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Sorry to suddenly do this without further lead-up, but NDA’s have meant that I’ve been unable to discuss it until today.

I’ve been offered a very lucrative job doing behavioural modelling for a government agency in the UK. I’m not at liberty to discuss all the details, but it’s an extremely interesting job, and of course the pay and conditions are very attractive.

Obviously this means that my current game (gratuitous Space Battles) will not get made, and I will have no time to support my existing games either. I’ll be making arrangements soon to discontinue the positech games website, as the company will effectively be wound up before I start work next week.

it will be strange wearing a suit and tie and going back into an office again, but the work I’ve been asked to do is so interesting, and so exciting that I’d frankly be a fool to turn it down in the current economic climate.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has bought my games over the years, and hope you have enjoyed reading this blog from time to time.

I’ll post more details on what I’ll be doing once I’ve spoken to HR and worked out what is and is not ok for me to make public.

Cheers everyone!

I like the reviews that concentrate on the serious/educational side of Democracy 2:

http://boomculture.blogspot.com/2009/03/serious-game-democracy-2.html

I’m sure some people have seen a picture of me with a klingon knife or a jem h’adar gun or my bow and arrows and think I’m some weapon obsessed maniac. This isn’t true.  It’s just con-incidence that I spent yesterday driving Chieftain tanks, self propelled guns and APCs. It was a Christmas present…

Here’s me checking out my new vehicle. It has worse mileage than my peugeot, but I suspect parking is easier, or at least more flexible.It was the most comfortable vehicle to drive, you actually have room to move your legs. Its also the the only one where you had to do gear changes as you drove.

This is me driving an APC. It was a total bitch to drive. The tank was way easier. I almost sent the thing tipping on one side during some particularly excitable cornering.

And here was my fave drive of the day. An abbot Self-propelled gun. It was much easier than the APC, and it actually shifted pretty fast. It’s weird driving something that has a big huge fuck off gun barrel clearly in your line of vision.

So tank driving is another thing I can now cross off my mental list of silly things I need to try.

Jack (my youngest cat) was in fine form today. I opened a bedroom window and he was looking out of it, then decided to leap out and grab the top of the open window with both paws. I don’t think he had planned ahead as he now dangled by both front paws from an open window with no easy escape route. Almost immediately he lost it and fell.

Thankfully he fell maybe 5 feet onto the conservatory roof. and he seemed fine, albeit slightly baffled. I’m sure it’s all in a days work for him. He should concentrate his energy on defending the kitchen from the black and white cat that comes in at night to eat his food (caught him twice). That cat can sniff food through TWO catflaps in an airlock-style setup, so he must be hungry.

Today I’ve tried the worringly slow-loading Empire:Total War demo, and started work on making those fiddly German language characters show up for a potential German-language copy of Democracy 2.

That’s the name of the new game, as officially announced here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/02/13/gratuitous-space-battles/

I’ll have lots more to say about it in the next month or two :D