I often find myself singing the praises of the games industry in Scotland. Not just to friends, coworkers, and family, but in the last month it has been to taxi drivers, a bank teller, and even on a local podcast.

The topic that non-industry people seem most fascinated about is the large number of games studios (and the developers they employ) that are right here in Dundee. And so after my last blog post, I thought it was worth linking to local game developer openings.

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• Warren Spector is responsible for some of the most innovative gameplay in the industry.
• Junction Point Studios is Warren Spector’s company.
• Junction Point Studios also employs developers from Origin Systems, Looking Glass Studios, and other great gone-but-not-forgotten developers.
• Disney is the money behind Junction Point Studios, so all recruitment goes through the Disney Careers Website… which involves knowing what you’re looking for in order to navigate through to find jobs at Junction Point Studios.

So, I created this link to quickly find job opportunities at Junction Point:

Junction Point Studios Careers

(The jobs listed in Austin is what you’re looking for.)

Personally, I think working for Junction Point Studios would be a great experience. So I’ll be checking that link regularly.

Every once in a while I am amazed by the cleverness of some people. This time, its the guys who made Synergy.

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Well, with my MSc dissertation submitted, I finally have a bit of time to focus on some of my other projects … which includes keeping this up to date with what those projects are.

The latest is an iPod-Touch/iPhone game development, and the goal is to do as much of the development as possible in VisualStudio on a PC.

I found a few great resources for this, that I’m listing here for my own benefit as much as anyone else’s.

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Flock! is now available for Preorder from Capcom!

Preorder Flock!

I’ve spent the last two days at the office prototyping a new game … and I had forgotten just how much fun that can be.

In a matter of about 16 hours I had completed the prototype to a point where it not only had all the basic functionality required by the Game Design Document, but it was already highlighting some fun and unanticipated game mechanics.

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Six months of programming at Proper Games and I haven’t been doing a very good job of keeping my blog updated. Mostly its because I’ve been putting in long hours of programming during the work day … and late nights with my friends.

But now things have settled down at the office as we are close to finally getting our game out the door. That means I have a bit of time to post some of the great press our game has been getting. So here are some links!

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There is a tendency in the software industry to complain about scope creep. You know, you’ve designed something based on a set of functional requirements provided by the client … and then the client says, ‘ooh! can we add this or that’.

The software designer then makes a decision on whether or not to honor the request … trying to balance the customer’s whims against the developer’s resources, contractual obligations, and customer satisfaction. Its then that you’ll then hear software developers spending their lunches complaining about scope creep.

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Not having an internet connection at my flat has led me back to reading books … and I’ve been having a great time. Such a strange feeling to be reading a book, and after 30 minutes you’re still reading the same topic (not being distracted by some interesting hyper-link that would normally take me off on an off-topic rabbit trail).

The two books that happened to catch my recent attention have nothing to do with game design, but never-the-less my mind keeps twisting the things I read into ‘ooh that would be cool in a game’.

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In my ongoing effort to be a better game maker, I’ve been taking up the challenge of entering the weekly “game design challenge” at GameCareerGuide.com.

So far, I’ve been mentioned after both submissions I’ve made, which makes me feel that at least I’m on the right track.

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