Hello, my friends.  It’s been a fair old while since I wrote, and I’m sorry for that!

Things have moved very fast this year, it’s hard to believe so much has happened.  In the last few months I’ve been doing various things, in amongst the continued support for LONE SURVIVOR.  I guess I should start with that…

So first of all I’m really proud to announce that LONE SURVIVOR has been nominated fora Golden Joystick in the ‘Best Downloadable Game’ category!  This really is the greatest honour, something I never believed I might ever achieve.  Actually, this award is voted for by the public, so if you like you can head over to:

http://www.goldenjoystick.com/awards/best-downloadable

… and even though I probably don’t have any hope against some of the amazing games selected, your vote would definitely be appreciated! 🙂

… As well as this, the game has been selected to be exhibited in Fantastic Arcade, and I’ll be in Austin, Texas this month from the 19th-26th to meet some of my US / Canadian brethren, eat BBQ, and generally enjoy the Southern hospitality!

http://fantasticfest.com/news/entry/fantastic_arcade_official_game_selections_announced

If you’re going, let me know and we can meet up!  The show itself runs from the 20th-23rd.

I’ve also been getting the art cards finalised.  It’s taken quite a few print runs to get them right (including throwing away a whole batch which got cropped wrong.) Anyway, they arrived with me the day before I came on holiday (where I now am, in Spain.) I plan to get these out as soon as I return, and I’ll be sending a final email to all the supporters when I do, in case of any final address changes.

Besides that I’ve had to do a lot of business stuff, setting up Superflat Games as a Ltd. company etc, stuff I don’t really understand, which scares me a lot, but of course I have to do.

I’ve also been doing a fair bit of music. I’ve put some love back into my studio space and made it a much more pleasant place to work.  I made a couple of tunes for my good friend and idol, Jonatan ‘cactus’ Söderström, for his new game, Hotline Miami (also selected for Fantastic Arcade, so hopefully we finally get to meet), which seems to be blowing up right now, and I can tell you guys, from watching it develop, that it lives up to the hype in every way!

Been doing some 140bpm tunes under the North Base moniker too (which mainly consists of four other friends from Manchester, one of whom, Silver, was my drum’n’bass partner for about ten years) … some of which have been signed, others still in the works.  Really enjoying making music for the sake of making music again.

One I did a few months back with them, called Acid Flashback, has recently come out on Wheel & Deal records: http://www.beatport.com/release/ruffneck-acid-flashback/904623

And then there’s the games which aren’t LONE SURVIVOR.  Well, I’ve started about four different games now (none of which have names yet besides XO3D), and all are currently on hold while I work out what it is I really want to spend the next few years doing.  I just don’t see myself making shorter games, they always end up large in scope somehow.  So I want to be absolutely sure I’m making something I’m still going to enjoy in a couple of years!

I may choose to enter LS into IGF again this year, I guess I figure that it was only half finished last year, or at least the beginning was not in a good shape, so now it is final, I figured I’d give it one more shot?

Anyway, that about brings it up to date. Thanks once again for your support, and all the kind messages you’ve sent.  I really never expected it to reach so many people, and as I’m sure I’ve said before, I’m awed and humbled.