Morrigan’s Thrall

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, as you would know if you were following my Twitter feed. I got back on Monday from a two week cruise around New Zealand. Wow, that’s quite an experience!

Anyway, I’m back to working on ScrambleMod and a full game that is yet unnamed and unannounced. Work, work, work.

 

Recently, I’ve decided to do a bit of creative writing, so I’ve been working on a short story called Morrigan’s Thrall. It’s set in the near future in an alternate universe and follows a man and a woman on opposite sides of a war between humanity and the shapeshifters.

Here’s a preview:

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Rachel Chambers had been sent to this party by her superiors, probably as some way to curry favour with the rich types. She didn't like having to do this, but she wasn't going to waste this opportunity to flirt with some cute guys. She'd already tried this once tonight, but realised her error when she saw that wedding ring. So much for available.

Still, she was determined to find another guy to talk to. She had spotted a candidate and was walking over to him, when she heard her name being called from behind her. She sighed and turned, seeing Mark Wight looking over at her and motioning for her to join him.

Mr. Wight was surrounded by a group of younger men vying for his attention, but he seemed keen on meeting her. She forced a smile and began walking over to him. Seems the reason why she was here had caught up with her. Time to please her superiors.

One of the young men with Mr. Wight made a joke, causing the older man to laugh, a bit too loudly for it to have been anything but crass. Rachel frowned, but it was too late for her to turn around now.

She was mere meters away from him when the crack of gunfire rang through the air, and a nearby window shattered. As Rachel turned to look in the direction of the shooting, she noticed out the corner of her eye that someone had fallen to the floor, a pool of blood forming around their head.

Mark Wight's laughter had been permanently silenced.

-

Stay tuned for more. :)

 

Horizord of Sanguine City

Steam’d Penguins

I thought I’d just quickly mention that Valve is porting Steam and Left 4 Dead 2 to Ubuntu, a distribution of Linux.

More information can be found on the Valve Linux blog, here.

Call of Similarities

I was thinking about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It's a game I don’t intend to get. Ever.

There’s a good reason why.

I’ve played Call of Duty 1, 2, Modern Warfare 1 and Modern Warfare 2 in the past (I wasn’t going to get Modern Warfare 2, but then it was given to me for Christmas). Call of Duty 2 was a lot like Call of Duty 1, and Modern Warfare 2 was a lot like Modern Warfare 1.

Activision churns out Call of Duty titles quite regularly, and for me, this has impacted the perceived quality of the games. Not because of short development cycles (Well, not directly), but because when I look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, all I can see is Modern Warfare 2. It looks the same. Every piece of promotional material looks like it came from Modern Warfare 2. So, when I see Modern Warfare 3, all I can see is a standalone expansion for Modern Warfare 2, and the perceived value of an expansion.

Here in Australia, Modern Warfare 3 is $100 on Steam, and probably slightly less in retail.

Would you buy a standalone expansion at that price? Not me.

 

-Horizord

5 months, 11 days!

Last night, Federal Parliament passed legislation that introduces the R18+ classification for video games. This means, as of now, R18+ has been officially made part of the national classification system.

The classification will come into effect on January 1st, 2013.

Each state and territory will now move to pass their own legislation, essentially their own implementation of the classification. Only South Australia has said they will look at introducing a different system to the norm, and the ACT has stated that they will implement R18+ ASAP.

Sources:

News.com.au

GameSpot AU

TheGamersPad

Sneak Peek!

Hello there folks,

Due to my lack of posts, I thought I'd give you guys a sneak peek at what's been happening in the mod. We're still making good progress (I admit, though, I've stalled somewhat, working on a certain feature that seems to require a completely new way of working every time I turn around).

Starting this weekend, I am going to try to put up a new screenshot from our playtests on my twitter feed. While we still haven't publicly announced the mod, yet, I feel that we're getting close. When we do, I'll be sure to link you to our shiny ModDB page (We don't have one yet, of course).

In the mean time, here are some screenshots from the mod. These are not recent, however, and do not show the mod in its current form.

Enjoy!

Horizord