bad phone habits be gone!

Breaking my phone was annoying, but the next day it was liberating (right after I managed to turn off the fucking alarm, which still works apparently). I didn't have this contrived need to obsessively read what are people are broadcasting or telling me directly... it disappeared when I left that social superpower at home on my PC. Why do I need to know this stuff when I have that power?

Resurrection!

By the power vested in me I restore this fine blog to it's former glory!

Right, things happened since my last post in May 2011. Very quickly, here's what I've been up to.

Later on in 2011 I gathered some friends to talk about making a video game. We were very good at generating ideas but naive with our project scope and personal abilities. Ultimately we didn't make anything like a game, but it was valuable to think about doing it, and then to think about why it didn't work out in hindsight.

We were thinking about a game with ziplines or something?

Late 2011 to early 2012 I made another map for Team Fortress 2 by the name of pl_doppleganger. I'm pretty happy with the result.

pl_doppleganger

At Uni I'm a member of the Computer Society. This group of nerds have a very wide and wealthy variety of skills and they're all lovely people, too. I was Gaming Officer for a while, which isn't really relevant to this blog but it means I can show you my gorgeous manifesto.

Vote for me!

So at Uni I've made a bunch of friends (hooray) and they're all great at different stuff. The thing I'm good at is making maps in the Source engine, so I gave some talks with handouts on how to make your own maps! People came along and learned stuff from me which was pretty amazing. 

Busy times followed - I did a placement at an engineering company (terribly fun), I was helping out with the Computer Society, I was playing Dota (so that's where all my time went...)

Dota - a game best enjoyed with friends

In March 2013 at a LAN party my friends Ben, Tanbouz and I decided to make a shot at recreating the Team Fortress 2 comics as a videos using Source Filmmaker. This project isn't moving right now but you can have a gander at what we did on our blog. 

And I can't remember the precise trigger but early 2013 I started to make games with the Unity engine. I can count about 6 different Unity based experiments and projects that I'm to blame for since then. 

Project Summit - my first collaborative game project

Project Summit (June - September 2013) is probably the coolest project I've worked on so far because it was with friends. We're passionate about playing games and game development and we're very keen make and release our own games. Our first project together was Summit - a physics based rock climbing game that may never see the light of day. Despite that, Summit isn't a failure for me - we learned a great deal about Unity, ourselves as a team and we stuck to a deadline. 

And finally, last weekend was Ludum Dare 28 (a competition to make a game in under 48 hours). I participated and I've kept working on my game following the competition (48 hours wasn't enough, but the crunch will give you a fantastic start!). The game is called RedLines and it's a work in progress, hopefully to be completed in January '14!

RedLines - a solo project

OK you're all caught up.

Do not mistake my appetite for apathy!

Going at a steady one post per month...

So I've been on my Easter break and next week I start my final term of my first year at university. Let's hope it goes as well as the last two terms. During the break I saw lots of friends and family and did lots of mapping. No surprises there. For mapping skip the next paragraph, for my personal life keep reading (weirdo).

My Uncle had his wedding on Friday (no he's not called Prince William), it was a lot of fun and the food was grrrrrreat! Congrats to them both. I recently saw Thor at the cinema. Thor is a great film, go and watch it. I went mountain biking near Thetford and I can't wait to go again. I also did a cycle ride from Welwyn Garden City to Stevenage. It was interesting watching the scenery gradually become grim and grey. Saw lots of friends on various occasions, nothing much else. It's been a good holiday!

CP Breakout
My mapping contest entry CP Breakout is on it's way. The deadline is May 25th and I'm a little worried it won't be finished by then, but a deadline is exactly the sort of thing I need: I've been working on Bunkerdash on and off for almost 18 months *perfectionist* no idea if it's actually a good map. Anyway, Breakout, the layout for this one turned out to be asymmetrical to start with but then symmetrical at the end. So far, not a wise decision. The main result of such a mash-up caused picnics in my case:

Thanks to The Crazy GFL for hosting this for me. More testing will happen soon, then hopefully I can go overdrive with details and lighting to make it look dark, damp and ugly. Although not too much because then it would be a dungeon, not a prison. Soon Eventually I'll post in more detail about this map and its development, hurdles, mistakes, and triumphs!

what?

Hey y'all!


This is a short post since I'm swamped with some coursework right now (taking a break). I'm gonna tell you about the name "explosivose" and where it came from. (Skip to the end if you want a mapping update.)


When you get into PC gaming you'll probably have to come up with a player name or some sort of alias that people will know you by, and when I was 14 or 15 I wanted to have a really cool name. At the time I loved Tenacious D - I even saw them at The Hammersmith Apollo in 2006 with my buddy, Tim. So for those reasons the name "explosivo" stuck in my mind on the night of the creation of my Steam account. That name was taken, and it was still stuck there in my mind, and for some reason explosivose seemed like a good alternative. I get people saying "explo what?" when I tell them who to add on such and such, and fair enough it's not the most memorable name. It stuck because steam account names and email addresses are static, and I didn't have any alternative names worth the effort. After a few years I learned to love it, and now I use explosivose for just about everything.


Another name I sometimes go by is Ketchup, which is the first thing that came to mind when I first played an online game (Garry's Mod). That stuck because its easy for people to say "hey ketch". Now it's mostly Karnage because Carnage is awesome, and the K is from Ketchup. 


Well it looks like this isn't a short post after all... I should get on with some more work. Programming and Signals coursework.


Soon I'll be posting about pl_bunkerdash_b2 and a new map I recently started for the TF2Maps.net Control Point Contest called cp_breakout.


PS please tell me if this blog is worth my time, I know this post was pretty lame but I needed to procrastinate a bit...