The astute observer will realize that I failed to update Dueling Monkeys in the month of August. This is not because I didn’t have enough to talk about, but rather that I had way too much to talk about. There has been some big life changes lately that I will chronicle here for you.

Amanda

So one day I was enjoying our weekly pick-up volleyball game and out of the blue a cute girl showed up and played with us. I asked her if she would keep playing with us (after all, she was good at volleyball) but she was torn between doing that or going rock climbing. We negotiated a deal where I would go climbing with her another day of the week if she kept playing volleyball. A few weeks later, she asked me out on a date, and then after a few weeks of dating I asked her to be my girlfriend.

That’s us in the mountains

New Job

After 6 years of working for Emergent Game Technologies, I’ve decided it is time to make a big decision and start working somewhere that will allow me to continue growing and aligns more with my interests. I had a great time working for Emergent, I learned a lot, and met a lot of great people. I’ll always remember those years fondly.

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve taken a job offer to work for Robot Entertainment. Although I don’t know the details of what I’ll be working on, I know that the new job will let me make creative contributions and I’ll be working on actual games (instead of an engine), both things that I really love but didn’t have the chance to do at Emergent.

Company logo made out of legos – awesome.

My first day is Monday, October 18th. Wish me luck!

Moving

As it turns out, Robot is in Plano Texas (near Dallas). This is not where I currently live, so I’ll be moving to Texas soon. Moving will be a lot of work, so that’s what I’m going to be trying to figure out for the next few weeks while I’m between jobs.

One might wonder "how does moving and getting a girlfriend at the same time work?". The answer is that I’m not sure of the details but Amanda and I will make it work one way or another.

Game Jam

A few weeks ago was also the 2010 Triangle Game Jam which I participated in. I didn’t organize the event this year, as I have the past two years. I passed the torch so that the Triangle Game Jam might live on without me.

This year’s theme was "Placing blocks"; not necessarily original, but can inspire a lot of ideas without being very restrictive.

A team formed around my proposal of a rogue-like where you pick up and put down dungeon tiles instead of using weapons and spells and stuff. Of all of the Game Jam games that I’ve worked on, or even seen developed, I’m proud to say that this one is probably the most complete and well polished.

It gets a lot more interesting as you go, trust me. click to see full size

We used the tiles and sprites from Angband. I worked on this with Mike Lee and Brian Sowers. Hopefully sometime in the next month I’ll have time to put up a section of the games page for it with more screenshots, instructions, and a download link.

New Computer

If all that isn’t enough, I also bought a new computer recently, so I finally have hardware that beats the old $600 computer that Jody helped me put together back in college all of those years ago. This means I can play Starcraft 2 among other things.

Frankly, I think that’s about enough news for one update. I’ll catch you all later.