Why don’t our keyboards have the interrobang?

Thats what a friend of mine asked. Here’s my best answer in layman’s terms. As always, it is open to arguments from the floor, but I’m skirting over details in order to provide a full answer that isn’t too much techno-babble.

The short answer is… they do!!! (ALT+8253) But, here’s the long answer (in 5 steps).

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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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This week’s diversion was a trip to the Scotland coast in order to help save the ‘Greater Yellow Rattler’. The Greater Yellow Rattler (differing from the regular Yellow Rattler because of its size) only grows wild in a single location in all of Scotland.

So our job (after first counting the number of individual plants that exist on the stretch of coast) was to remove the ivy and other ‘garden escapees’ … and replace them with transplanted natural grasses from the surrounding area.

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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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As promised, now that I’m allowed to, I can say a little more about my new job.

I have a summer student programming position at Proper Games here in Dundee, Scotland. We’re working on a game called Flock!, which is a ‘farm animal abduction game’ for the PC, PS3, and XBox360.

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I went to a life drawing class at the Borders here in Dundee, Scotland.

There are not that many events in life that you can attend that are fun, free, and you get to make stuff. So as a “poor college student” it was good to actually find something that meets all those criteria.

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