Chillin, dont you be illin!

Well, I've got to try and relax tonight. Not only have I been dealing with students all day (which can really be stressy) but my internet is temporarily disconnected.

So while I'm sat around at work waiting for an upload to complete, I thought I'd post a blog about something that I noticed recently.

The thing I noticed, is that I've relaxed a lot. Stopped being stressed about shipping the right sort of game and really just focussed on shipping and you know what? Things are happening so much better for it.

The biggest difference right now from even a few short months ago at IGC, is that now I've found some great people to work with.

You know Jeff's golden rules of indie-dom. Well one of them "find like minded people and work together" kind of hits home right now. Because man has it made a difference for me!!!

Ok, I've probably stretched myself a tad thin in that I'm dealing with essentially 4 projects right now. But each one has different requirements from me, from producer, to programmer, to PR guy etc. The fact is, since I started working with guys like Thomas, Mike, Dee and Gary, D... and S... its all started to fall into place.

We've got some news coming up which we are timing to coincide with GDC which *should* show you how much more interesting life just got for me :)

So me stepping back and realising I cant do everything myself, that sometimes I have to pay for things, that I need to get help to move forward with projects is the BEST thing I've ever done. Thats not to say you can just pick anyone. All of these "we've got 30 people on the team, all we need is a brilliant modller" kind of posts make me giggle. But fundamentally, if you cannot spend enough time yourself working on a project, its not a bad idea to pay someone else to! If you can afford it that is.

Mike has been doing some outstanding work on the sports game. He's really been shining and in fact I'm the drag factor there! (I'm only producing the damn thing and doing the AI code). We're just moving past concept art stage towards gettting some models produced, the code is working (sans AI) to the point where I'm confidant we will ship it and its worth making some "final" art in order to finish up some key systems (like shot animation). We have so many great ideas on how to make this game really polished. Its just brilliant to see!

The AI pack deadline looms large, I'll be going home in a minute to work on that. Nuff said.

Air Ace is coming along great. Its fantastic to have Thomas working with me and we've got some brilliant art on the way, along with some help from my good mate Pascal on finishing up the other planes. On release we plan on having 8 airframes plus variants. Gameplay is functional but not fun so far. There are 3 major bugs on my list to find and fix. Then we're in online alpha mode. I'm so looking forward to that!

And finally?

GDC a cometh. Which is when we make our big breakthrough announcement :) I'm going to actually do the whole "press release" thingy for the first time. Hopefully that will start the ball rolling on a number of fronts.

With all the great tech coming from GG for TSE, I think GDC time is going to feel more like xmas than xmas was for me this year!!!

I'm promising myself a day off during the weekend after GDC. I've not had a day off for a few months where I havent just thought of Air Ace or the AI pack. I think shipping those things will clear the decks for getting on with TT (sports) etc.

Oh yes, we are on the verge of some super PR stuff! :)