Davecheesefish

(It hasn't been working for a little while, but I just got around to making a journal entry about it )

BulletShop, my popular tool to create images out of dA's bullet emoticons for use in journals and custom userpage modules will no longer be updated. Due to a change on deviantART a few weeks ago there's a new limit on the number of emoticons you can post in one go, which means the code produced by BulletShop no longer works and can't be made to work. BulletShop Online will remain available as a tech demo on my website for now, but anything produced with it won't be usable on dA.

I completely understand why they needed to put this limit in place so there are no hard feelings about it breaking.

By the end of its life, BulletShop Online was receiving over 1000 visits a month (a lot more than my dA userpage!). A big thanks to everyone who used and enjoyed it - I never imagined it would be so popular!

Now, what can I build next...?

Hi all It really has been a while since I did anything even mildly noticeable here. I haven't abandoned dA, quite the opposite - I really want to come back!

Since I last posted, I've done a couple of freelance programming jobs, got a more permanent job, moved into a place of my own and... haven't had the internet at home for about 2 and a half months now. I'm firing off emails and making various phone calls to companies but don't seem to be getting very far on that front. Hopefully it'll all be sorted soon - right now I'm on a 3G mobile broadband connection which is costing me an arm and a leg (and some teeth... and a few toes) so this entry had better be short

Not having the internet is pretty ironic considering my new job is as a web developer for IndieCity (IndieCity's similar in a way to dA... but for games! ). We've got some pretty exciting stuff in the pipeline, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm allowed to say so it's probably best if I just keep quiet. If you have any questions or want to hang out with indie games developers and fans, feel free to join our IRC chat (most of the IndieCity staff are in that room too during UK office hours) or check out the website.

Still, this internet downtime is giving me a chance to play all those games I bought but never completed! I've managed to squeeze another 1500 Xbox Gamerpoints out of my old games so far

Here's hoping I can convince the internet company I'm not going to try and pay them in used milk bottle tops and play-doh so I can replenish my stock of amusing cat pictures soon.

Nothing happened here. Nooope, nothing at all. Me? Of course it wasn't me

Go about your normal business

Hello deviantART! Sorry I've been neglecting you for a while, but I've been a little busy!

First off, last month was my turn at Indie Kombat, a month-long indie game development battle against Alec Stamos of Ultimate-Nerds.com. The public vote for the winner is still going on, so feel free to go to IndieKombat.com, download both mine and Alec's games and vote for who you think did best! I don't want to sway your vote but my game, About Turn, is obviously the best! If you want to read up on the event, there's more detail here and here, and you can track the ongoing progress of About Turn on Indie DB or Mod DB.

This week is the Game Prototype Challenge v2 but with 4 days to go, I still haven't come up with an idea for anything to make that fits the rules. As if that wasn't enough, there's Ludum Dare 19 (a 48-hour game development contest) this coming weekend too! Plus I really want to make something for the Imagine Cup this time as 2011 is the last year I'm eligible to enter it.

Oh, and I'm still trying to find a job. There's one around here somewhere.

I haven't updated my journal in 3 months!

I've finished my dissertation project, left uni, moved house, taken part in Ludum Dare 18 (where I made new game PIXELSPACE) and now I'm getting ready for graduation in 2 weeks' time

I haven't really had much inspiration to make any new artwork recently, but I don't want to let my dA account sit unloved and empty. I might try and start filling that 300 Theme Challenge folder I made ages ago in my gallery but left empty...

Right now, I'm mainly trying to get into making more games for a programming portfolio so I can hopefully get a job sometime when I'm 80 and there are actually some jobs going in the games industry Got a possible lead on a placement, so we'll see how that goes