Life,
So I applied to university. This whole thing has been a big emotional rollercoaster!
I was very methodical in my searches – I started at the UCAS website and copied down the list of every university with courses relating to game design. There were 43 of them, only 3 of which are in Scotland, 2 in Wales and 38 in England alone!
I then checked every university website – some of them didn’t have courses on game design (or atleast not ones easy to find!). I then ordered prospectuses for most of them (I’m feeling very guilty at the waste of paper now) and as they arrived I read them all. I filtered my choices by, firstly, courses I was interested in, then location (near myself or Falling), then by entry requirements – this is where the requirement of a portfolio meant alot of them were discarded.
I was left with about 5 or 6, mostly near York where Falling will be doing her Masters. We discussed it, but she will only be there for another year and the more I looked into it the more it didn’t seem right for me.
I had almost completely resigned myself to studying a HND or something instead when I stumbled across a course in London. The course sounds perfect and I beleive I meet all the entry requirements. So finally, i’ve applied to university. Now the agonising wait for an offer or an interview begins.
The Universe,
I’ve been playing around in Eve Online again. I’m still relatively poor since I bought my mining barge, the Procurer, but I’ve trained up the anchoring skill and now i’m mining asteroid belts in 0.7 space, filling secure containers that i’ve anchored nearby and periodically hauling everything back to a nearby station for selling. It’s slow going because i’m doing it alone, but atleast my profits are my own. I’ll think about joining a corporation once I own a few larger ships.
The lastest talk in the Eve developer forums is about allowing ‘capsuleers’ to walk around stations while docked. This would be an interesting new feature as up until now you always meet people ‘in person’ through your encounters in open space. I just hope that this is a minor addition and doesn’t change the whole feel of the game.
and Everything…
I’ve finally got my kilt organised for my sister’s wedding this month. My brother and I will be wearing the Modern Douglas tartan with Prince Charlie jacket etc. Unfortunately I had to settle for a tartan that I like the look of as it wasn’t possible to find a tartan, or indeed even hire one, that would mean something to my family. It’s a blue/green tartan similar to the Black Watch tartan but with white lines.
My only remaining worry is that it will fit! I’m a very slim person despite the junk food I eat, so I was given the smallest adult size when I went for fitting. The ‘dress rehearsal’ is on the 23rd so I’ve been stuffing my face to make sure I’m not going to be any smaller!lol
I’ll leave you with another game-related article. An email from HMV today advertised the release of a PS2 (and PSP) game – Sega Mega Drive Collection – and guess what? My eternal favourite Gain Ground is included!! I’ll need to check if this is much different from the Master System version that I still have and love, but it would be good to play this again. There’s a whole load of other titles on there that I recognise, like Alex Kidd and Echo the Dolphin, as well as interviews with the creators and ‘making of’ sections too. It’s looking good!
