I’d like to say a private Hi to Jam from The Fragdolls Team, Jam took my interview cherry last year in Paris when we talked about Splinter Cell Double Agent. We will always have Paris, the nervousness of the interview, the gentle questions, and encouraging smiles, yes it will forever be one of the scariest things I have ever done made livable by you, thanks. I have avoided being interviewed on any game for 11 years it had to happen eventually, I guess. I can’t disclose Jam’s gamertag here but I have Jam on My Xbox Live list and let me say she has the highest Achievement points total out of all my friends. I do wonder however what a lass from London is doing having 1000points for 2K NHL hockey? I mean the most I ever knew about hockey living in London was what was shown on Channel 4 at 2 am. Anyway Jam, I’ll see you for a beer in London soon after shipping SCDA! Take care :)

[Yes I stole from your web site :)……the first round is on me, yes with chasers]

So I have been out at the playtests for the game between working on the game itself (Yes, very busy one might say). You constantly overanalyze your game when you’ve worked on it for 2 years. What you forget and play tests remind you of is that what you’ve done is actually really impressive to someone seeing all that work for the first time. We are close…real close. At this point, it’s tuning and balancing of difficulty. This isn’t fully down to me as we have a total of four designers on the project, each tuning different aspects so that the maximum effort is put into making the experience all it can be. Still, the play tests are both a joy and occasionally a complete surprise. ‘Players do the strangest things’ will be a TV show one day I am sure, honesty it’s a marvel how the gameplay you create is expressed through different players.

Wow. That was almost a serious post about the game. I must be slipping I guess. Well back to MSG! Yes MSG. I am allergic to it. I have just found out through months of trying to find out what makes me ill when each time I have it. Seriously, you really want to know when they are threatening to place a camera up your arse. Nobody wants a camera up the ass, that’s just wrong! So that fear has helped me to the conclusion that I get sick when I eat too much MSG! Now I am in China. Can anyone guess what is in 90% of the food here….yes, you at the back…..come on don’t be shy……No it’s not peanuts! It’s MSG you fool, see me after class young girl!:) Until further notice I am on a diet of Papa John’s pizza because I know it doesn’t get me sick. I will try some health food places soon. I may even start cooking for myself again. Lord have mercy upon my stomach’s soul. In reaction to comments made: Thanks to all four people who read my ramblings…seriously the check is in the mail (God I love ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ the movie)

Jam – The first person to react to my first Blog, we really should stop meeting like this.

Nelson- For being second I will further the career of the mighty ‘Rockaboo’, this is Nelson’s cat. BTW how did you find this blog? Let me just say Rockaboo is a giver, a giver of hair…nuff said.

benjaminlim36– Finally someone I don’t know, thank you! This would have been totally embarrassing if only my friends had come here to see what nonsense I wrote. benjaminlim36 – Post a question you have my attention. I will answer anything for you :)

SCDAMonstar – The Brit bear is going on Ebay to raise money for a new Playstation 3 :) Bids welcome!

Well, back to the game! See you in a couple of days.

Chris

PS. I am 32 tomorrow….dear god!

I dropped out of my degree in Graphic design at Colchester University in England. I didn’t want to do it anymore because I felt it wasn’t me, I didn’t have it in me to sell lifestyles to you all and myself. There are also far too many people doing it already and I didn’t feel like competing where my passion was vacant. It just so happened that a friend of mine just quit a testing job at Warner Brothers in Euston London, and the job hadn’t been posted yet. So I mailed the guy he named and sent my wishes to be a geek full time (I am fully proud of my gaming geek status). I was, after a longer pause that I would have liked (8 weeks), given an interview. I did the only thing I could at the time…I went out and bought new Batman socks from the Warner Brothers store and wore them to my interview. From the first minute the interview was less about the job and more about Batman.

Yes, that is how I started in this industry by knowing about Batman and wearing Batman socks. More to this story in later posts but the first game I ever touched as a tester was…………’Sensible World of Soccer’ on the Amiga!

The second visit to the doctor revealed the virus attacking me to be a sinus infection and I am feeling better thanks to the power of antibiotics. FANG is on his last legs and I shall stand triumphant over his dead carcass…well that me but I shall raise a beer to him as soon as the medication is done ;)

Games development is a great place to be, we have no uniform, hours are generally good except for the final stages of a game, most people are game geeks, the number of toys on desks is high (especially in china). Your daily picture below is the right side of my desk…Yes it’s an exclusive, the pause screen to the Xbox 3Fucking 60 version of the Game of the Year! Splinter Cell Double Agent! Yes you saw it here first!!

I will point out that the Godzilla figure is China’s knock off of the Japanese icon and Daniel has called it ‘Maozilla’ after the good chairman, I am sure he would approve. There is a fair amount of love in the office for Godzilla and Maozilla. The Ultraman figure has been on most desks on the team now. Where it came from, who it belongs to and where it will go next is anyone’s guess.

OK …so here is my story regarding importing ‘Dead Rising’ into Shanghai.

I’ll throw props out to Lik-Sang because they’ve been beaten down by the big guys for selling Nintendo products that the big N didn’t like. When you order they mail you back to tell you your stuff has shipped and they stock US games for my US 360! Now my copy …no indeed the three copies of Dead Rising that I purchased for myself, Daniel and Louis (the lead AI coder) should have arrive on the 14th and I should be looking at it on my desk as I figure out how to fold space and time in order to actually play more than 20 minutes a day. I mean it’s killing Zombies!!! Who doesn’t like that shit eh? Personally I was a zombie bowler on the demo…wait I’m getting off track here…I need to step this up a bit it’s a rant after all! OK on the 14h I get a four page fax from UPS! 4 PAGES OF CHINESE! I read 10 words of Chinese, more accurately I can read the numbers 1 to 10 purely because of the numbering on DVD box sets. I do NOT however understand the customs form in front of me. So I take it to the buying department do my best impression of a lost cat trying to find his way home and I get help. But no, it’s not that easy is it? I need my passport, my visa and my date of entry to prove I am here even though I paid by a credit card that is registered here.

Day 2! I am ill and forget my passport. This will cost me.

Day 3! I bring my passport but the guy who was willing to help me import these games is on holiday…fair enough I say, and another girl with a medium level of English assures me she has it covered and will e-mail me later…cool I think! And yes she does, I’m told it will be here in two days….

Day 7…I inquire to the lady helping me if she knows where my games are, to which she responds you haven’t got them? they should be here? Puzzled, she tells me she will look into it. Later that day I am sent this message:

The UPS told that the games involved violent content and they needed the game's content introduction. The introduction will be made as soon as possible. Do not worry.

I now know I will never taste the sweet sweet candy of Dead Rising past the cut-scene as I enter the cinema. I gather from the comment that UPS is going to be introduced to the violence in the game, where the young lady from purchasing is going to get 2000 zombies and an assortment of weapons is beyond me. I can but imagine:) hehe Should I receive this game I will raise it like the son I never had until the 1000 gamers points are done and I can release it back into the world.

Speak soon peace out

Chris

I am tired and now a virus has attacked me and it won’t let go. I’ve named the virus ‘FANG’, I have also given him a nemesis called Advil but FANG is currently winning the battle for control of my head…It’s times like this I wish my DS could fix me with a few well placed swipes of the stylus and let the music rock on…Then again maybe I’ve just been falling asleep to Trauma Center: Under the Knife too often …either way I feel like the lord himself decided to smack me up side the head for some past sin.

So to work, the first mail in my in box this morning was titled as follows – ‘FIRST CERT: Wednesday Morning Update’.

This kind of mail is scary first thing in the morning and it was fortunate I had my coffee fix before facing this news. You have to remember we have been working 2 years on this monster, and it is kind of strange to think it will all be over soon. I’ve been in the industry for nearly 12 years and each time the end of a project comes to a finish, it’s a mixed bag of emotions. Happy to finish, but sad to be losing some good friends as you shuffle off stage left onto the next project.

It’s too early to be talking about post project as all I can really think about (barring the virus attacking me) is ‘Splinter Cell – Double Agent’ and eating a damn sausage and egg sandwich. I’ll talk more about food in China and Shanghai as I go but I needed to get this off my chest…I WANT A DAMN SAUSAGE AND EGG SANDWICH FROM LONDON!!!! Wow that’s a lot better.

The above mail is from one of our producers, Daniel Roy. Think of your favorite uncle that makes you do chores and well, that’s our Daniel. He listens to us both complain and rant on about the PS3 vs. the Xbox 360 (more updates on this subject to come). Daniel listens with all due patience as long as the bugs get closed and the game remains on schedule. Wait. I’ll go take a picture for you…this will mean war, but hey it’s my uncle - what can he do...?

(He dodged me so I have a picture from the vault courtesy of Audran our art director. This is Daniel eating the countdown to E3….I’ll capture him again over the weeks so you can track his mental health, oh and don’t worry he was muzzled shortly after this picture)

I’d like to answer questions re: the game, Shanghai or the best places to drink and eat in London, California, Vancouver or Shanghai so please ask away.

I’m off home to collapse. See you next week when you should get a slightly more lucid Chris to listen to or ignore :P

Laters!