Peggle

Popcaps 'Peggle' is great fun, give it a bash. Pity it's not "mac friendly" but since they bother to tell you.., maybe it'll have a version soon.

Peggle

Changitos Return

Great night in the showroom last night. A new programmer has joined Gamesauce and it was good to see him enjoying himself (at least I think he did..) I was in good fettle by about 10:30, to the point where security came up and asked me to leave (turn the fun down! again! fascists) I've uploaded a few new pics (including one of me squeezing through a partition like a 5 year old) It was good to see Chang, he's just got back from Australia and I haven't seen him for 6 months so lots to chat about.


The Chang and I

Daydreaming in photoshop

I think I'll do a family one and get it screen printed...tips welcome.


Daydreaming in photoshop

Headroom

Here's the result of the default calculation of my head. The whole process took about 15 mins.



Head shapes can be morphed from male to female, race to race etc (this happens instantaneously) Here are a few I messed with.

Tranni Mii


Mii Emoting

Mini Me

I've decided to make a virtual me, i've been putting it off but now seems the time to get cracking. I've been playing with face gen, it imports 3 pictures of a face, front, left and right. It asks you to move some points around, matching a reference pic, and 10 mins later, you have a textured 3d model of your head. It's not perfect by any means but a great start. I then intend to splice this onto a generic body model (can't be arsed to model myself, why have a gut in cyberspace anyway?) and do some animations of it talking (face gen lets you export snapshots of the head and there are handy morph sliders for doing expressions and phonemes. I also thought I'd do some timelapse of me getting older, first one below. I won't post them all, I'll put the movie up maybe every six months...I'll morph them rather than having them at 25fps, prolly won't remember to take them that regularly...


1 of many

The Maple Tree - Experience 1

A new pub has opened up on my estate, The Maple Tree (Marsdens). I was quite pleased initially, given it's staggering distance from home and the nearest pub was previously a couple of miles away and as rough as arseholes. We all went up on Monday night for the opening, it was rammed but since we couldn't eat (after 8:30), we stayed for a couple to check out the atmosphere (it's basically like a novatel) and went for a curry in Tickhill. It's clear from the layout that they need to sell plenty of food, there's no "lounge" and certainly no tap room! (it must be 10ksqft all in) I took Deb and the kids up last night to try out the food. It was garbage, there's a massive Tesco just around the corner and it seems that everything was sourced from there. There isn't a chef at the Maple Tree, that much is obvious. I mean, who the hell puts salad on your cheese and biscuits? lettuce, tomato? are you mental? Even the mash with the sausage was smash!

I was hoing that the pub would be a centre of the community on the estate (it's a fairly new area and nobody seems to mix much) I fear it's going to die on its arse. The food is rubbish, there is no atmosphere and the existing layout won't allow it if one should ever try to emerge. Utter crap. Very disappointed.

Needless to say, I had the last laugh.

Last laugh was great, and we all seemed to have a smashing time. I was fairly Rambo'd by the time we got there thanks to a few in the Showroom. We met a strange scottish bloke who claimed to speak 5 languages (english wasn't one of them). He was one of those over confident, agressive, slightly mad looking (no laces in shoes?) blokes. Turned out to be ok anyway and insisted I thow one down for the road. I asked Pete how scottys french actually was, he made the international gesture for "It's shit (slight snarl on lip) but I'll be kind and say "ok" (tipping hand from side to side).

The comedians were good, we didn't need much encouragement to laugh, either the joke was funny, or someone made a joke about how crap the joke was, not a dull moment. No guiness for Rob but we got a good few jugs of stella down before heading back to the showroom for a few more. Deb was designated driver and I was glad. Hit some nasty fog on the way home so she got a little wobbly but all was good. Had a couple of bacon sarnies and went to bed. Top evening.


I was quite excited at this point.

Melt

Sean Bloodworth sent me a few shots of our Melt brochure photoshoot at Magna so I thought I'd post one.


We are Da Management

Busy Bees

Work going crazy at the moment (in a good way) so not been in a very thoughtful mood. All the boys are going to The Roundhouse in Sheffield tomorrow evening for a night of comedy and drinking foolishness so that should be fun. Will no doubt have plenty of pics and incidents to upload!

Saxon Vs Harvey Goldsmith - Get your acts together.

Donny Sky

Interesting (to see where Saxons heads are (still up their arses))
Infuriating (to see Biff Vs Harvey)
Sad (That Saxon couldn't see sense)
Exciting (When Biff actually seemed to get it!)
Sad (At the whole affair, what a waste of everyones time!)

Well done Harvey, you made me all the above. You are Sad. But not as sad as Saxon.

Support Issues

I installed winamp remote on my home PC this morning after having a reyt mare trying to re-install ITunes on it. Since I've been faffing with the PC due to the overheating problem, ITunes got into a tizzy about drive assignations (USB isn't there all the time microsoft, LEARN FROM THIS FACT!!). Much deleting of registry entries resulted in ITunes refusing to even install. After downloading a MS tool to delete "hidden hidden" stuff, I managed a reinstall, only to be presented with a pretty swift crash after trying to run Itunes. "Right, it's fucked, new windows installation here we come" I said to myself through gritted teeth. I can't even begin to unravel my PC hatred from my Itunes hatred at the mo so suffice to say, given i just wanted to play some MP3's, Winamp (albeit in its bloated 5.56789 state) was welcome relief.

At around 3.30, Winamp remote informed me that my home PC was down. "Please, please, be the shit router" I said, "I hope it hasn't shit down due to overheating". I rang home only to find out;

"lectric went off, it's your PC" I was told by wife and support engineer 1 (Sadie). I've been moaning about the PC since the overheating and now it has been blamed for a powercut/blown lightbulb. Given time, I'm sure it would have been blamed for Americas agressive global expansion plans. "It's fucked!" was the cry.

Anyway, I've just got home to find the PC is fine (quietly purring). I did have to unplug/plug the monitor in to see anything!! but it's still up. My monitor knows far too much. STOP IT!

Support engineers of the world, I salute you. I couldn't even guide close family members into getting my LCD monitor out of stand-by.

Bank Holiday

Woke up late and dossed about today, finally got around to stripping my PC down after nearly exploding when it turned off again, right in the middle of some guitar recording. I took the heatsink off, reseated the processor and give it a good clean, it's been on for a few hours anyway so it's looking ok (until it fills up with gunk again anyway). I'm going to get a mac for home when I get time to check em out.

Deb played Wii Zelda for a good few hours, she looks like she's enjoying it. Hannah was on the trampoline in between games of Zelda and some english homework (very diligent given she's not back at school till next week!). I had a go with the high speed setting on the camera and came up with this by accident.


Don't they grow up fast!

Worms Master Edition

Thinking how much I've learnt about playing worms in the last 5 or so hours, and on hearing the thoughts of a good few live players, I think the next move for worms should be the Master Edition. This would have every option ever thought of or implemented in the many series of the game with the promise of building into the most comprehensive worms release ever. Obviously, for XBL consumers (even expert players), the play would have to be templated heavily, i know from having worked on the game, albeit in a managerial capacity that worms is extremely difficult to expand upon without introducing too many "ploys" and spoiling it's accessability to new players. The best feeling is lobbing a granade from one side of the level to another, causing a huge chain reaction, killing all your enemies. Anyway, I think players would really welcome the "Mother of all Worms"...This is of course a 'new release' idea, the existing XBLA game may already prove to build towards it in incremental digital updates.

In summary, Worms was always been a human Vs human game and with the headset on, listening to the giggles, it's the first time it is being played in an environment that supports its design ideals. Best 800 credits I've spent.

Worms Live

Just had a great session of worms on XBL, actually managed to win a few games although largely by luck (others blowing themselves up etc) Got the hang of it now so it'll be a regular thing. I've played most of the worthy XBLA stuff and worms is certainly head and shoulders above the rest in terms of depth of play and entertainment value. All were laughing and taking the piss, super atmosphere. I played quite a few american kids, all of which had had far too many hershy bars and were on the sugar rush, good fun. Easter makes 7 year olds sing to strangers, I'm sure this is what Jesus intended. Sweet.

Eggs is eggs

Skipped off early today to have a relaxed catch up with the lads before the break. Had a couple in the Showroom which was a nice springboard for the weekend. John Sanderson turned up in rude health which was a nice surprise, looked a bit like 'The Hoff' :) Work is great at the moment, really feel like we're getting traction and the hard work is paying off. I went to Magna the other day for a photoshoot for the new Melt brochure, I'll post the pics when the photographer sends me some, I caught a glimpse, we look like Max and Paddy...

Anyreyt, I hope the weather holds up for us all. Happy Easter kids!

Lost & Refound

Went up to Huddersfield with Carter today to see a devco which was a nice change. It's been a while since I've seen the place and it seems to be very lively, 'cafe culture' is alive and well up there (although you can see the joins a little more than Sheffield). It was nice to see the old and the new on the drive up there and we were well looked after so we're happy enough. Also, thought I'd lost my tracky jacket at the pub on Sunday but it was handed in, which was nice.

The kids are helping my gamerscore along on XBL and since they're off school, Hannah has been taking advantage of the late bedtimes and enjoying the community feel of the thing. She's incredibly pushy online but it seems to be working fine for her, we kept hearing her shout things like "get the cash, stupid" and "You get round there and I'll sort this lot out" anonymity is obviously liberating, given her tender years. I can't help thinking that if I were a teenager now, I would have less interest in being a game creator and would be quite content being a user, it's just so much fun.

Jam and Donuts

Had a reyt laff at the jam on Sunday, the atmosphere was really relaxed. Again, started off really quiet but all the quality was around from the kick off and sure enough, they carried the whole thing off with aplomb. I reckon it took me about an hour to get silly and it got better/worse from there. Deb stayed all afternoon and enjoyed herself I think, as I said, she stayed all afternoon...


Dave Chitty - Daft as a drum brush.

Highlights;

--The sunshine
--Dave and 'Swampies' drum solo (appearing on you-tube asap)
--Comfortably Numb (getting there!)

Had a really nice night tonight also. It's rare that the Gamesauce team get to the pub together but the planets aligned and we all went to the showroom for a few. We chatted through how we were going to get an edge on the projects we're submitting, all driven by follow-ups from GDC. Then we got onto general 'innovation', which is always interesting as we accept no boundaries and given the mix of experience and nationalities, always throws a few curveballs up.