I am only moving a few posts over so this blog will remain in whole here.

See you @ Alix Games.

Pictures and more details of the event can be found on the Facebook page.

So dig deep, even a pound will help in the long run! I am aiming to at least max out the limit, many thanks in advance!

Donation page – http://www.justgiving.com/yaustar

Event details:

• Skaiti24 Homepage – http://skaiti.webs.com/
• Skaiti24 JustGiving page – http://www.justgiving.com/Skaiti24
• Skaiti24 T-Shirt – http://skaiti.webs.com/theskaitee.htm

Shelterbox Charity Information:

“ShelterBox is an international disaster relief charity that specialises in emergency shelter. We instantly respond to disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, sending boxes of aid which will provide shelter, warmth and dignity to the people affected. One ShelterBox, which provides aid for an extended family of up to 10 people costs £490, including delivery to the people most in need.

To respond to a disaster as quickly possible, we need to have complete flexibility with our funds and equipment and can therefore never accept location or time specific donations. However, we can guarantee that every donation we receive will make a huge difference to people who have lost everything due to disaster.”

During that holiday, I went on an organised bike trip on Rottness Island with some friends I met there. It had an awesome tarmac bike path that went all the way around the island and had a bike hire shop at the port; problem was that I couldn’t ride a bike to save my life . Luckily, I had some foresight (and extra weight allowance) to bring my skates along thinking there must somewhere good to skate in Oz given the weather and location.

While I was generally okay on my Romes (as I changed my bearings to BSB Swiss and used brass spacers), I did struggle with the hills and rough tarmac at times. Also the tongue of my liner was causing abrasion just above my ankle and the weight of the boot didn’t help towards the end of the day. This prompted me to serious start thinking about an upgrade to better suit my needs when I got back in UK.

Not having looked at skates for the last 10 years, I was really surprised by the range and specifications of skates nowadays and ended up having to really think hard about what type of skate to get. Looking at reviews and forums, the short list ended up being:

• Seba FR1 – Good to slalom with (due to the short frame) and for general skating. The hard boot means that it is more durable. 4 x 80mm wheel setup.
• Seba GT – Soft/hard hybrid boot skate, slightly longer frame then the FR1 and High to accommodate 4 x 90mm wheel setup making it better for long street skates but still retains some manoeuvrability.
• Seba High – Soft/hard hybrid boot skate with a short frame and a hi-lo rocker setup 4 x 80mm wheel setup. Primarily designed for high end slalom use.
• Rollerblade Twister 243 - Rollerblade’s answer to the FR1s.
• Roces T403 – Soft boot fitness skate with a 4 x 100mm wheel setup. More suited towards speed and long session skates.

I ended up ordering the Seba GTs at 10% discount from ProlineSkates (shown below) since I figured I be doing more long session skating and still gives me the option to try some slalom. Additionally, all the Sebas have a universal frame mount so I can switch to a shorter frame at a later date if I wanted to get more seriously into it and I still have my Romes for any hard boot needs. They have been reviewed highly and I can’t wait to get my hands on them! (Here is hoping they fit!)

To round it off, I thought I better get some decent knee pads if I was planning to go faster and these Armadillo Knee Pads caught my eye for obvious reasons :

And finally, this video by Wancozure probably best explains my interest in slalom:

Looks cool doesn’t it? (And if anyone can tell me the name of the song, I would be very grateful!)

UK skating events sites:

• LondonSkate
• LondonSkaters
• London Friday Night Skate and Sunday Stroll – Weekly event on Friday and Sunday skating through the streets of London.
• Skaiti – 24hr charity skate round the Top Gear track.
• London Inline Marathon

Note: When I refer to game developers, this means I am referring to everyone involved in the development of the game such as programmers, artists, producers, designers, etc.

There has been increasingly more enquires about becoming a games developer in forums related to games careers such as the ones on IGDA and GameCareerGuide. As much as I am happy that more and more people are interested in entering the games industry, the majority of these are asking on how they become a games designer and which games design course should they choose because they naturally see it as the best way to get into the industry. After all, if you want to be a plumber, you do a plumbing course. So if you want to be games designer, you do a games design course, right?

If only it was that simple.

There are a number of reasons why I don’t recommend doing a games design course and to be honest, they have more to do with the industry then actual courses themselves.

Games design is hugely unspecific in industry compared to other roles available, what a designer does can differ from company to company or even on a team to team basis. While I tend to find that they agree in principle of their responsibilities, the actual specifics of what they actually do and the skills needed are often disputed. This in turn makes it extremely difficult to create a list of skills needed for the games designers compared to programmers or artists where the role is well defined which in turn makes it difficult to create a course curriculum.

To compensate for this, design courses will teach a bit of every discipline which is usually programming, modelling, animation and level design or a subset of these. While I agree that some knowledge in a number of these disciplines is useful for any games developer and works well for a designer where the role is not well defined, the level of that knowledge is usually relatively low compared to studying an entire course in one of those disciplines which leads to the next problem.

Games design is a narrow field and the skills you learn on these courses and not easily transferable to other industries or professions. Additionally, game designers only make up a small number on each team and in my experience it usually 1 designer to every 10-15 developers. This means that there are comparatively very few roles available already before we even start looking at junior or graduate roles for design and the skills learned in the other disciplines isn’t at a high enough level for the jobs in those disciplines unless you did a lot of self study.

In short, if you can’t find a game design job after the course, what can you do instead with what the course has taught you that you couldn’t have done yourself without it? Ultimately, that is the question of any education you plan to undertake to ensure that it is worth the time and money.

The flipside of this is although I recommend not during a game design course, I actually don’t know what to recommend instead that is relevant and also teaches transferable skills. I am still researching into this and was wondering if there was something that the industry could do to help and funnily enough, Skillset have just announced a Games Design Accreditation Initiative so it will be interesting what comes out of this.

If you are looking at doing game design as a career, be sure to research into the role and the methods of getting into it. Useful links:

• 2009 GameCareerGuide guide
• Sloperama Games Design FAQs
• Skillset Career Advice
• EA Career Paths – Games Design

“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.”

This is because not every reviewer works on the same relative scale so while one may perceive 5/10 as average, another may think 7/10. Therefore, 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.

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.

The base theory is simple and sound but assumes you have a bottomless pocket and a no limit roulette table. Essentially, you place your initial stake on an even money bet (i.e double or nothing bet with ~50% chances of winning) and keep doubling the stake every time you lose until you win and then revert to your initial stake. Everytime you win, the amount won will always be the initial stake.

This method is mathematically sound as the chances of losing X times in a row decreases dramatically, going from 50% from the first bet to less then 1% on the seventh. However, 1% is still not 0% hence why a bottomless pocket and a no limit table is assumed as an initial £5 bet becomes £320 after losing £315 on the seventh and it keeps doubling after each loss.

As to why I haven’t tried this before is due to:

• Casinos usually have a minimum bet of £5 or £10 on even money bets at roulette tables.
• I don’t have a substantial amount of money to risk losing to test a theory.
• The betting time between spins is too long to continuously bet in such a methodical manner.
• Normally you go with friends to a Casino as a night out and this isn’t exactly an ‘exciting’ way to bet.

This situation changed due to three things:

1. Online gambling places are now offering bonus chips (with T&C) when you signup and deposit money into the account thereby giving more money for free to try this theory.
2. I have since joined the cashback site QuidCo which has cashbacks for various online services including gambling sites (with T&C).
3. Online betting times between spins is not fixed and is up to the user when the spinning starts.

With this in mind, I essentially had a no risk situation as if this does go wrong, the worse case scenario ends with me breaking even. Additionally, the gambling site I picked had free play tables where no money is involved to further try this method and really low minimum stake of 10p on even money bets.

I started this experiment 4 days ago and have spent ~5 hrs of time over those days with the initial stake of 25p, I am now £175 up excluding the cashback from QuidCo (which is £70). That works out to £35 an hour which is a decent conversion rate of money earned against time spent. What I have found so far is:

• It is incredibly boring to the point where it feels like gold farming. I can do it while watching/listening to the TV but not when I want to concentrate on what is on.
• Losing more then 5 times in row can be a little nerve wrecking and a few times I had to cut my losses and start from the initial stake again.
• Knowing when to stop. The temptation to get more ‘free money’ is always there so a lot of self control is needed to know when to stop and call it a day.

Despite the fact that I am in profit, it is still gambling and I have now set some iron clad rules to make sure this doesn’t become an addiction or out of control:

• Transactions from my gambling site account will always be one way (i.e out). I will never deposit any money into this account.
• When the account hits £0, I will close/delete the account to remove any temptation to gamble further.
• When the account hits £75 or more, money will be transferred out of the account to the balance of £50.

I am interested to see how long this will last for and if it lasts till the end of the month, it will be a surprise. In the meantime, I am still investigating other methods to increase my income which are more sustainable and consistent without the financial risk. If anyone has any ideas, I am more then happy to hear them.

Disclaimer: I do not endose or encourage gambling in any form. If you think you have a gambling problem or wish to find more information on gambling then please go to the Gamble Aware website.