This Week's Workation: Italy

It's my first time in Italy and last Friday I had the privilege to fly over to Pisa to showcase my colleague Henry's VR game, Aboard The Lookinglass, at the Internet Festival. It was a fun event with people of all ages queuing up to experience virtual reality for the first time. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and others found it funny watching their friends making random gestures.

I got to check out the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was awesome as well as many tourists getting the standard holding-up-the-tower pose. If I get a chance before I leave I might go up the tower but rain is scheduled for the rest of the week unfortunately! And there was me leaving London to get away from that...

This week I'm working from Pisa, Florence and Rome. I've organised a playtest session in Rome for the latest build of Hue, so that should be good to get some feedback from new players of the game. Apart from that, I'm going to check out some of the touristy hotspots in Rome and then meet up with dev friends, should be good!

Recap: California Roadtrip 2014

Back in April I had an amazing opportunity to explore California and cruise down the coastline in a 2014 convertible Chevrolet Camaro. If you’re a Transformers fan, this is the Bumblebee car but in red. It was an incredible, unforgettable experience and doing some sort of American roadtrip has always been a dream of mine so this year I decided to go for it. Straight after the high intensity, annual trip to GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco, I rented out a car with a pal from Las Vegas and we flew down the route 1, making our first stop in Monterey where we stayed at an AirBnB place for the night. This was a great location with a neat local scene. We hit up a few bars in the evening and also came across a pub called “London Bridge,” with a London tube sign logo. I guess it’s hard to get away. Also, the woman who’s house we stayed at originated from Wales, UK (where I studied at University), so again, a home from home.

After a night in the hot tub, we got up bright an early and proceeded with our journey, stopping off for lunch in Big Sur and then making our way to Santa Barbara where we stayed in a motel. These were some epic locations and driving around the windy roads was so much fun. I wasn’t used to driving on the other side of the road (In fact it’s the first time I’ve driven on the left side of the road, an automatic car and a convertible all in one go) and ended up veering towards the cliffside, so Nelson made haste that he should take over, probably for the best.

After Santa Barbara we headed to Malibu, ate at a fancy restaurant and tried to hit up a private beach but failed. Next stop was Los Angeles and the departure of Nelson, my LA buddy. Luckily my mate Fernando, who’s based in LA, tagged in and joined me for the second leg of the road trip, which was going to be to Las Vegas. Originally I was going to cover San Diego too but ended up being way to tired as we were doing this within a week and a half. And GDC was killer (in a good way), so not sure how I did any of this anyways.

I stayed in LA for around 4 or 5 days, rented a swanky-ish pad in Venice Beach and later Playa-Del-Rey. This gave me the opportunity to hang out at the local scene, meet up with fellow indie devs, check out Glitch City and chill out in Hollywood. It was a lot of fun. 

Soon after this we made tracks to Las Vegas and needless to say, I was very excited. Blitzing the Camaro through the Nevada desert was dreamlike: the wind flowing through my hair, Rock ‘n’ Roll All Night by KISS blasting through the speakers and the sun beaming down. Around seven hours later we arrived into Las Vegas but it was very different to when I went in 2011. All the main casinos had turned off their lights and then it dawned on us that we had arrived to Vegas during Earth Hour. I was both surprised but also distraught and worried that they wouldn’t turn them back on that evening…as we were prepared to hit the clubs. Luckily, it was only for an hour as the name suggests.

Vegas was amazing but yeah, let’s just say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. After four days, I was ready to head home after 2 weeks of non-stop travelling and mayhem. Fernando and I said our goodbyes; it was pretty emotional. I headed to McCarran airport and embarked on the long flight home to London. If you ever get the chance to, I highly recommend doing an American road trip. It’s a lot of fun!

2013 Update

Wow, looks like I haven't updated this thing in a year and half! Goes to show how busy I've been, wow! I'm aiming to write a bunch of catch-up posts detailing the most eventful things I've been up to in the past year, such as IndieCade in LA and starting my 2nd company. It's good to be back!

Q.U.B.E. goes to Develop in Brighton!

This week Toxic Games traveled to Brighton, UK to attend the annual Develop Conference. Last year we went we were just students but this time we were part of the show! Unfortunately we missed the free drinks event on Tuesday night, however we went out in the evening, which turned out to be good fun. 9 of us were staying in a hostel with three random French girls - that was pretty hilarious and they must've hated us by the end!

We played a variation of ring of fire on Tuesday night, which included planking (Google the term). We were planking all over the hostel and the people there weren't too happy with us...
As we got further into the evening we explored Brighton for a bar that was open and came across a small open-mic night - it turned out to be a pretty cool shin-dig. There were a bunch of hilarious moments, like watching Pete chase after these random Spanish girls who ended up trying to sell us their dingy boat!

Wednesday was jam packed with lectures and workshops and we learnt a lot. In the evening we attended the Develop Awards after-party, which was a barrel of laughs. We showed QUBE to a bunch of game company execs including Ian Livingstone and the creative minds behind Brink, Splash Damage. In exchange for showing QUBE, we were shown a photo of one of the dev's new Ferrari!

The next day Jon and I gave a talk on our experience of going from Student to Indie. We shared our experience of working with Indie Fund and explained how we set up our indie games company. It was very light-hearted and I felt it went really well! We're definitely improving on our public speaking, which is great.

We ended the trip by checking out a bit of Brighton and then headed back home, to South Wales.

Hammerfest 2011

Driving in the afternoon to pick up my brother Dero and his mate Ryan (CampBELL) from the new train station in Newport, we were getting excited for our journey to Hammerfest 2011, held in Prestatyn, North Wales. After leaving way after schedule we drove round in circles from Cwmbran to Newport. With a broken satnav and without a map we had to rely on Dero's navigation skills (which are usually really good). Unfortnutaly hunger kicked in and we got agitated, resulting in a brotherly argument for the most part of the journey. Finally we found a petrol station in the middle of nowhere and bought a map leading us in the right direction (by this point we had got all the way round the road we were supposed to be on). This whole fiasco added another hour onto the estimated four hour journey. Once we made it to Pontins in Prestatyn, at around 11pm, Stu and Orius came to greet us. They were pretty wasted to say the least but it was great to see them. We made our way to chalet where there were many fellow metal heads partying. As soon as I saw Baggy he offered me to drink from "The Bucket". The Bucket is a cocktail comprising any alcoholic beverage at the party. This time it was a concoction of Jagermeister, cider, beer, apple sours and some other stuff - it wasn't actually too bad to be quite honest!

Apparently Lucy had already passed out by this time, which is pretty hard to believe because she's a party animal! So I decided to go and pay her a visit, whilst Orius and me tested out the bed (Don't worry it wasn't as bad as it sounds :P). Surprisingly she was "awake", however very dozy (she doesn't remember seeing me at this point).

Moving on out, we went to see some bands. Unfortunately we weren't as drunk as the other 'Nam Crewians so we decided to head to the car and get a few cans in. I think we were pretty knackered at the point too so got some sleep in before we went to see MetallicaUK - A Metallica tribute band. They turned out to be really good!

The next day I was the last one to get out of bed (I managed to get the entire single bed to myself somehow, as Orius wanted to stay up). The first drink of the day was a nice cold beer followed by sitting outside in the sun, overlooking Prestatyn's mountains, which reminds me; driving through the mountains on the way to Hammerfest felt like we were driving into Mordor! (What's a Legolas!? Sorry, inside joke). The day was very chilled out, with cups of tea going round and bacon sarnies made by no other than Baggy. As the day progressed we consumed more beer and went to see a bunch of bands. Writing this now, it's hard to distinguish what we did on which day because it all seems to blend into one!

Later this day people were walking around in warpaint chanting: BATTLE! METAL! This was in honour of Turisas who played in the evening. I have to say they were pretty entertaining and definitely fulfilled the words, BATTLE METAL! After Turisas there was a woman who had a shaved head and this really confused Orius. So he walked up to her and says, "Excuse me, are you a man or a woman?" *SLAP!* That moment was priceless (She slapped him in the face by the way). On the way back to the chalet, I heard some guy yelling at me. I was thinking, "Who is this guy??" Turns out he thought I was the singer from Holy Grail and wanted to know where his chalet was. Turns out he's the drummer from Revoker! So I invited him to party at our chalet - and we did just that. What an epic time! Also met the rest of the band and went to see Accept. It wasn't long before saying's such as "Tuna Baguette!" and "Alright BUTT!" were going around. Also buckarooing took place. Buckarooing is where someone passes out and you gather anything you can to put on top of them. Orius got buckarooed hardcore! The next day we did pretty much the same thing and the big finale was seeing Evile who closed Hammerfest. Also on the Saturday, everyone was watching the rugby (after almost being kicked out of Pontins for littering...) so Orius and me decided to look for some fun bikes. We started singing "Buggy, Buggy, Buggy, Baggy Baggy Baggy!" Completely random, but funnny as hell! You say 'Nam, I saw Crew!

Meeting Bowling For Soup!

Yesterday I traveled from Newport to High Wycombe to Oxford to meet and greet Jaret and Erik from Bowling For Soup! Frantically rushing and losing our way, we thought we weren't going to make it. Luckily (and after a KFC and Subway) we reached the venue and it turns out everyone in the queue had already been waiting an hour to go in so we hadn't missed anything! It was a pretty cool set-up inside - a small stage with many acoustic guitars and an awesome back drop of Jaret and Erik. We were also handed a poster of their new album on the way in. Shortly after we queued to meet 'em, get the poster signed and get a photo - it was sweet! Definitely worth it being my sixth time seeing them live. Afterwards we enjoyed four hours of music by Bowling For Soup and Jaret n' Erik's other bands (including Linus of Hollywood).

Guy Kawasaki Keynote

On Monday night I travelled to Tottenham Court Road in London to attend a keynote by former chief evangelist of Apple, Guy Kawasaki. This very inspirational talk included information about how to start a business, enchant people and become successful. Topics ranged from how to create a unique product to how to give the perfect hand shake - there was a formula for it and everything! As well as informative and inspiring, the keynote had great comedic value as Guy told Apple jokes and also showed us some of his photos from his day and a half in London. Fortunately I was able to meet him at the interval as I purchased his book, "Enchantment" and he signed it for me. The social element to the evening was great too! I met a few people and went for a beer with two guys after the show. Unfortunately on the way home I was so engrossed in Guy's book that I missed my train stop... So my brother had to come and pick me up and then we had to drive all the way to another town to pick my car up - I'd say it was worth it though!


(04/04/2011)

GDC: San Francisco 2011

Another trip to America, with less than a two week break in the UK! This time the whole team had the opportunity to go to one of the biggest game conferences in the world, GDC (Game Developers Conference).
We checked into our hotel that didn't turn out to be the the best, but it had beds and hot water - that was enough. However we had to take turns in sharing the two double beds...



We had a pretty tough time getting over the jet lag due to late nights and early mornings, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! Everyday we would have breakfast at a place called Lefty O' Douls (however I was having major stomach issues so couldn't eat a lot :( ). On the second night in San Francisco we went for drinks round Ron Carmel's house and met the rest of Indie Fund as well as the other teams they're funding (Andy Shatz again and Steve Swink). This was all pretty overwhelming, considering we'd been speaking to these guys (and girl) online for the past 7 months - but was great to finally meet them all. We all went out for dinner at a burger place near Ron's house followed by more drinks and testing out Indie Fund games afterwards. We ended up getting a taxi with Nathan Vella - that was a pretty intense experience as the cab driver sped down the slopes of San Francisco - really did feel like a roller-coaster ride!
The next day we spent some time checking out San Francisco and finding our feet in the place. Unfortunately we ended up giving $15 to some pranksters in the street and the odd $5 to a bum or two, but nevermind! Later on in the day we hit up a Hookah bar and had a pitcher of beer, fun times! Also got friendly with the barmaid Jenn which was cool (she ended up letting me play my iPod in the place!).



GDC was pretty epic - the Indie Games Summit was on the Tuesday and this is where we had our big announcement! I was pretty nervous going up on the panel in front of 1000 people, but I definitely feel much more confident now :). Nervousness aside, it was great to be up there with Indie game veterans, Ron Carmel, Kellee Santiago, Nathan Vella and other developers, Andy Shatz and Steve Swink.



Once the expo opened we were well on our way to check out all the latest tech, including the Nintendo 3DS, which is something quite spectacular! Seeing really is believing. Checking out the IGF games was good fun too and seeing a bunch of our Indie friends from across the globe was nice (Solace team, Spiky Snail, Alexander Bruce and few others). One of the perks of the expo was the free beer - that was quite amazing! I would text Jon and Dave and they would literally come running to find it :D. We also had a few meetings with other companies, including Epic Games. Nothing was more epic than walking around the expo with Mark Rein discussing stuff followed by heading back to the Epic booth for more free beer! There was also a chill out zone where they had Halo: Reach playing, so I managed to get my fix in :P.



We attended a bunch of GDC talks and filled our minds with inspiration. We met up with a fair few people - I went for lunch with Jamie Cheng, the creator of "Shank", we hung out with Indie Fund members, went to an Indian restaurant with Kellee and her husband (and Matt), met Adam Sessler again, caught up with Jonathan Blow (JB!) and chilled with the Solace guys.









There were many parties going on every night, and unfortunately I forgot about one (that turned out to be awesome!) - but nevertheless we managed to get around. The exposure of QUBE was great because it meant we no longer felt like "nobodies" or just "students". When we told people what we were making 8/10 times they had heard of our game!

Other things we did included watching the IGF awards, eating out lots and checking out the Golden Gate Bridge - which was mind blowing! We also got our photo taken with two random girls haha.





Overall I had a great time - it was quite a different experience to DICE being bigger and busier. It definitely was good to get out of the studio and have some chill time with the team :).

Me on Ars Technica!

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/02/hands-on-with-the-playstation-3-sharpshooter-yes-please.ars

Indie Fund Announcement

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/02/indie-fund-assists-with-monaco-qube-and-shadow-physics/?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=650&width=850&caption=Joystiq+PC

Indie Game Challenge Awards

Check out my claim to fame with the Indie Game Challenge Awards video - being interviewed by Adam Sessler from G4TV!

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/51569/DICE-2011-Indie-Game-Challenge-Award-Show/

D.I.C.E. Summit and IGC Finals in Vegas!

Wow, where to begin...Last week was hands down an amazing experience and some of the best days of my life! Excitement pumping through me as the plane landed into Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. I've never seen so many bright lights in my life! Next up we headed to the hotel, ripped off big time by the taxi driver - and saw a glimpse of the Strip on the way to La Quinta (unfortunately we didn't stay at the Red Rock!). Tired, but still high on excitement, Dave and me decided to hit up Chicago's for a pizza and pitcher of beer :). That didn't go down to well in the morning as we had to be up bright and early for the DICE Summit. Actually, I think we hit the gym that morning (I wanted to go in the pool but it was closed :( ) after eating some gooey waffles mmmmm. Unfortuantely we weren't quite sure how much we had to dress up and so went in suits - we got there and everyone was in jeans and shirts! It was great though, the hotel was amazing :D - We got our goody bags (containing a hoody, t-shirt, mouse and loads of other cool stuff) and headed to the Indie Game Lounge where we met all the other Indie Developers (Andy Shatz - Pocketwatch, Niv Fisher Spiky Snail, Dino Patti - Playdead) and set up Q.U.B.E. on my laptop so people could play. Soon after we met Kellee Santiago which was cool!



We also made good friends with the Solace team and went for a Mexican with 'em. Most of the time I was pretty jet-lagged because there wasn't much time to sleep! Literally an early morning followed by a late night due to after parties etc. Was all good fun though - and chilling on the Veranda in the hot sun was a good hangover cure!



We attended some interesting and inspirational talks and the IAA awards evening which was a very eye-opening experience. We got to indulge in the luxury food, drink and company of some of the top names in the industry! Ted Price was sat on my table and he was bringing us beers from the bar! The next thing I know he was up on the stage presenting an award to someone! It was just a mind-blowing experience :) The after party was also good - just being able to network and talk to these people was amazing. I met Jade Raymond, Jessica Chobot and a few other well known people :). The next day was our big day - I prepared the publisher pitches and readied myself for the talk on stage with Adam Sessler. We headed over to the Red Rock a bit later than usual (everyone was wondering where we got to). The publisher meetings went pretty well! And then the Indie Game Challenge awards happened - was a very exciting experience. I was a bit nervous, but when I got up on the stage things weren't so bad! I gave Adam Sessler a mood cube and then I reminded him what Q.U.B.E. stood for - was pretty funny! After the chat, I received a trophy and had to do the whole "Thank you" speech on camera which was fun! For the rest of the night, we got to go to a party in a $7000-a-night penthouse suite which was soo epic - swimming pool and pool table - amazing! The plane journey the next day, however, wasn't such a good experience. Bring on San Francisco next week!