Lurking at Luma

Dear reader, lo and behold! I have once again surfaced from my never-ending pile of work to present you with another instalment of what some call the Chronicles, others the Rodblog and the remainder A Bloody Waste Of Time If You Ask Me (or at least, that would be the case if I hadn't already shot them all).

I'm still adventuring in a very geek-heavy environment and loving it to bits, despite the fact that I'm regularly settling for about four hours of sleep a night and fuelling my days with enough Mountain Dew to drown a fish (and you know that's intense because it's a fish). It's a labour of love, though: through a mixture of writing and game development, I'm simultaneously honouring both of my major career choices in one fell swoop of work and sleep-deprivation. I'm also going on some rather interesting field trips as a result.

Last Friday, I paid a visit to Luma, a design company in Johannesburg which just happens to make games as well. Their game development studio – known as Luma Arcade – has already been making waves in the local dev community with a few nice racing titles and mobile games. Now, however, they're kicking it up a notch and starting on development for the iPhone. Unfortunately, there's not terribly much that I can say about it because they're locked up in a non-disclosure agreement thing (they call it an NDA in fancy-speak) and they'll cut off my sensitive bits if I violate that, but it should suffice to say: “Yay!”

Fortunately, the Big Boy burger kid wasn't part of the NDA. So here he is. Yay!

Without divulging too much, I'm really excited about what Luma's getting up to now. Their first few games were okay: they covered new ground and paved the way well for the South African dev community, but they weren't breaking any barriers with regards to game creation as a whole. Now that I'm seeing some awesome concepts and a real one-up on their previous projects, I'm kinda keen to pump images, interviews and reviews of these guys into every possible media outlet at my disposal. Because I'm a Level 90 Journalist, at least on the odd occasions when I somehow manage to do things right.

The head honcho at Luma decided to make his face a part of the NDA at the last minute. He said it was because he looked silly. Tsk tsk.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say. Mostly going to save the juicy details for people who will, you know, actually pay me to scribble them out. And I'm waiting on permission for some things anyway. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a little something I whipped up this morning. I call it Icebix:

Oh no, he's not ...

Oh he just DID!

The surprising conclusion: Weetbix in icecream tastes DELICIOUS! Patent pending.

Tide Media office romp (NAG / SACM)

Being a freelancer, I try to hunt down as many separate income streams as I can. One job which holds a special place in my heart however is my work for Tide Media, a gaming and technology group which gives us the dearly-beloved NAG magazine every month.

If you aren't a complete philistine, you may also know about NAG's slightly smaller sister, SACM. I throw a few articles at the latter on a regular basis, but in all the years that I've worked for this employer, I've only visited the stomping grounds once. Yesterday, I decided to up that count and nagged my Bat Cave buddies to take me to the office in Johannesburg.

What I have been dying to do for a very, very long time is have a bit of face-to-face shop talk with some of the staff at Tide Media – you know, the typical, angst-ridden speech and related malarkey of, “Do you like my work now? What direction would you like it to take? Am I a good little journo? Can I lick your shoes?”

Unfortunately, as expressive as I like to think I am in most circumstances, I tend to falter horribly whenever I try broaching this particular subject. Thus, after arriving at the office and giving a timid little wave to some of the faces that I actually recognised, I realised that sitting around feeling tongue-tied wasn't nearly as cool as ogling at a Call of Duty multiplayer session and chatting with Geoff “GeometriX” Burrows while he played the Dawn of War II beta.

Actually, this is a pic of Geoff with Left 4 Dead. But he does have a winning smile.

Of course, what few people seem to understand is that it's not always fun and games in the Tide Media office. Yes, as with many journalistic pursuits, there are times when you'll be sitting around with nothing to do but play videogames and kid around. But this line of work is fickle. At any moment, an endless swarm of tasks could scramble out of the woodwork and latch onto your face like a troupe of demented headcrabs, devouring all traces of joy, spare time and sleep. I've seen it happen in many organisations. It can get messy.

No, Geoffy, noooooooooooo!

Fortunately, I caught the team on a quiet day and I ended up having quite an enjoyable visit to the office, shop talk be damned. Heck, I even snagged a free copy of SACM just because I could. Life is good.

Of course, that wasn't the only stuff I got up to that day. Take this tasty little postscript, for example. While wandering about Melville that evening with a Joburg friend, I caught sight of this rather interesting place:

If you weren't reading this post already, I bet you're paying attention now.

Yes, adult shops aren't all that uncommon, especially in the bigger urban areas (I think I actually saw three separate Adult Worlds while cruising about that evening), but the green sign above it was what caught my interest.

If you don't believe me, go visit Melville. It's real. And it's hilarious. Check out the full-size image if you want.

Mayhem LAN at Johannesburg

My visit to Gauteng wouldn't be complete without a 24-hour session of sweating, swearing and gaming in a great big hall full of people who are very nearly as socially maladjusted as I am. At this month's Mayhem LAN, tempers flared, people overdosed on caffeine and the LAN hall smelled just the way you'd expect a room full of dirty gamer things.

Of course, I'm still forced to admit that this is possibly the best such LAN I've ever been to ever ever. Mayhem has been going for a while already, growing from a handful of enthusiasts to a major gaming event supporting a total of 220 merry networking individuals.

Welcome to gamer heaven. Bring deodorant and Red Bull.

What really makes this LAN special, however, is the personality of those involved. Most major gaming events are lamentable examples of how spoilt, annoying or downright dull enthusiasts can be – little more than a bunch of raging DotA and CS players who have no sense of variety, fair play or common sportsmanship.

Instead of this grim scenario, I was presented with a group of pleasant and interesting individuals who exposed me to a variety of new games and whined a full 90 percent less than usual. We even took out the time to sit outside, have a few drinks and braai between gaming sessions – not the experience that I was expecting, but it was a welcome change.

I dressed appropriately, adorning myself with stamps, stickers and even a neat little F1 key earring that I'd received the day before. Amidst the LAN madness, I struck a few handsome poses to showcase this.

Winning formula: black and white photo, faraway look, awkward posture and six pages of emo poetry.

Eventual go-to-sleep time was about 5am, after returning from Mayhem to discuss cool Invader Zim quotes and laugh about Ninja Gaiden.