I made this!

Finally, I actually get to say this after waiting for it to be publically announced: Here is a video on Harry Potter – The Half Blood Prince Potions game which I was primary working on during development of the game, enjoy!

Fundfax Fairraiser

“Perhaps you remember Marissa, a 19 month old baby girl who was diagnosed with Infantile Spasms when she was a mere two months old. Her stuffed bunny Fairfax travels the world, sharing not only Marissa’s story but also spreading awareness of the serious paediatric epileptic condition that she, and other young children, suffer from. Approximately eight months ago we pulled together for a community project titled Fairfax ‘n’ the Chief in honour of her father (who is a fellow Halo fanatic). Today I’m proud to announce The Fundfax Fairraiser, a very special fundraising effort that will benefit sweet baby Marissa and those that are helping her through this very difficult fight.”

New article added – How to be a Games Tester

Read it here. Comments and feedback welcome.

Why I think Metacritic shouldn’t be used as a yard stick

The popularity of Metacritic has grown over the last couple of years as a yard stick to measure the quality of one product to another. The premise is fine, after all what better way to judge the quality of a product then average of the scores from all the reviews for it? However, the problem I have is that the sources for the reviews are not consistent from product to product and because of this, Metacritic scores can be heavily skewed depending on which review sources are included.

Essentially, this boils down individual reviewers of what score is considered to be ‘average’. Some consider 5/10 to be it, others may have this at 7/10 and because of this, comparing two products against each on Metacritic scores alone can be grossly unfair if the review sources for each product are different.

I am not completely dismissing Metacritic as it is still a great source for the consumer to get a rough idea of a product’s quality and also provides a list of review sources to read through, but when an industry starts using it as a target (e.g this must get at least 80% Metacritic), then it can easily become more of ‘Who are we going to get to review this’ rather then focusing on increasing the quality or concentrating on the target audience.

Crazy experiment in trying to earn more income

Now that I have my own house, I have a little less each month to spend/save so I have been investigating ways to earn money in my free time, preferably at home and substantial (at least minimum wage equalivant). So far, I haven’t been able to find anything that generated enough money for time spent. Examples of these include Mystery Shopping and earning tiny amounts for writing reviews/filling surveys.

I did contemplate about writing games or applications for XNA and the iPhone but my current work contract doesn’t allow it and there is an upfront fee to become a developer for either of these two platforms for something that isn’t guaranteed to generate a profit. However, with some negotiating on the part of the contract and making sure I have a viable idea to develop, market and sell before putting any money down, this path may still be an option in the future.

This left me with the idea that I am currently trying and been thinking about for several years now however, the reason why I consider it ‘crazy’ is because it involves gambling and we all know how this could end up once you are on this path.