During my time at Rare I believe I’ve called six seperate offices my own, and am on the verge of claiming a seventh. During the development cycle, teams will grow and grow until the point of completition and then rapidly shrink as other projects plunder the resources that all of a sudden have a distinctly lighter workload post-launch. The Viva Pinata team are in that phase now, having launched before the Christmas rush we’re now of a size where we can consolidate ourselves in the top layer of one of our barns. On the up-side, I now get a penthouse view. On the downside, I have an awful lot of stuff.

When I was moving house twelve months ago, I made the mistake of bringing all my retro consoles and games into work to keep them safe during the transition. Since then they have made themselves very comfortable under my desk, embedding themselves to the point where I simply looked at them as part of the furniture rather than something I should return home.

What makes this scenario worse is that I’m now going to be sharing an office with our Team Lead, Rashberry. If there was anyone on our team who could rival them amount of bits and pieces I possess it is Rashberry. His collection tastefully takes in not only the usual gaming related paraphanallia but also a large selection of Lego Technic and Lego Train. Quite how how we are to compress all our belongings into a single office is not entirely obvious, although the thought of blending my assorted Halo tat with Lego does bring a smile to my face.

Wish me luck, I’m off to get a trolley.

The only background you need to know for this is that a while ago we had a minor rodent problem (we are in the middle of the countryside), our old tester loved his beef based drinks and that we create builds every week for our designers to make sure everything is working fine and dandy.

From: James Thomas (RARE)
Sent: 01 April 2008 08:10
Subject: Build delayed

Hello,

It appears that the mice are back and that the residual smell of Bovril from former team favourite Mr David Wong has caused them much excitement around the build machine. Whilst munching on the crumbs on the floor they’ve also taken a chunk out of a few wires including the power cable and so we have a char-grilled critter to deal with, as well as the need for new cabling. Maintenance have been informed and should be collecting the body shortly (I didn’t think anyone would want it in their bin).

Anyway, the upshot of this is that the build for the week has been delayed. This does not mean that you should frantically commit back anything you have tweaked since last night, the situation still remains the same and consider everything locked down for the time being.

As soon as everything is back to normal down here I’ll let you know.

Many thanks,

James

And, yes, some people did actually go for it.

 Were you caught out by anything today?

Team building exercises are great. Whether you’re trying to shoot your workmates in the face with a paintball or ram them off the road in a kart, they really help bond a group.

Yesterday we had quite an unexpected one in the form of a flash mob as just after lunch our Sound Engineer summoned us to the recording studio because he needed a batch of crowd noises and we were just the rabble to help him out. Cue fifteen minutes or clapping, ohs, ahs and the odd inoffensive yell (we do try for E ratings, after all).

The rounds of applause caused him most grief and took about four takes as everyone tried to get the last clap in to claim the glory. Each one was more drawn out than an Oscar winning death scene.

Anyway, it’s great to see what a quarter of an hour of impromptu silliness can do for team morale. Next week we’re hoping someone needs mocap.

A day late, but still here none the less, I present to you the battle log of the Humpday (also linked to in Articles on the side bar); a round up of all the slaying that occurred in the internet pipes linking Twycross to Redmond that is so big and juicy it deserved its own page.

 Edit: Bungie have also posted their own write up. Whilst they may have shown little enthusiasm for our final game, I do quite like the second paragraph in Game 2.

I’ve finally managed to find some pictures of the Freeplay Lounge.

 These were taken by one of the MS chaps that were down there helping us, but as promised…

There goes our E rating.

Usually in the Bluu Bar in Nottingham on a Thursday night you will find Burlesque dancers; a troupe of provocatively dressed women there to entertain the businessmen of Robin Hood’s native city. So imagine the disappointment of the regulars when they rolled up and found their bar full of geeks playing video games. Not quite as titillating.

It was an interesting juxtaposition, as people played Viva Pinata beneath an illuminated poster of a woman’s slapped backside, but Microsoft and Rare had truly invaded Bluu Bar’s basement this week and had turned it into a gaming paradise dubbed Freeplay Lounge, part of GameCity 2007.

The aim of the evening was to create a relaxed atmosphere where all attending could circulate, try different things and generally talk about their shared love of the industry – whether that be trying to break in or trying to break out. A bit of shameless self promotion doesn’t go amiss, either.

Open to anyone attending GameCity, we had students, delegates, organisers and press drop by to see what was going on. A free bar helped attract in the sceptical and the addition of the Frag Dolls sealed the deal for a few.

It seemed that an army of students had descended, some from far a field as Wales, and it was interesting chatting to them all about the different course on offer and answering any questions they had when it came to actually working in the industry.

360 kiosks were littered throughout the bar, showing off MGS’s titles and allowing us to run a few competitions throughout the evening. Time trials on Forza 2 and a high score Kameo battle were appreciated but the highlights were the Perfect Dark Zero and Halo multiplayer tournaments. The latter, especially, caused whoops and hollers from the crowd as the evening built up to a tense one-on-one decided as to who took home a limited edition Xbox.

For the first event of its kind that we’ve put on, I think it went well; it was very well attended and the atmosphere was good throughout. The one negative is that considering we were there to be talked to, there was no way of distinguishing the Rare staff from any of the other attendees but this is a minor point and something we can address next year when we hopefully return to abuse the promotional account once more.

I was going to write about Ali’s first go at Halo but that has been postponed as Gamasutra have finally published the interview that Justin and I did at Comic Con a couple of months back. Here it is, complete with a lewd typo that I promise I never said.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. Combine this with my “mention” on 1UP and I believe I’ll be in full control of the gaming media by next June.

In bringing Lionhead back to our own patch we were confident about how things would go. We thought that pulling them out to the sticks and putting them on a pitch that could hardly be described as flat might swing the advantage in our favour, but things don’t always go to plan.

In fact, it was pretty much an exact copy of the last outing. Once again, we had two teams and they had two teams and from the four matches that ensued our results looked a bit like this: P4 W1 D1 L2. Identical to the last meeting between the studios, just with a few more goals to each side.

Up until the last game, though, it was all going well. For my team, at least.

I watched as our B-team lost 3-1 to their A-team in the first match. However, despite the scoreline our Bs were unlucky and if they had converted any of the numerous chances they squandered or hit the woodwork with it may have been a different story.

After that we were facing their B-team and as per usual we started badly. Bad even by our standards as we were 2-0 down within three minutes. To say we were shell-shocked was an understatement as they nipped in between us both times to score. Luckily we pulled one back before half-time and a spectacular, looping, Matty Taylor-effortfrom our centre-back sealed a draw.

No rest for the wicked, though, and we were straight back on to face their A-team. This time we took an early lead before being pinned back to go into the break 1-1. Then, in the second half, George took matters into his own hands and completed a hat-trick with some lovely finishing and some very nice pass-and-move play from the team which saw us through 4-1 winners.

So after three games it was a win and a draw each. Here it began to slide very rapidly down hill.

At half-time in the final game our B-team were trailing 1-0 to theirs, but our goalkeeper had taken a knock to his hand and was doubtful for the final half. In hindsight, I somewhat foolishly agreed to take over and what followed was a defensive shambles that left me livid.

It may be ok to push on to try and get an equaliser but when I am left to deal with one-on-one after one-on-one it can try the patience of even the most saintly keeper. I may not have had the best of games last night but I don’t think the the final, embarassing 5-1 scoreline can be laid at my feet considering the circumstances.

With this in mind, one of the big positives to come from last night was the fact that this time Lionhead didn’t bring their film crew with them so we can’t be edited to look even worse than we were. Although I don’t think that would have been possible with the last game.

To leave on a high note, there is talk of trying to put together a Microsoft wide football tournament for us to show our “skills” off at. The best thing about it, though, is the location where it might be… it may be under a large arch somewhere.

Oh, it’s on! Lionhead are currently heading up the M1 in our general direction for a rematch. More later.

Pre-match buildup

It was all a bit manic on Saturday; I had the task of getting from the capital of Scotland down to the middle of the Warwickshire countryside in roughly seven hours. Taking into account we had to swing by Ali’s parents to pick up our car, it was a mere 350 miles that we needed to cover. Easy.

The reason why I was attempting this madcap dash was all down to the fact that I was determined to make it back from the Edinburgh festival in time for the final of Rare’s annual football tournament, taking place at our summer fete. Whilst I was away the Viva Pinata team had successfully beaten Maintenance 3-2 (stylishly coming back from 2-0 down) to book our place in the final against Rare Rovers (mainly old PDZ members) and I had promised them I’d be there.

Things didn’t start out too well as our initial train was cancelled. Pre-breakfast time that’s not good news and we had to wait another hour before boarding one heading for the Midlands. Throw in a few delays around Derby and we were able to add on another unwanted half-hour to our schedule.

By the time I arrived in Birmingham at 2.15, a mere hour-and-a-quarter before kick-off, I was oh-so slightly stressed and being verbally abused by a local tramp as I hunted down a taxi didn’t help, either.

The plan had been to get another train back to the car but with time against me I decided that paying for a taxi to get us back on schedule would be worth it. Of course, I didn’t bargain on the taxi driver having to break the journey up for a petrol stop half-way: at this point, as the rain beat down outside the cab’s windows, I melodramatically thought the whole world was set against me.

Finally, reunited with my trusty Fiesta, destiny was now more in my hands as I drove up the motorway. The heavy rain was slowing the traffic down but as Spurs scored three times in fifteen minutes on the radio I knew things were looking good. As if to prove this, we rolled up the drive to work with a full six minutes to spare.

Match of the Day

After such a crazy and drawn-out adventure I was running slightly high on adrenalin and needed to calm down to focus on the game in hand. Focus was needed, too, as Rovers kept both me and my defence busy for most of the first half. We were lucky to keep a clean sheet and during a period of respite we pushed up the left, El Robinho’s blocked shot span out to the right and DP’s composed finish into the opposite corner gave us a narrow advantage going into the break.

The second half began with a mass scramble where we almost made it 2-0 but they survived and began pressing forward with menace. Again we held out due to our combined efforts but as more Rovers were committed forward we finally cracked as a square ball across the box left us exposed at the far post and tucked in the equaliser.

I’m told, by those who watched on, the rest of the match wasn’t the most scintillating of affairs; normal time finished 1-1, as did extra time, with chances falling to both teams but with no-one able to find the back of the net. So once more we were to decide the trophy on a penalty shoot-out.

Penalty shoot-outs are not great when described in meandering text so I’ll cut it short: I saved one low down to my left and another was blazed over the bar to give us a 4-2 victory. Eikzilla, who could never be described as a regularly player, slotted our winning penalty home with such aplomb that you’d have thought he’d been playing all his life - it my exuberant taxi fare completely worth it.

By this point, shaking hands in commiseration with the opposition and posing for team photos, I was absolutely drained and felt it was almost midnight despite being only half-four in the afternoon. We celebrated with beer in a marquee away from the rain and, after my roller-coaster day, it hit the spot perfectly.