User Profile

I've always been a traveller, usually I get the itch every 5-7 years, and I love going to new places and meeting new people. This probably started due to my upbringing as a Forces Brat - my father's RAF career took us all over the UK and North Western Europe.

Leaving school in the late-eighties I was just in time to miss the great Yuppie bubble and to catch the great Corporate downsizing. For five years or so I tried to net a stable corporate job in IT - and failed dismally. Finally, whilst idling along as an IT technician at a local High school, I found a job in the paper advertising a position in customer service and games testing for a game publisher called 21st Century. It seemed too good to be true!

It was...

Everyone in the industry will know what working for a tiny, shoestring budget, publisher is like. I stuck at it for four years - slowly rising through the ranks to Producer on the testing side of my job, yet still retaining sole responsibility for Customer Services on the other side of my job. It was a situation that couldn't last forever - and it didn't. Finally I begged Andy Walrond, a Developer I'd nattered about game concepts with, to give me a shot at Developing rather than Publishing. He agreed and I handed in my notice.

Thus began a wild ride in the wonderful world of late nineties games development. The 14 hour days. The six day weeks. The all-nighters. The parties and the geekery. It was a great experience but by the time it was over it had consumed my finances, my marriage and most of my twenties in an orgy of overwork and stress. It had also consumed the Dev company, which was bought up by Rage Games Ltd, who promptly collapsed due to cashflow issues.

My impending divorce prompted me to seek pastures new - and so I found myself in Amsterdam. As someone who doesn't take drugs, smoke cigarettes, drink to excess or patronise prostitutes, there have been some who felt I didn't get the most out of my Dutch experience. On the other hand I met some awesome people, discovered Anime and did some of the best Roleplaying it's been my privilige to enjoy. I also enjoyed a far more relaxed world of Games Development - a world of five day weeks and 9 hour days. A world of holidays and paid sickleave. A world where you got extra money in the Summer to go on holidays with.

Sadly, even good things need to come to an end, and when I left Guerrilla Games for reasons of health and to be with my Canadian girlfriend, I wound up having to leave the finest crew of peeps I've ever had behind. Much respect to the Haarlem circle.

I'm now working from Canada as a freelance writer, My last project was dialog and story for Sony Worldwide Studios on one of their AAA franchises. It's the most fun work I've ever done - I love the creativity and I love the flexibility of freelance work. It's ALL good.

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