Bytten

I often journey through the internet throughout the week looking at various Developer's blogs, browsing through Indie Developer Watering Holes (Gamedev.net, etc.), and performing occasional keyword searches hunting for various games that sound interesting. Over the years I've followed projects that catch my interest and imagination. Some of these projects are developed over the course of a year. Many of these projects end up indefinitely postponed or dropped entirely. **SIGH**

This can be a source of frustration as both a game reviewer and as a self-professed Gamer. Once I've surrendered a bit of my imagination to a project in development, it can feel like I've had a chair pulled out from underneath me. OK, perhaps too sentimental, but it is a real BUMMER to know of a neat-looking project that will never see the light of day.

This is where the Independent Developer Matt Griffiths of Bird in Sky (BIS) comes in. I had stumbled upon BIS well over a year ago and learned of their game, 3030 Deathwar, and waited patiently for what seemed next to forever waiting for this game. A few months ago the game was released and I purchased the game and have since had a Grand Time playing in the world BIS created. All of my thoughts while waiting for the game of "What the *%^&@*# is taking so long?!" vanished. But not for too long.

You see, Matt Griffiths included in the game fragments of the Developer's Diary (Illustrated, by the way), which answered the burning question of "What the *%^&@*# is taking so long!?" I thought, "Hey, this fella is being humble. What if other gamers ask the same questions I do?" As well, there are hardcore gamers that just want to play, and some of those gamers are likely hoping one day to be developing games themselves (some with rose colored glasses).

1. Hi Matt. Let's start off by telling the readers a bit about you, your background, favorite programming language, and Bird in Sky.

Hi and thanks for allowing me to tell our tale. I've always loved games, ever since trying to complete Manic Miner at an early age, dying repeatedly and eventually crying. I loved the universe you could play in. I suppose you can say it's a bit like being an author. You weave a universe around your game and you want to live in it yourself. This is called "escapism" by psychologists. I call it fun.

I met up with Mic Newsam (my partner in Bird in Sky) at secondary school. We had nothing in common but Frontier: First Encounters (the third in the Elite series). Over time we found we had lots in common and we've been best friends for well over 15 years. We skipped lectures at university together and spent our time thinking of game ideas between loan cheques. We then wrote Megaball as a third year project (which appears in Deathwar) and decided to make a full go of it and develop games to sell.