which ranged from small plates of a few things from platters so full 8 could have been fed from a single plate. All of it was very good but we left Barca very stuffed.

We also had a long, long walk on the Saturday covering god knows how many miles, culminating in the awesome sight of Gaudi's in-progress masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia - a temple started in the late 19th century and planned to be complete around 2030 or so.

I had a relatively photo-free weekend due to me feeling that the last thing 'Trina needed on a birthday weekend was me going into annoying camera-nut mode. Despite me being sorely tempted.

Fortunately the flight back wasn't grim (high winds were forecast) and everything went smoothly, although it was a bit sad leaving a very sunny blue sky and 18deg. in Gerona. It was 6deg when we landed in Donny.

Marching on Together, despite a hiccup.

On Tuesday I went along to Pride Park in Derby to see Leeds eventually lose out 2-1 in the 4th round of the league cup. It was a really good night and a terrific performance from Leeds who dominated proceedings despite two very early defensive blunders. The atmosphere was great and the team applauded off.

In many ways I think this could really act as a catalyst for the season, with the fans being so much behind the team, even in defeat, it can't have been lost on them, however disappointing - and however much it would have been nice to have been in the draw for the last 8, like the potential of an FA Cup run, we really have to concentrate on getting out of League 1, back into the Championship and hopefully back to the Premiership.

Tomorrow we're at home to Huddersfield, a Yorkshire derby that I can never understand the fuss about. Over 33,000 are expected at the game (most likely the biggest crowd outside the premiership and the record for league 1 this season) but I just don't get the interest. Last year was a 4-0 hiding for 'Town and I'd be happy with 3 points whatever the score.

Games Fallout

The incessant stream of quality game titles continues to pour through the postbox. Gears Of War 2, Fallout, Rockband2 (and the AC/DC track pack which is both awesome and disappointing at the same time), Fifa09, Little Big Planet, Fable 2 - and that's not including a bunch of games that are out but will be delivered around about Dec 25th for the kids. Jack's chuffed because the Litch King (Warcraft's latest expansion, just in case you live in a cave) is out and he's on with that. This is all well and good but I just don't have the time to play many of them, Fallout is massive...

Fin Visit

Next week (which is typically busy) has me visiting Helsinki on Thursday/Friday overnight, a day/evening out in Leeds on the Monday, a busy day tuesday with a publisher and then hoping to catch up with other work stuff in-between. I fly out Thursday morning, arrive late afternoon, am out for a meal with my Friday host and possibly a few other Finnish pals - and likely to be a few drinks, then a Friday meeting before flying back.

Fortunately the weather in Helsinki is forecast to be higher than the -15c it was when I last visited with Jamie, 3 yrs back - just prior to the diabetes thing going off, when we were talking with Housemarque about bringing back Super Stardust - all that eventually happened as PS3 owners will know, ultimately without Team17 publishing in the end, but we were glad they got it onto the system - they're old mates from our Amiga publishing days.

Time will tell if we need to visit the west-coast again before Xmas, I hope not to be honest.

Too much goin' on...

2008-11-03T21:07:00.002Z

I don't quite know where the last couple of weeks went really, time is flying by. I know I keep writing shit like that, but it's an attempt (in a rather odd, strange way) to make a note of it and hope that in some silly way it makes it slow down - like it does when you keep watching the clock. Anyway, it doesn't bloody work.

So, the last two weeks, then... not a lot to report from where I'm sat; I finally sorted out the en-suite bathroom/shower at home, we had Tracy down from Scotland to stay (along with Sam) and then the kids had a week off - and it rained a lot - and was cold, too.

I also managed to compete in a Games Industry Poker Tourney the other day and despite playing fairly well, I succumbed to being sat between two very good players, one of whom was playing with a lot of chips which he didn't pay for - and eventually I went out. Still, I had a good time and it was all for charity.

Tomorrow I head out with John Dennis for Game Connection in Lyon, which is one month earlier than usual this year - a shame on a few counts; not only does it now lose it's "official countdown to Christmas" event (one I know is shared with a few industry buddies on the biz-dev circuit) but it also coincides with the wife's birthday on Thursday. I'm sure if your important other half values her special day half as much as mine then you can only imagine the grief I've had about me not being there on her special morning.

Still, it's made me sort something special out and I'll be whisking her away for a surprise weekend, tail firmly between my legs, fingers crossed that there's no delays getting back on Thursday...

Game wise, good-games are rattling in at the moment, almost embarrassingly so; RockBand2 arrived today (complete with an AC/DC track, the ability to import all RB1 and DLC tracks - amazing!), I've got Fable2, Fallout3 and Far Cry 2 all to play, with Gears Of War 2 on the way, Fifa09 sat there, Little Big Planet and stuff like Tiger Woods 09 just sat around gathering dust... I don't know where the hell to start - I played Fallout3 for most of the weekend before realising it's just too big and will mean that none of the ones I've listed will get airtime. Besides, I'm still giddy for the AC/DC track pack for Rockband... maybe that will be here by the time I get back from Lyon. Fingers crossed.

I really feel for any game not quite up to the mark of that lot there since it's a very, very competitive marketplace and I'm quite glad our titles aren't held up for comparison with them... they're the real big-hitters. I kind of enjoy being a bigger fish in a smaller pond - in with those guys we're just pond bait... which is why I'm really looking forward to the reaction when we put the new Alien Breed out there, since in our pond, it's going to make quite a splash. I was super chuffed today when Jack, my eldest, who at 11 is a total Warcraft head, looked at the clip of Alien Breed running on my laptop and said "Wow! it looks just like Diablo3 with guns and aliens!" - his enthusiasm was marked, normally he has a cursory glance of what I'm up to and toddles off back to the PC, taking Sardron his Dwarf on more raids, but this time he really, actually, liked something we are doing! (For the record he was at the unveiling (as a VIP, no less) of Diablo3 at the Blizz-con in Paris this year (nice birthday surprise eh).

Leeds also started winning again and now sit 2nd in the league, which is encouraging... the only shame is that Harry, my youngest has decided to start wavering about going (I'd got season tickets for him and me) and as a result I went and changed seats and moved from the family stand to 2 adults in the Kop. Typically at the weekend he then asks if there was a match and if we were going... Argh...

Little Big Balls-up

2008-10-17T16:21:00.003Z

LittleBigPlanet is probably the most hyped game of the year, bigger than Gears2, FIFA09, whatever... I was lucky enough to get a pre-release copy courtesy of a friend over at Sony (who'd also got us on the Beta edition). Whilst it's not my personal cup of tea, I was obviously tremendously impressed with the art, design and sheer creative invention in the game - Harry (my youngest son) on the other hand, is totally besotted by it. He's even taken to getting up at 6.30am to make levels for it.

Now we've got the full game, I've played it a bit more and I really like the levels that play a bit like Loco Roco, fast moving levels that throw you about as you collect stuff and avoid nasties. It's still a little flaky in places due to the way that games with real physics can be (you can't control everything that will happen) but not enough to have me throwing the controller at the screen or booting the dog or cat. I came close though... deep breath, put down, return to it later.

Anyway, the game, featuring super-cute Sackboy, which was due to be released in a week has now been put back a further 3 weeks due to some apparent Islamic chanting in the background audio on one of the levels. I can't say that it bothered me and it's a further example of us being so insanely politically correct it's untrue. I can also only imagine the amount of hassle over in the external development department at Wavertree in Liverpool over this, with angry directors stomping about. The title is classed as a 'system seller' and this will be a bit of a blow, especially after just receiving yet another glowing review from Edge, where it got 10/10.

As for the guy who OK'd that licensed track, I imagine someone has just uttered the phrase "hey, you're sacked-boy".

Flying...

2008-10-16T15:53:00.002Z

Time that is, positively racing by all accounts.

Mind you, they say time's a great healer and in my case it is, as long as I keep up with my medication (for the diabetes). I'd had a spell, a longish spell, where I'd kind of convinced myself that I had it under dietary control, but to be fair, I really hadn't and I'd undone quite a lot of hard-work I'd put in a couple of years earlier.

The result was that I ended up being a bit down, tired and listless (which is what happens when my blood-sugar soars) and if anything it's a vicious circle because it doesn't make you be bothered to sort it out, so it gets worse.

Fortunately I had a word with myself (and a few from my mum, you know what they're like) and persevered, have shed a bit of weight (back into those 34" jeans again) and have been semi-religious about the medication, the result being that I'm approaching something like normal blood-sugar again but I'm not quite there yet - it was racing high a few weeks back, which was a bit concerning and I wasn't quite myself for a little while.

It's also helped not being on the road for a while and also not having too many crazy nights out - although I don't think I'll ever really eradicate those since it's part of my make-up, so to speak - it didn't seem to have much effect on me when I kept the weight off before and was on the tablets, I guess I just have to take a bit more care and keep up my side of the bargain.

I must be feeling better anyway since I've started doing some DIY/decorating, including scraping wallpaper off, which is probably my most hated thing in the world.

I've a busy week next week, London Games week the week-after and then it's Lyon and a surprise birthday trip for the missis straight after. By then Guy Fawkes and the bonfires will be long gone and Christmas, New Year and all that 2009 will bring firmly on the horizon.

Winter beckons. Bloody hell.

2008-10-09T07:22:00.002Z

Despite a glimmer of recent blue sky, the weather is slowly preparing for the winter and that means another year done - at times it's been ridiculously hectic and I've never stopped still. That said, the recent 5-6 weeks in the office have allowed me time to catch back up with our titles and even contribute to one of them in terms of helping shape it's tweaks and polish, which is something I've really missed. I'm mindful that I do this through appropriate channels though and don't undermine any of the pillars of process in place :)

I've finally got off my arse and will get the Jag sold, my T17 reg etc put onto the new car, it's been sat there since late August and if I don't sort it now, it'll be there next August too most likely. A shame because when it's clean, it scrubs up well.

Games' wise and I've been playing a bit of Fifa'09 which is by far the best Fifa yet, as well as watching Harry play the beta of Little Big Planet on PS3. I think it looks fantastic (rare these days for something to conjure it's own unique look) but I'm yet to be totally convinced about the longevity of the experience, time will tell. Otherwise I've been wasting way too much of my time playing the disgustingly addictive 'Puzzle Quest' on the Mac (also on DS, PSP, 360 XBLA and PSN soon - not that I recommend it if you have a lot of stuff to do!).

We're over a month in with Jack at high-school, 6.30am mornings and tired nights, lets just say I'm looking forwards to the school hols and a bit longer in bed on a morning.

Game Connection in Lyon is 3 weeks on Tuesday, a month earlier than it's usual December slot, with London Games Week just before it, for which I'll be in London for a couple of days as well as playing in a 'Gamesaid' games-industry poker tournament.

I'm enjoying coaching the local under 8's and also (weather permitting) acting as photographer on match days, although with the wet & cold starting up, I'm not sure how much longer I'll relish it.

October also seemed to bring an end to Leeds United's run of fine form (6 straight wins in Sept) and losses to Peterborough away and then bloody League 2's Rotherham in a mickey-mouse cup last night, where our back four went AWOL. We're back at Elland Rd on Saturday and I'll be hoping we manage to beat Brighton, which may be a rehearsal for the 4th rd of the League Cup...

Oh well, onwards and upwards!

The heat is on...

2008-10-01T21:42:00.002Z

Not just the 80's Beverly Hills cop anthem, but quite literally the heat is on in my office. Some bastard is sneaking in and ramping up my office air-con thermostat to 30deg. just for the hell of it. Nice you might think, but I prefer it really cool - when it's 30deg, there might as well be monkeys swinging from vines, it's like the bloody amazon.

Anyway, I've hatched a cunning plan to catch the culprit, you'll get an update when I do. And I will...

Leeds, meanwhile, chalked up 6 wins from 6 in September and I'm confident we'll be up as champs. Great.

Friday is a dice night at the pride and that'll be fine, as long as the bloody new cups and dice show up!

Under the radar: Alien Breed

2008-09-25T09:45:00.002Z

I forgot to mention how incredibly positive the response has been since we 'leaked' news of an impending Alien Breed return for 2009. We did so with minimal detail (for a variety of reasons) and I'm still terribly excited about it - its been 17yrs since we did the original. I even had a mail from Allister Brimble (a very old friend, who I was first in touch with back in 1988) who said he'd been besieged with requests to re-do the original music with today's tech. The new Alien Breed will hopefully surprise a few people since it's got very high production values and yet retains a lot of what made the original tick, in terms of dark atmosphere and tense gameplay, it's a very modern, mainstream game that shouldn't alienate our original players (see what I did there...)

There'll be other announcements too, 2009 is quite a busy one for us.

Gym'll fix it.

2008-09-24T16:30:00.002Z

Christ, I knew this day would come... joining a bloody gym. To be fair, it's a family membership and an attempt at getting the kids (most notably my eldest, Jack) into some kind of exercise regime as well as keeping a few lbs off (and thus helping keep the blood-sugar down). Cramming the gym in might be the biggest obstacle with weekends being a blur given football, swimming, leeds matches and kids parties... I've not enrolled yet, but I'll be running it past the family tonight. I think it'll be a resounding 'yes'.

On other matters, my blood-sugar rate has been soaring of late which has left me a little tired and jaded. I'm back on my tablets after a silly few months thinking I was kind of OK again - but it's taking time to get it back to somewhere near normal again. Exercise will help as will walking the dog a bit further.

On the upside, Leeds Utd continue to make football matters worth celebrating again... :)

Settling into the saddle.

2008-09-16T16:01:00.002Z

This continuous position here at my desk is strange after the almost constant travel this year, but it's been good as we get to grips with the games in development and get on with business, even if it's meant a fair few late conference calls with publishers on the west coast.

It's been good to start mentioning our own new Alien Breed title (that's been picked up in online press) and the reaction to the news that we're bringing one of our famed titles back has been very positive to date - it'd be even more positive had we released footage or any detail whatsoever, but that can wait :-) The great thing so far is that people have seen it think of the original, even if it's a very modern looking next-gen game - which is just the reaction we would have wanted.

I've had a couple of trips to the capital recently (or at least one, with another looming in a day or two) and thats been good to catch up with business partners and friends down there - had a beer with a bunch of them last Tuesday in an old haunt in Soho. I took a dozen of the famous Hoffman's pork pies, which went down a storm.

On Thursday I'm part of the UK independent games lobby group that's appearing at the Treasury to see if the UK will support tax breaks for the UK games industry - essentially other countries are offering ludicrously tempting tax offerings for companies to move (i.e. Canada mainly) and if the UK don't do something, it'll soon be bereft of major indy developers! Suit on time for that at the Treasury...

I've confirmed for the Game Connection event in Lyon, which is this time a month earlier than it normally is (now in early November) which unfortunately coincided with my wife's birthday - after a couple of pretty sticky conversations (nee heated discussions) this has resulted in me making it up by taking her away for a surprise weekend the day after I get back from Lyon.

Other than that, most of September and October are pretty clear (I've avoided going to the Tokyo Games Show) other than bi-weekly doses of what is for once, decent entertainment, at Elland Rd.

Wet, windy and wonderful wedding!

2008-09-07T04:45:00.007Z

We jumped in the shiny new car for the long drive down to Kingston Bagpuize (a small village to the west of Abingdon, Oxfordshire) and despite some delays in the midlands on the M1, we arrived in good time to deliver Bryan at a hotel to collect his suit, as he was an usher. We then checked into our hotel in Abingdon and did a quick change believing we were very short on time, admiring briefly the four-poster bed which eventually saw about as much action as Switzerland.

We actually got to the wedding place pretty early and then had an hour of wandering about in the light rain, since they wouldn't let us in until the service started.

The wedding and reception went great and we were in fine company, a bunch of photos are up on Flickr and Facebook. Trina got pretty blasted early on and it took about 4 bottles of water to bring her back from the brink.

Reynolds wore many silly hats and eventually proposed to long-suffering Debs. It was that kind of night, I ended up with red wine all over my suit - and on the way back to the car to put my camera away I fell over a small hedge and down a bank into a stream in the pitch black. The camera survived.

The weather was pretty atrocious and it hammered it down. We got drenched waiting for a late cab and the field we'd parked in was like the Somme the next day. We left Abingdon at 10am, with a dirty, mud-splashed car and headed back up through the rain, getting back early afternoon.

Just in time to take Harry to Elland Road and see Leeds perform brilliantly (given a 2 minute switch-off in extra time) and put 5 past Crewe, 4 of which were 25yds or more stunners! Cracking.

Time flying and all that - and wedding bells.

2008-09-04T06:46:00.003Z

I've tried to get a grip on how quickly time is flying by but fail every time. This week there were a few notable milestones; Jack moving on to High School, Harry moving up to Junior school. It feels just like days since Jack was at nursery, never mind Harry.

Team17 turns 18 in December and I'm 42 in January, but I don't think 42 will mean the answer to life, the universe and everything despite Jack now being fond of his digital watch.

We're at a wedding on Friday (tomorrow) down in Abingdon, Oxford. I'll be in a suit for the first time in years and I get to have a long drive in the car with Bry and his missis. Am quite looking forwards to it since a bunch of friends are there and it'll also be good to see all the lads who were on the Galway stag a month or so ago.

Interesting week

2008-08-30T22:46:00.003Z

It's been OK this week.

I got the new car on Wednesday and seriously love it - and I thought I'd got cars out of my system, I guess its just a bit different since its been a while since I had something so nice (and punchy-quick) and at least it's endeared me to my kids and their mates now I don't have "an old mans car" anymore.

On Tuesday night, I went with H to see Leeds demolish Crystal Palace in the cup, Leeds were awesome but any idea of that being that were brought crashing back to earth as we stuttered to a draw at home to Bristol Rovers earlier this afternoon.

We also went 'under the radar' official on the new Alien Breed :-)

I came out of footy retirement to start to help coach the village under-8 kids, which I enjoyed immensely. I've lost a few pounds since I blogged about my weight and while there is a few more to shed, I'm moving in the right direction and back in 34" jeans :)

And finally, I've sat still in the office for a while. I don't think I've had so many positive or constructive meetings for some time, there's plenty to do and I'm enjoying helping move it all along.

As long as things remain OK, that's cool.

Top 20 time...

2008-08-27T07:20:00.002Z

Well, it's finally happened... due to the amount of top quality XBLA titles released over the last month ("The summer of Arcade") its meant that Worms (released March 2007 at GDC) has finally succumbed to drop out of the top 10 for only the second week since it's launch, approximately 70 weeks later.

We're obviously delighted at it's success and immense run in the weekly top-10, reminding us of the days when Alien Breed Special Edition went 33 weeks unbroken at number one...

It remains to be seen if it can claw it's way back.

Well done Worms :-)

Take one cat...

2008-08-27T03:48:00.003Z

...take it out of the bag...

Thing is, we've a few more cats. They will be out later in the year.

End of the road - I can finally stand still...

2008-08-24T15:33:00.004Z

Fortunately the bad luck of the travel last Tuesday didn't get in the way of what, on balance, seems to have been a hugely positive trip out to Leipzig/Game Connection. We had a bunch of very good meetings and as ever, even perhaps more than ever, spent a lot of good time with some great people. I've certainly got a bit of work to do in the follow ups later this week, but I'm always happier with plenty to get my teeth stuck into - and by that I don't mean a succession of pints =)

The trip ended pretty boozily in the traditional night out in Prague, which didn't disappoint, going on until almost 6am, which meant for a pretty tiring trip home early in the morning (the flight check in was 7.30am!). That was on the back of a spectacular game of Perudo with the Wavertree Sony boys (aided and abetted by a few others) which left everyone nursing sore heads and stomachs on the Friday. I also managed to publicly humiliate one of the worlds leading publisher's US VP's by taking over from a street masseuse as he sat at an outdoor bar, the photos of him in ecstasy whilst assuming it was an attractive girl giving him a nice massage are up on the web somewhere and everyone was in hysterics. He took it pretty well, all considered... great fun.

On other news, I went and bought a car today, putting an end to weeks of thought and pouring over web searches. I'd been to see one yesterday but finally decided on a BMW 6-Series 45ci Cabriolet, 2nd hand (given the ridiculous residual loss when new) and I get it Wednesday, I can't wait. I just have to sort the insurance and other stuff out (including transferring the T17 plate and selling the Jag).

Tomorrow it's bank holiday and I'll be off to the Pride in Ossett for it's annual beer festival... might get silly.

Diary of a niiave traveller

2008-08-20T05:05:00.000Z

It all started so brightly, the cab turned up, kilburn was at the station and despite the 8.07 to manchester airport being 6-7 mins late, we got seats and arrived at the airport comfortably, destined for leipzig.

Great, only 2-3 people queuing at the czech airlines check-in (we were flying to prague and training to leipzig).

"Sorry, flight's full, you can't fly" said the clerk, about the flight I'd booked 4 months earlier and paid for (in full) in april. After several hour-long seconds and the jaws recoiled from the floor, we were ushered over to a new angry queue of people similarly blighted.

Eventually we were heavily compensated to the tune of 500euros and also a flight to prague via amsterdam, albeit arriving 2hrs later than planned and ultimately missing our appointment with the 4pm berlin train which would take us up the elber river to dresden and then onto leipzig.

Fortunately there was very little waiting around; chance for a crafty guinness and a bacon sarnie at manchester before boarding for amsterdam. I joked at this point how it would probably make sense to stay there...

Our short flight was held up on approach which made for a very tight 40mins transfer onto the awaiting prague flight which was typically very much on-time. Despite stress and misgivings that our bags wouldn't make it, we were assured they would and we got on for another shortish flight.

After getting the bags, which had somehow, unbelievably, showed up, I went to claim our 500euro winnings from the surly czech-airlines desk. Cue rip-off number one; they wouldn't give me euros, just czech wotsits and obviously at a very advantageous rate to them. The 500 euros suddenly looked more like 440 :( I then legged it to the currency shop to get them back into euros and find our 440 had now become about 420.

After the initial wave of anger subsided, it was agreed that since we wouldn't miss any meetings and no harm was done other than a bit of inconvenience, the 500 (now 420) euros were somewhat "winnings" and we'd enjoy them.

After a taxi ride to the centre, to the main station we arrived in prague sometime after 4 and with the next connecting train being at 7pm, we decided to use the time to chill, have a bite (or several bites as it turned out when you order pork ribs) and a beer.

During the beers in a packed and apparently very popular restaurant, we found that there was a direct train at 8.25 which would get us to leipzig pretty much the same time as our 7pm train without waiting, changing and buggering about - so we decided that would be our plan.

So at 8 (no last minute dash) we walked back to the station and sure enough on the big ticker board there was our train listed, with something in czech written next to it. Despite trying to get the two words translated by all and sundry (the info kiosk had long since closed) we assumed since a platform number hadn't flicked up that it must mean "delayed" or "please wait".

Unfortunately at 8.26 we found out that this text means "doesn't stop at this station" and in reality we needed to be several kilometres away at another prague station and this wasn't the main one at all that the cabbie had brought us to. Cue several more very long seconds and more stunned, if a might tipsy and also resigned to the day's fate, silence.

So we ended up checking into a nice (posh even) hotel with our "winnings" and wrote a few explanations to those waiting for us in the kildare pub in leipzig, explained to our leipzig hotel that we would be turning up late and also apologised to our breakfast meeting who would be enjoying a solitary continental instead.

With that done, at 10pm we headed out to the old square to a favourite bar and sat down to order a guinness. "No guinness" she says.. Followed by "no lager" and "no beer". Bollocks. We did manage to get her to sell us "pilsner" which we deemed to be fine and enjoyed the fact that it wasn't beer nor lager. After the pint, I went into the bar to settle up to find out that the table we'd sat on wasn't actually belonging to our favourite bar, but a shitty out of view bar around the corner... This in more ways than one summed up our day and a quick shuffle to another nearby table ensured guinness delivery and a much nicer barmaid.

The night closed around midnight, with both of us pretty tired and the only plus for me was spotting take-home gifts that I could pick up on friday when we return to prague.

Despite a truly epic thunderstorm that rattled the room and lit it with a stunning lightning show, we managed to get 4-5hrs kip before the 5.30am wake up call for the 6.36am train at the station which we should have been at earlier.

On checking out we were told that a cab would be a while, not the "straight away" we'd been assured by the concierge... The last thing we needed was to miss this train too. Fortunately he turned up and the station was a ten minute drive, not the twenty as suggested by the concierge who seemingly gets everything inaccurate. However this wasn't before being totally fleeced by the cab driver who charged more for our quick drive than the half hour airport journey and also benefitted from the mix of czech wotsits/euros wallet mix that ensured he got a big tip that he really did little to deserve.

We got the train and currently are winding our way through the czech countryside, mostly down the banks of the elber on our way to dresden, a quick change there and we'll be leipzig bound. Fortunately our hotel is close to the station so we'll check in and make that 11am meeting. Phew.

Lessons learnt, even after a prolific stint of travelling;

- use online check-in if possible to avoid the czech airlines overbooking fiasco
- don't ask a bloody concierge anything
- if you "win" compensation, keep an eye on how its settled
- when sitting outside bars, ensure the bit you're in is the bar serving
- keep enough local currency handy in case a robbing cabbie takes the piss.

We're looking forward to leipzig now, with about 150 euros intact after our prague stopover and I know that won't last long in the evening, especially with plans of liberating enigma machines in the air.

Martyn Brown,
Studio Director,
Team17 Software Ltd.

Sent by Blackberry (Out of office)

Toilet tantrums

2008-08-17T15:39:00.002Z

I hate DIY. Why DIY when you can pay someone to do it without hassle.

Anyway, I reluctantly agreed (since I was at home for a change) to hang some curtains and fit two new toilet seats at home. Pretty bloody mundane I imagine you're thinking. Not for me.

Off I pops (after fitting the curtains, with no problems) to B&Q, struggle with traffic since a new road is being laid and then finally get there just before it closes. They have the seats we want, so I grab the boxes, pay and leave.

Cue struggling to fit seat one.

The old one has been in a while and all the fittings have practically ruined. After using some wrench's I managed to get the bugger off. I then open the box of the replacement to find that I'd picked up a box with no new fittings. It was marked as such (once I'd looked) but what on earth it was doing amongst the stock of the new seats, I don't know. Anyway, I contrived to fit the new seat with the old fittings (which took a while) only to find it wobbles. Bloody hell. I need new fittings/new seat.

Undeterred I got on with the 2nd seat, opening the box to find that the seat lid was in several broken pieces. Argh.

I hate hassle more than I hate DIY. Now I not only still have the DIY to do, but I have the hassle of returning the ones I bought.

Needless to say I opened a Magners.

Longleat adventure at Centerparcs

2008-08-13T21:33:00.002Z

3 days in at Centerparcs and it's fair to say that the weather has been a complete and utter washout save for maybe 2-3hrs on Tuesday when we got about a bit. Fortunately there's enough indoor stuff to do (providing you've booked) and we also made the most of a pleasant, if damp, morning by hiring some bikes and getting around on those. However we couldn't go on them after 2pm since it totally hammered it down.

We went to the sub-tropical swimming paradise (it says here) and the kids really enjoyed the wild-water rapids thing which goes outside and was quite entertaining - at least it was once we could safely go on it due to passing thunderstorms.

We've seen a fair few animals, the usual squirrels, rabbits/hares, Harry claimed to have seen a fox and a Roe Deer came to visit this evening. I also made the news in the villa by having a hydrobath and using too much shower-gel as bubble bath, leading to a cartoon style bathroom full of bubbles - at least it kept the kids amused, as did a spate of "shin-kicking" a sport watched on TV later that evening. How the mighty live, eh.

I'm quietly moderating, although I did partake of a few tins of Bulmers watching Leeds destroy the league's worst team in Chester.. still, gone are the days when we'd lose those games and I'm eagerly awaiting the first home league game on Saturday, so I guess the script is already written for that.

We're planning on Longleat Safari Park tomorrow (which is next door) depending on the weather of course... fingers crossed.

Galway, Longleat, the movement continues...

2008-08-12T06:03:00.002Z

Had a really great time with the lads out in Galway, there was nothing too mental, just very steady drinking, lots of laughs, Guinness, Oysters, that kind of stuff. I did manage to really imbibe way too much on day one and ended up soaked to the skin in the pouring rain, miles from my hotel on the first night (given I eventually found my hotel at 4am). Bry Reynolds was amusing and disappointing at the same time, failing to last much past 9pm on either of the main nights due to be utterly smashed. Our stag, Chris Waring, was with us for a little of the time, but wasn't well through Saturday. It didn't stop the rest of us, who also dug out "7, 8 or 9" the fearsome drinking dice game we haven't played in years - and a couple of hours of it and I can understand why :)

Galway grows on me more and more, I loved the really laid back vibe of the place and the pubs are really fantastic, as are the locals. I hope I can get back there sooner rather than later, but I can't imagine it'd be good for one of the photography trips.

It was also a good job that I was a bit leathered on the flight back, since a strong crosswind was throwing our little prop-plane all over the shop and it was a little bit of a rollercoaster at times - with much relief when it finally smashed to the floor in Manchester. The Leeds Utd U-15 youth team were on the flight (I tried for gossip and failed) as well as some officials of Leeds Carnegie, some rap/hip-hop star (replete with diamond encrusted cane and entourage), most of Rockstar Leeds' senior management lads and myself from Team17 - just as well it didn't go down then! Or they'd be writing songs about it, or cheering, or something.

Am currently in Centreparc's Longleat with the family and the weather's crap. The place is good though, much nicer than the Nottingham one I was in for Pete O'Donnell's stag do way back in April. Trina likes it a lot and the kids are pretty excited, so it looks like a winner, despite the rain. Time for me to chill out for a few days. Germany/Prague next week...

Rest in peace.

2008-08-08T13:44:00.000Z

Monty was put to sleep today, a most remarkable, friendly cat that was much loved.

It galls me that I wasn't there to see to it myself, but no pain is all the gain. The blessing being he returned this morning.

He'll be missed but more than that he will be remembered for a long, long time.

Martyn Brown,
Studio Director,
Team17 Software Ltd.

Sent by Blackberry (Out of office)

Prodigal returns...

2008-08-08T07:36:00.000Z

Fortunately I've been spared a bit of mental anguish by virtue of the fact that Monty has returned, lifting a cloud from everyone's shoulders. I'd have hated to go on this weekend trip not knowing/worrying about him, so a big relief.

So now, on to Galway. Am currently lurking outside Burdekins furniture emporium waiting for the fun bus to arrive. Let's craic on!

Martyn Brown,
Studio Director,
Team17 Software Ltd.

Sent by Blackberry (Out of office)

Daren't stop, I might fall off - and mixed emotions.

2008-08-07T18:54:00.002Z

Well, back from a great little break with our friends in Scotland. I actually think they were a bit worried because all I mostly did was sleep, apart from getting up occasionally for a drink, bite to eat or venture out with the camera. It was a break that was the perfect antidote to the US trip and the spike down in Brighton.

I had my first full day in the office for a while and it's my last for a week or so, just prior the trip out to Leipzig, when finally I can chill out and slow down and get used to my desk again.

There's a ton of exciting stuff going on at work and it'll be really great when we can talk about it.

Tomorrow heralds a trip of a different kind, a stag-do with some mates from Sheffield/Leeds. I love Galway and am very much looking forwards to a great weekend with them - and see Chris Waring "off" in style, as well as spend time with old friends John Li, Gordon Hall and the other R*Leeds lot - as well as old mucker and popular industry-story sidekick, "The Reynolds".

On a personal note, the family is pretty worried about Monty, our old cat, who's missing and I know he's not been himself. I know he's probably not long for the world but I'd rather we helped it be as comfortable as possible - not knowing where he is, isn't cool.

Sleepy Scotland

2008-08-03T05:58:00.002Z

I've done nothing much else than relax and sleep since we arrived up here in the Moray Firth, which is just as well since I was pretty shot. I can't believe its Sunday already, time is flying by and we've not even had our traditional drunken games/Singstar night, but I guess that will be on the cards for tonight with everyone feeling good/rested - Marc has had a stomach bug but seems in fine fettle now.

The weather is typical Scottish summer (i.e. rain) but we had a break for a few hours yesterday and took the dogs/kids to the coast, where I managed a few pics before it hammered it down.

Scottish retreat just what the doctor ordered...

2008-08-01T02:29:00.002Z

After what can only described as a pretty manic 24hrs, which included meetings in London and Brighton, a very large and late night out in Brighton (until around 4am) and then a train journey back up to Liverpool for a few hours to see a mate off from Sony, then back over to Wakefield, it's perhaps obvious that I'm ready for a little break before I snap myself in two.

Things went well on the trip and there's a bunch of quite exciting things all happening at once, which is great - the only downside is that with so much going on, I'm gonna need to keep an eye on my blackberry pretty much constantly, which I guess undermines the idea of a break in the first place, but hey ho.

So today then, we head north to Inverness from East Midlands airport and then east towards Banff in the east of the highlands. The trip is a surprise for the kids and will mean a lot to Jack as he'll get to enjoy a few days with his old friend (old for an 11yr old, at least) Samuel. I imagine the adults will endulge in a more than a drop of booze and we'll all nurse sore-heads in the rain, as it's expected to pour it down for all 4 days :( Doesn't look like I'll get chance to take too many pictures this time, a pity since I got some crackers last time.

Candle-end burning continues.

2008-07-29T03:55:00.003Z

We arrived back from Seattle/Vancouver late on Monday evening and after having a little sleep (I could barely keep my eyes open) I've been up most of the night (it's now 5am) since in addition to the jet-lag, it's also stupidly hot and humid.

I've managed to unpack and sort all the gear out (more or less) and now face a pretty rushed day in the office (and having to nip out to get the dog clipped and the cat to the vet) prior to going down to Brighton for a meeting or two on Wednesday - that's a 4hr journey and not one I wish to do twice in a day, especially as I'm beat now and I could do with using as much time in Brighton as I can, so I'll return Thursday (not sure when yet) and then speedily pack for our long-weekend with our friends up in the wilds of Scotland, at least that's only a short flight and it'll be a nice surprise for the kids, even though it's forecast for heavy rain up there.

I have a day in the office next Thursday before I'm off again, this time on a stag with a great bunch of friends over at Rockstar, I can't even begin to contemplate how I might feel when I get back from that... I am back about 10hrs before we go to Centreparcs for a few days and after 3 days in Galway it's possibly a good idea.

I have no idea when I'll get chance to pack for that, nor the trip to Leipzig that follows our little family break a couple of days later, let alone sort out all the meetings in Brighton/Leipzig in time... as well as catch up on all the email and carry on numerous business things. I might explode since there's not much of either end of the candle left to burn.

Went up a mountain and came down a fan.

2008-07-26T13:23:00.005Z

Northwest Specific.

Am currently in Vancouver, up in the (pretty rugged) north-west and incidentally, my first ever time in Canada after spending a week or so in Seattle, Washington. We've been over presenting our new titles to our publishing partners and we've had a fairly overwhelmingly positive reception, which is obviously pretty great. There's a couple of meetings to have here, a little R&R and also chance to catch up with some friends and contacts from the games industry.

Boom or bust in Seattle...

With regards to our main objective - i.e. presenting our new titles & work, it was a little difficult if I'm honest since we had pretty high expectations that people who really 'get' what we're up to. It's sometimes dangerous to believe your own hype when you think you have strong product (and we're buzzing, "pumped" even) but if anything it lived up to that and more besides. The video game publishing world is currently quietly shifting in the background and I'm so happy that we're seemingly attached and at the forefront of those changes - I really can't wait until we get our titles out next year when the clear direction of where all this is heading gets revealed :) Success in this industry is part skill/talent, part luck and part good timing - I think it's been a while since we nailed all 3 at once and it's tremendously exciting.

The time in Seattle was good, although we've (I think) seen pretty much most of what's good outside of the events we were at, so it made the time seem a little long and we were ready for the off come Friday. We got out to Kirkland, a totally beautiful suburb of Seattle, on a couple of occasions and spent a great afternoon/evening with our business-partners and now firm friends at Redmond - sitting out in the sun almost ruining the week since a few glasses of wine and you forget how high the UV is... but needless to say, it's a great way to discuss business :)

Both the events we attended (Gamefest/XNA and Casual Connect) were as usual well organised and whilst I didn't really catch many of the seminars, it was good as ever to catch up with people and also grab a look at the new Xbox 360 interface/avatar stuff. We also won an award at Casual Connect, with Worms XBLA scooping "Game Of The Year on XBLA, 2007" nice eh. There were the usual developer parties although we only really spent any time at the last one, which was in Seattle Aquarium and skipped the others, preferring our own developer/business contact get-togethers away from the baying hordes and "man tank" games industry throngs.

Snowblind drunk.

I also had the pleasure of catching up with some friends from Snowblind one night (the team who did the great Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance games on PS2) and we ended up having (as is now something of an annual event) a little too much fun after all our industry catch-up talk and I got back pretty worse for wear, sporting a burnt lip courtesy of a flaming-sambucca incident. John had wisely opted to not get involved. The lip is on the mend now and hasn't been as painful as it perhaps might have been and other than for an ill-advised scoffing of salted Pringles when I was starving, I've been relieved that the agony has been limited.

Mountain Men.

A couple of non-work related highlights were firstly our trip out in the car to drive around Mount Rainier national park, a drive that took us all the way around the huge central volcano of Mount Rainier (14, 404ft high) and culminated in snowball fights at 5,500ft in a place called Paradise, on a beautiful clear day.

I got some nice photos and they'll end up on Flickr and Facebook at some point - attached is Mt. Rainier reflected in, funnily enough, "Reflection late" - a slight breeze made the usually still lake a little ripply and therefore the reflection is not especially well focused, but it was an beautiful view and the image fails to really demonstrate the scale of the mountain - which looms in the distance (on a clear day) from Seattle from 80 miles away. (Rainier is part of the 'Cascade' range of mountains and volcanoes which also includes Mt Saint Helens, the infamous one which blew in the 80's covering a wide area with dust/mud).

Secondly we had a trip up to the Seattle Center which is near downtown and I got some great photos of the EMP music center, the tower and a rather staggering Canadian marching band who were performing at the time. The satisfaction of this event was only tempered by the fact that I managed to lose a bunch of really nice photos :(

Speaking of photos, I've been driving JD mental I guess with my photography chatter, I've also managed to upgrade my long zoom lens and have what is probably the first 'pro lens' I've had - a 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR, which whilst on the large/heavy side, seems incredibly awesome. I also bought a camcorder as I wanted to take some footage on our trip to see friends in Scotland next week - I bought a small, tiny thing that records in full HD (1920x1080) and is solid state (no tapes, HD, or whatever) which is really good, so I'll be getting into video-editing on the Mac too :-) Anything to keep me quiet... it's shopping for Trina and the kids tomorrow, which is our last day before flying back.

Today we have an open agenda and I think we're gonna drive up to Whistler in the mountains, take a few photos and then chill out this evening with some friends before one more meeting tomorrow prior to the crappy flight back. We flew Air Canada and it was like being back in the 80s entertainment wise, but I have Civ Revolution for the DS to play and some Family Guy to watch on the laptop, so I'm pretty prepared. I've also now got to Brighton next Wednesday for a night and whilst it'll be good to catch the UK dev industry mob, I reckon I'll be pretty shot and am now looking forwards to that long, quiet weekend in Scotland with friends.

The demands of meeting demands.

2008-07-13T11:26:00.002Z

Off I toddled last Friday morning, to a usually quiet local shopping centre on the stroke of 9am. Reason? To get myself a new iphone, launched that day. I had bought an iphone a few months back and had it stolen in London, but with the new model just around the corner, I felt I might as well wait with the insurance and get a shiny new 3G one (which happily is also much cheaper - so big win).

Anyway, I gets to the O2 store to find a queue snaking out of the store (which had opened at 8am specially) and then a guy pops out to say "oh well, we only got sent 6 - not sure when we get any more". Brilliant. Smacks of the ridiculous wasted marketing campaign that Apple are doing on the iPhone (similar to Nintendo's on Wii) whereby they create a demand for the item that far outstrips supply (and to some extent is still doing on the Wii).

I'm not sure what the point of this is - people who need that kind of functionality will no doubt either resort to the Ebay market (which is being well-fueled here - with opportunists queueing overnight to make a quick killing) or just go and buy another product.

I couldn't be arsed to queue (just in case one of the six didn't pass the credit checks!) and went and bought a cordless drill, which I later duly charged and stored in the garage. I made do with the 2.0 firmware update for my iPod touch, played with a few of the new apps for the iphone/touch and especially like the new remote software for the AppleTV which is really bloody great. I guess I'll pick up a new iphone when the furore has died down but this is really stupid.

Hint to manufacturers: When spending a lot on advertising - make sure you make enough products, it's where you make the money, after all...

The opposite of canned laughter. Digital platform musings.

2008-07-10T18:44:00.003Z

Just recently the company decided to cease a digital download/casual games project, one which some time ago really did seem like total common sense with the way things were going; i.e. digital publishing, IP retention, casual gaming, our experience and publishing position, etc.

All at very moderate investment risk at amicable terms - which really should be the way it happens - almost too good to be true for all parties. I guess its just been a while since we canned anything so it all feels a bit weird and is ultimately more than a little disappointing. Not only for the team, but for the notion and spirit in which it was started; that we could utilise a strong position and bring other quality IP to the platforms with our experience and knowledge of the platforms.

It's a shame then that in the last couple of years the digital download model (on console at least) has been moving much more towards a smaller scale edition of the normal retail games market; with big-name IP and big-budget titles polarising and performing by far the best. Whilst XNA is still somewhat of an open door for new casual digital titles on console, it would appear to me that the other doors spoken of by the larger platforms are quietly closing.

It seems that people generally know what they like and there's a big gap between what will do very well and what will perform only moderately to a content cluster of fans. As a fairly large business operation, we need to avoid the latter and art-house creative hits whilst expanding the market, usually fail to pay the bills. Seems that people want a good value meal rather than nouvelle cuisine - and that's understandable.

We're fortunate in a way that we've got a couple of new digital titles up our sleeves which we believe will fit into the more positive bracket - something I keep chipping on about and I guess will be known at some point during the year if we can keep a lid on it post July (when they get shown, albeit behind closed doors).

But back to the postponed title, a relatively straight forward casual game made with a small team we've known years - and people we like a lot. It's a shame it had to happen but ultimately it was one of those games that we felt just wasn't going to be the hit we needed it to be to justify a lot of effort getting it onto consoles. It doesn't matter which platform, if you don't get that early buzz that there's something really special going on, it generally means there isn't.

There's not much point dwelling on the game itself, it's perfectly playable and fun casual PC game (thats at least as good if not better than a lot of XBLA titles to be fair!) but whatever it needed, we couldn't make that leap to make it really stand out and grab attention in a market which we know will be full of big guns come 2009, including two of our own.

I still have massive belief in the future of the digital title and I know that we'll have a lot to offer (I'm very excited about 2009) - we're not wholly reliant on digital titles just yet but I think there will come a time when its all we work on, when retail, distribution and all that goes with that is just a memory. I don't actually think it's that long away, certainly under 10yrs - companies are surviving on XBLA, PSN and PC Steam platforms already - give it a few more years and many more will too., as well as online subscription models, advertising revenue etc.

Another thing, if anything, I feel that digital platform games are more honest, there's less pretense in terms of trying to validate the retail price - which is generally inflated due to retail, distribution & marketing margins, with the developers largely never seeing royalties past the costs provided to make the game.

I also like (especially on 360) that you live or die by your trial version. If forces (or at least it bloody should) the team to deliver something that makes an immediate impact that meets or exceeds player's expectations right from the off. If you fail to do that, you generally lose a sale - that's not something you can do when you handover your £40-50 blindly in HMV or wherever. I also like that for the main part, developers are working from the same ground rules with the same size-footprint, it forces you to consider the content - something that very rarely occurs in full retail games where again, it's almost a case of retail price justification.

We're already starting to see digital titles with increased production and increased cost - the best example perhaps being the Penny Arcade title on Live Arcade which is episodic and at $20 for the first episode. I'm not sure how well it's sold but despite pretty good presentation, it is a fairly confused game (to me, at least) and I think to live and breathe in that marketplace, you have to be very straightforward. Game content need not be casual, but the approach from the user regarding a purchase may well be - so you have to bear that in mind - the Penny Arcade game seemd to be at odds with itself, wondering what exactly it was trying to be (part nice looking 2d interactive comic, part RPG).

With so many people vying to get on the platform, any game that's on there should work really hard to please its trialists, to tantalise them to buy the full game, to hook them in. That relatively few do - that people tend to be wary of new titles and trust the brands they know says everything you need to know. If you're making a game that's relative innovative, you really have got your work cut out to appeal to the masses in 1 minute flat - if you don't do your homework then you're stuffed. And that goes for apparently churned out titles (I've seen a few on there) - if the company doesn't really care that's making it (Indie game stuff is usually very, if not overly cared for) then why should the consumer?

For the record, here are the XBLA titles (other than our own) that get played the most in our house;

Carcassonne

Cloning Clyde (Harry)

Geo Wars

Feeding Frenzy (Harry)

N+ (Harry again)

Marble Wotsit (Harry, I forget the name)

and on PSN;

Super Stardust (I'm still sad we didn't eventually publish this - for reasons I'll discuss at some point in the future, we're on the credits at the end if you look!)

Pixeljunk Monsters (I really like this - and now talk often over Facebook to Dylan at Q! design)

Pain (I hate it, Harry can't get enough of it, despite being 9yrs too young to play it, apparently)

Wiiware;

Nothing. The wii comes out for Wiifit BMI tests and Harry's Smash Brothers Brawl. Thats about it.

Doom, gloom and possibly boom!

2008-07-09T21:43:00.003Z

Jesus, it's a right old jolly existence at the moment. Doomsayers are grumbling about the impending collapse of the free financial markets, oil/petrol/gas prices are flying up (am glad I only do relatively few miles in my 3 litre non-green Jag) and the latest badness is threats of military shenanigans with the US, Russia, Israel and Iran.

All I've got to bloody moan about is that I've got some sand inside my D300 LCD screen. Life's too bloody short - and yes, it can be a tad shite from time to time - but like recession, poverty, starvation, wars, civil unrest and really shitty chart songs - it's all been done before and it'll no doubt be done in the future - unless of course, the mad Iranians and other missile wielding loonies actually do something stupid.

Anyway, in the mean-time, it's pissing it down but never mind, summer will be over soon.

Busy time ahead on a few fronts

2008-07-07T15:57:00.003Z

There's quite a bit going on at the minute, which is really helping to make time fly by. I can't believe (for example) that it's 7 weeks since we set off on our holiday to the USA - that's simply whizzed by.

With the recent weekend in Paris, a trip to the USA looming (Casual Connect & Microsoft visit via Vancouver), a long weekend visiting friends in the Highlands of Scotland, a stag do in Galway, a family break in Centreparcs, a trip to Game Convention in Leipzig (via Czech) and finally a wedding in Oxford - September will be here before I know it. I don't mind the travelling most of the time, but this really is a crazy schedule, with little time in the office - and thats including having to skip stuff like E3 and the Develop conference in Brighton (if only so I can sit still and breathe for a while).

With August flying by that also means the football season too, I've got a season ticket for myself and Harry and am quite looking forwards to taking him - fingers crossed Leeds will do the business after the disappointment of not going up in the play-off final (despite that 15 points).

Work wise, our new digital projects are going really well and we'll be making the first presentations of these in a fortnight although I believe it'll be a little later before they go public. The projects are looking good already and it's exciting to see them come together - if either get any way close to repeating the success that Worms has enjoyed on XBLA , then we'll do pretty well. (Worms is still No.5 in the XBLA charts, some 15 months on!)

At home, I'm struggling to keep my blood sugars under control despite being reasonably moderate on the food/drink (and losing a bit of weight) but I need to really buckle down on that score, which will be difficult given the agenda I've got. My diabetes and social event itinery is hardly a marriage made in heaven. I better keep wolfing the Metformin and hope for the best.

Monty, our senior cat, is now 14 and starting go a bit thin, whilst you kind of know what's in store for them when they get on in age, it's never nice to know it's going on. He's still got all his faculties (eyesight, ears and temperament) but he's starting on the slippery slope I fear. As our senior pet, the kids have known him all their lives and it'll be difficult for him whenever the inevitable happens.

We're in the midst of decorating and putting a new wood-floor down in the room/dining-room and hall, so that's disruptive and I'll be glad when we're finally all done. As soon as it stops pissing it down I should also be able to get the last few outdoor jobs done too - the summer has been shocking thus far, but we should be used to that by now. It's raining heavily as I type...

Giving E3 a miss.

2008-07-02T19:18:00.002Z

For the first time in a few years, I'm giving E3 a miss this year. E3 is the annual expo in LA, where the publishers go to wave their appendages and talk turkey with retail. Normally i'd go, but with our trip to Seattle the following week, I couldn't really find the energy to do that AND E3, which we did last year, even if E3 was just a scaled down edition of its usual self.

Obviously not everything is as straight forward as that and we're flying to Seattle via Vancouver, driving the couple of hours into nearby Washington state and then hooking up with some friends from Radical prior to flying back.

One thing that has stunned me is the cost of the flights this time around, even coach class (I rarely travel anything else) - its pretty pricey. The trip should be good though, as we unveil our 2 new digital titles for next year to selected favoured parties :)