Missed a Month.. and why

It has finally ended up being a month since my last post into this Blog.

I was doing very well with my daily posts until that time, so now i am going to explain some of the reasons there has been no posting, and some ideasof why there will probably be very few more, until maybe things change again... there is always change of course. Sometimes however away from developing games.

So what happened on the 15th ?
Several things happened or were in the proces of happening. I will describe a few of them in no particular order of importance (i think it took all these reasons and more to stop me).
1. Was in the middle of upgrading Berzerkatron to Xna 4.0. this should be something fairly straight forward, but it isn't. It wasn't realy designed to be either, which is a pity. However the real reason this is on my list is the fact that doing this kind of work and research smacks of my day job. The job where i write games occasionally, but lately have ben converting games from one sku to another. This kind of work is NOT creating games, and that is why i was on Xna. It would be interesting to see how my time would have worked out if the upgrade had been automatic, or even if a little upgrade script had been provided.
2. When i am coding my Xna games, i spend an inordinately large amount of time doing it, though in all honesty i think more time is spent on balance and level design than actual coding. Spending all this time means that my other creative endeavours always end up on the back seat. I figured that if i wasn't coding Xna games (too much fun), then i could be pursuing my other ideas.
3. February is exactly 1 year from when i sent off my book to 17 places. they said they would get back to me in a time frame anything from 60 days to 10 months. That time is now used up and expired. So it must be time to try something else, i still believe in my childrens book and how helpful they can be to teach kids to read and more importantly find enjoyment in reading. So how can i be writing games while needing to spend time on these books.
4. It was a break for the holidays and i got ill off and on the whole time. So taking time off to be ill seemed like a good thing.
5. I always wanted to Blog more about the development work here at work at Mass Media, only... My boss and i also think some of the other employees are a little scared i might reveal something that we have signed a non disclosure abuot. So i feel really restricted on what i can say. Which realy bums me out. We do all this great Sony Home stuff and yet, i can hardly say a word, no reveals, no secrets.. nothing. So with that pressure i have hardly ever mentioned what i do, apart from some stories etc I wrote a long time ago, and thoroughly enjoyed, as i hope you folks did.
6. Work is gonna kick my butt more. Yeah, work pressure has mounted, i am now working a 6 day week and this is tough on my family as well as me. With this reduced home time, it would be hard to code much anyway. Still the poducts we are working on are gonna make people very happy.

So whats next ?
I think i will be altering my Web page for SorceryGames once i get something to edit it with, my hard drive crash 6 weeks ago really put a pain into doing a lot of stuff i was really organised to do. Once it is locked up, i will be working on my new web site, which should be http://www.ab4k.com/ That stands for Adventure Books For Kids. I could not get the 'C' for children, bah!  I need artists if any of you out there think you are talented enough for childrens adventure books. I need approximately 22 pictures per book. I am going for high quality, though i am not too concerned about art style so much as quality level. So if you are interested, please drop me a line at voodoochief@sorcerygames.com.

As for this Blog, as it is my Sorcery Dev blog, I think i need to take a break from it. which saddens me cos it also means i need to take a break from my fellow Xblig peers. this group of indivduals has really impressed me in the last year, through their dedicationa nd commitment to not only help themselves, but also to help each other, and also me. I do not know of any community like it and I certainly hope i can get my books going to a more sedate pace (hours commited by me a week), and then hopefully i can come back and get on with more Xblig codiing myself. My one man army is suffering from not enough hours in a day.


Special Mesage to Xblig Devs,
Fellow Xbligers, you know you can find me on twitter, i canot leave the community, it is too cool. So if you need a reveiw of a game done, i will still try very hard to do these. Though i will not be going and lokoing around for stuff to reveiw. Instead i will rely on people tweeting about needing one done, or just plain DM me, i would love to keep up with what everyone is producing.

So for now, i have to say bye.. I hope this will only be for a short time.

Da Voodoochief (Rob)