IT IS ALIVE

Right, that's it. The party is over. Pack up your keg, the cops are here. It's time to bail.

Bail from this blog that is!

My website domain has gone live. www.chopemon.com is now open for business, servicing all of your game design needs. Kind of. Maybe. I wrote a good piece on decision making in cover shooters at least.

I will be doing the art for it soon.

Enjoy the new site!

Changing Opinions

I have changed my Game of the Year list.

Batman wins.

Post about it here.

Updates Over Yonder

Good news!

My proper site nearly has a proper domain name. Hopefully www.chopemon.com will be working by the end of the week.

While you wait, here are some links to recent posts should you still be frequenting this blog and not my site.

First up, an article about how stealth games have evolved.

Secondly, how about some talk about decision making within cover shooters?

Here's the start of a level I'm creating in Unreal 3.

Here's another level, this time in Sandbox 2.0.

I also got recommended by some fine, respectable folk.

Enjoy!

Hiding Blades in Venetians

First order of day; my blog has moved, I am posting this here again to make sure everyone is redirecting their World Wide Web viewing devices to my new home.

Side note: remember when everyone introduced their web sites by saying "Welcome to my corner of the web..."? Remember Geocities? Remember Angelfire?

I realise that the web address is currently awful but you can the folks over at UK2.net for making the acquisition of a domain name the hardest thing in the world. Should you ever choose to get a domain name, do not use UK2.net. When the revolution comes I will personally make sure that they are the first against the wall. I should have a proper address by the end of the month.

Hit it here.

I also want to peep you to my Assassin's Creed 2 review over at NTSC-UK. I am taking a break from reviewing as I find a new job and other than this review I have one more waiting to go up.

Don't forget to move over to my new site for future updates. Hit it here.

New Site

I am moving my blog over to a new site. Exciting!

The process of doing it has been a total pain in the ass thanks to awful domain name providers and delays in transferring the domain name.

In the mean time though, my new site is under construction. You can find it here.

It is all first pass and I need to sort out proper art and update a few pages, the blog also needs to catch up. In the coming days I will make a full transition to this new utopia and this blog will fall into disrepair, to be abandoned like a next gen wasteland.

I'd love to hear any feedback you have on it. Currently I would rate it 10/10 because there is a picture of Ice T on the homepage.

The Era, it is Ended

If you have been following the news sites today you will have seen this (nicked from Gamesindustry.biz):

Aliens Vs Predator developer Rebellion has said it is reviewing the need for its Derby studio as it continues to grow its offices in Oxford and Runcorn.

CEO Jason Kingsley described the process as "painful", and staff in Derby are currently being consulted about their future. GamesIndustry.biz understands that a number of staff have already been made redundant - although the company denies that posts have yet been cut as that consultation continues.

"Growth is sometimes painful, never more so than in the current climate and we have had to take a long hard look at how we operate our studio network," said Kingsley in a statement. "Strategically we have decided to review the need for the Derby facilities, and consultation with staff at Derby is ongoing."

"No-one has been made redundant by Rebellion in more than a decade, and the Derby studio is very much still open while we conduct the review. We are currently undergoing a process of consultancy with our staff to get their ideas, and establish the best possible future for the Derby studio."

As you can imagine this has delivered a shoryuken to my life and I am scrabbling to find out what I am doing next.

Expect bloggingz to become slightly infrequent while I get sorted.

Resolving Resolutions

I've decided to post up my New Years Resolutions here as a matter of public record so that I can be held to them by you, the baying masses and teeming throngs of people that read this blog.

If 2009 was a year about getting my life in order and exploring myself then 2010 is to be a year of pushing myself much harder than usual.

I spent 7 hours today doing my 3rd Mass Effect playthough. So not a great start but onwards and upwards!

1. Finally publish an indie game.
2. Finally publish a new music track.
3. Finally get a tattoo (or acquire Tatu, whichever happens first).
4. Learn to write betterer.
5. Write or draw something every day (I have actually already started this and it hasn't gone too badly).
6. Not use the word 'gameplay' until it actually has a definition.
7. Learn about more 'things'.

So there we have it. Eight things that I have resolved to resolve. Or something. I will update as they happen. Should I get really drunk one day you may even get to see my sketchbook but I wouldn't count on it.