Hull FC - Challenge Cup winners!!!!!!

I've just watched one of the most thrilling games of rugby league I've ever seen. Hull beat Leeds by 25 points to 24 with a last minute try and conversion. Brilliant stuff considering Hull were the underdogs.

I've not had much opportunity to watch the team for the last few seasons, but watching it on the TV this afternoon was almost as thrilling as being there.

Well done to all the team and the coaching staff!

INceSIGHT Press Release

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/press_release.php?aid=11100

INceSIGHT – Writing and Design Solutions for the Games Industry

YORK, UK (August 26, 2005)
Steve Ince – freelance Writer and Game Designer – today announced the launch of his new company, INceSIGHT, through which he will continue to offer his considerable skills and experience to those developers and publishers in need of a proven professional in the fields of writing and game design.

“I felt it was important,” says Ince, “to create a clear identity that helps to separate my writing and design services from my game development projects. It is important to me that my valued clients see that they will continue to receive the care and attention they have become accustomed to, no matter what level of service they require.”

A twelve-year industry veteran, Ince’s dedication to the cause of providing quality games bore fruit with his nomination for Excellence in Writing at last year’s Game Developers Choice Awards. This followed on from the three nominations that Broken Sword – The Sleeping Dragon received at this year’s BAFTA ceremony for Best Design, Best PC Game and Best Adventure.

The last year has seen Ince working on a great variety of titles, utilising his skills on games as diverse as high profile next generation projects and fun children’s titles.

Steve Ince will be attending the Games Market Europe event on the 31st August and the 1st September, should anyone wish to take advantage of this and arrange a meeting.

Additional details of the services INceSIGHT provides and a breakdown of past projects and experience can be found at www.incesight.co.uk

INceSIGHT can be contacted on info@incesight.co.uk

Bonjour

The French gaming site, Le Sanctuaire de l'Aventure has just published an interview with me.

http://www.sanctuaire-aventure.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=540

(Blogger is being weird, so I've had to put in the whole URL.) There is also a link on the page to the original interview in English.

Games Market Europe

I have decided to attend the Games Market Europe event that's being held next week in London. I'm hoping that it will be a good event, but after all the great things I heard about the Leipzig GC I'm sure it will pale in comparison.

I hope it's a good show and that the organisers can build on it. It would be a real shame if it flopped and we ended up with no London show at all. The organisers should also consider the closeness to other events like the Leipzig and Edingburgh shows.

If there are any other attendees who fancy a meet-up at some point, let me know and we'll arrange something. I'll be down in London from Tuesday evening to Thursday.

Character Competition

The Character Competition is now closed for entries.

Competition deadline

Just a last minute reminder that competition entries must be submitted before midnight tonight.

Broken Sword 4

Adventure Gamers are currently running a news item on the announcement that there is to be a fourth installment to the Broken Sword series of games.

"In an announcement sure to thrill the many Broken Sword fans, THQ and Revolution Software revealed today that a fourth game in the highly acclaimed series is scheduled for release on PC in summer 2006."

After having worked on the Broken Sword series for the best part of eleven years, on and off, it seems more than a little strange not to be involved with the latest episode. It will be interesting to see if I can be objective about the game when I finally see it next year. :)

Design a Character Competition - One Week Left!

Just a reminder that if you wish to enter the competition to design one of the characters that will appear in the game, Juniper Crescent - The Sapphire Claw, you only have one more week to get your entries submitted. For further details on the competition rules and how to enter, please go to the Juniper Games site.

Interviewed again

The Polish gaming site, Gry.o2.pl, has just published an interview with me on their site. It is available in both Polish and English (in the side bar).

You wait ages for a bus...

...then two come along together.

I've been thinking about recent adventure games. Though some of them have high production values and excellent stories, I keep reading complaints about the standard of the puzzles. Could it be that, as so many of the recent adventures have leant towards a more "real-world" setting, it's becoming increasingly difficult to create puzzles that fit within the game's world?

Back when we were all playing Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island, a designer could virtually create any kind of puzzle and wouldn't be too worried about justifying its existence. In a wacky world there was a greater scope for a wide variety of puzzles. Even in the Broken Sword games, because they were humorous, it was perfectly acceptable to put in a convoluted puzzle that ended with a dog being dumped into the dock. Yet it's clear that a puzzle of this nature wouldn't fit in Still Life or Fahrenheit.

In order, therefore, to save the adventure genre, we need to revert back to the humorous and wacky games that were previously the mainstay of the genre. Perhaps we should start up the Campain for Actual Frivolous Fun in Exciting Interactive Narrative Entertainment.

:)

Blowing off the dust

My, but it seems ages since I posted anything on the old blog, so I thought I should dust things off and put some words down before people stop bothering to drop by.

It's been a busy few weeks as I've been fitting writing projects around each other as well as tying to keep on top of my own projects. Time seems to fly so quickly when impending deadlines rear their heads.

I've been doing a week's worth of script editing, which is always a fun thing to do as I get my head around the style of the project and work through the dialogue. I'm unable to say what the title is, but I'm sure that I'll mention it when I can.

The progress of Sapphire Claw is extremely slow, with publishers being cautious. Discussions have a habit of taking their time, so I'm using the time to play around with some other ideas. Although I considered progressing the work on SC in my spare time, I thought it best that I wait until a deal was forthcoming in case there were issues with the current design.

In order to separate my writing services from the development, I've created a new "label" that I'll be operating under from now on - INceSIGHT. My business advisor suggested that it would make me look more professional. He originally suggested the name, Ince Perfect (inch perfect, geddit?), but my feeling is that when you use a word like that in your businees name you're tempting fate more than a little. :)

I've started writing a column for a Chinese development magazine which launches very soon. Based on the Developing Thoughts column, I'm expanding and revising some of the existing topics and building from there.

A couple of weeks ago I played and finished Another Code - Two Memories on the Nintendo DS. It's biggest strength was the way it used the touch-sensitive screen to give plenty of variety to the interface. Some of the puzzles were very basic and simple, but it bodes well for the future if more developers can create games for the platform. It was a little on the short side, for this type of game, and the story was a little simplistic. Though having said that, I found myself being drawn into the story and found the main character to be very empathic. The weakest part of the whole game was the premise, that she'd been told her father had died when she was a child and then he's suddenly not dead. It just seems an unnecessarily cruel thing to do to a child. Still, I hope there are more titles of this nature coming out soon.