Overdue

It’s been a very long time since I last wrote a blog post, at least a personal one. I’ve been a very busy boy since my last post almost two years ago.

Being Dad to my girls, husband to my wonderful wife and co-founding a new Indie dev start up with my colleagues.

I have to be honest,  I’ve been massively inspired by seeing my wife’s excellent blog “eloiseriver” you should give that a read too.

This is likely the last blog post that I’ll put up in the current guise, I have some plans to spice things up that will allow me to improve posts of my personal experiences and thoughts, be that being a parent, gamer, developer or whatever spraff comes to mind on any given day.

Fierce Kaiju

So in my absence I co-founded Fierce Kaiju alongside a bunch of incredibly talented friends who also happen to be game development veterans. We’ve all been doing this a long time and we felt it time to do our own thing.

With Fierce Kaiju we’re primarily focused on VR games and experiences, though we love gaming in all it’s forms so don’t be surprised if we turn out a more traditional PC, console or mobile game at some point.

At the end of July we celebrated the first year anniversary of the formation of the team. It’s been a great year and we have a lot to be happy about, one such thing being our relaxed working practices, I’ve never felt more productive and we’re able to back that up.

In our first year we’ve been amongst the first to market in this new era of VR gaming. Our first VR title “Viral” was released on Samsung’s Gear VR in April. Viral is a purposely simple game at it’s core, but it’s built on a solid foundation of fun gameplay. We have big ideas for Viral moving forwards.

We’ve also developed of swathe of prototypes learning a great deal along the way. Building a range of control methods that work nicely in VR, building a 3rd person multiplayer experience with the warmly named “Fierce Kaiju Working Prototype 3.5″ as well as atmospheric tests with space and color among other things that I really cant be talking about just yet.

In short we’re feeling well prepared for the upcoming launch of the various VR devices, be that Oculus Rift, Sony’s Morpheus or HTC’s Vive. All of these excite me very much and I cant wait for us to be a part of that revolution.

All that said, it’s not been without it’s obstacles, some easier to navigate than others.  I will say this, running your own business requires serious dedication, yeah like that’s a surprise to anyone…I know it’s an obvious thing to say, but doing it yourself certainly puts a lot of things into perspective, especially with regards the people and friends I worked under or alongside before. My respect for those guys has quadrupled.

This might sound a little over the top, but the time, love and dedication required in making your business develop can feel similar to be being a father, only with your business people are more likely to be honest about how it looks.

I’m all for crushing it, crunching, slamming it when necessary, and yes I am talking about working hard here, you filthy reprobates. But your personal life and your own health is incredibly precious, you need to ensure that your work/life balance is…balanced.

There will be more from me soon. I feel like I have a lot to say, so if you fancy hearing it keep an eye out for new posts.