Adarakion Developer Diary: Issue 53

Good evening one and all! It’s been a really hectic and busy week this week with loads going on, I don’t know where to begin!

Firstly any regular visitors to our website will have noticed that the home page has changed.  Yes siree, we are experiencing a reboot!  We felt as a team that certain aspects of the site and the general “image” of Adarakion didn’t quite sit correctly with us.  We felt that before we released our first “commercial” project that we ought to really nail these things. We figured that once/if we make a bigger name for ourselves we need to be much more comfortable with the foundation, and it’s much easier to change this stuff now rather than when Adarakion is making some money and has a following which recognises our logo etc!

Progress on RoChain Mobile is starting to gather pace too. We find ourselves getting more and more familiar with the SDK and that in turn means that development is becoming more efficient and our self-assigned deadline for release becomes more and more realistic.  That’s not to say that the development is simple and straight forward (far from it) and I’m sure that in the coming weeks I’ll be moaning about some aspect of our attempted implementation!

Also, we have a really, really cool announcement. Adarakion and RoChain will be at the Eurogamer Expo at the weekend!  The entire Adarakion team will be milling around on the Saturday and RoChain will be playable all weekend on the Train2Game stand in the education section – stand number 15.  Whilst we will be loitering around the entire expo and checking all the cool stuff out, chances are we will spend a fair amount of time on that stand too, so drop by and say hello. Of course, you will need to recognise us first. I won’t be wearing a Carnation, or have a bunch of Tulips in my arms, but I do look vaguely familiar to my Gravitar!  So go looking for the white faced, stubbly short haired chap!  Almost certainly I’ll be hanging with Liam and/or Matt,  although I’m sure that my wife and kid have different ideas – either way, it’s going to be a really cool weekend for everyone involved!

Who would’ve thought that this time last year we would be exhibiting one of our games at a major gaming event?  It’s rewarding in itself that all this hard work we have been putting in is really starting to pay off.   We still have a fair way to go to win the ultimate prize for us all, however it’s never felt closer.  That in itself is great, however there are downsides to all this work and effort (if there could ever be a downside to chasing your dreams):

One, trying to focus on the work that is paying your mortgage is really difficult.  It’s so distracting having all this stuff going on in the background – distracting in a good way, but distracting nonetheless.

Two, lack of spare time!  As we are all working full time, I find that any spare time I personally have is spent on moving things along. So that’s lunch hours, evenings, weekends etc.  That’s not to say that we don’t have any spare time, of course we do, however I am getting into the mindset that the spare time I have could be spent better by doing Adarakion stuff, rather than playing the latest games.  That is easily the biggest turnaround for me personally.  Previously any spare time I had was spent playing games, and now it’s making them!  Not that I am complaining… Far from it!  I guess what is evident from the past 12 months or so is that I have experienced a total mindset change, which I wouldn’t have thought possible given my gaming addictions!

I think I’ll wrap it up there – people to do places to see… No. Hold on… that’s not right – I look forward to seeing some of you guys at the Expo on Saturday, so, until then… farewell!