Thank god that’s over!

A decision has been made to make Beatnik Games website the core development blog with Plain Sight specific news also posted onto the Plain Sight website.

This means that if you want the latest news, head over to beatnikgames.co.uk

Also, we’ve (once again) switched forums. As much as we loved vBulliten it didn’t tie into any of our websites, which kinda sucked. The new system being used (Expression Engine) will allow us to fully integrate all our websites/members and forums.

In other news, we’ll be at the wonderful Eurogamer Expo at the end of this month. If you’re in Leeds or London and fancy having a bash on the latest build of Plain Sight (or just want to say ‘hi’) , please swing by!

The beauty about hobnobbing in Texas is their rather liberal gun laws. Providing a few others and myself the perfect opportunity to brush up our .37 magnum skills.

For me it was especially satisfying. Every time I squeezed off a round I thought of that smug robot sitting at my desk, drinking from my otter mug and – oh the horror – using my pen.

Anyway, I was pleased to discover that, even severely jetlagged on a Monday morning, I can still aim straight.
Is it dead? Of course it is. But Plain Sight robots love being dead… so it all turned out nicely.

Now I’m back, I’m going to be making some big changes to the Beatnik web network infrastructure – so expect some downtime over the next week or so.

While Robin is away at the GDC we bought ourselves a huge robot as a replacement for him, I hope he doesn't mind.

What an interesting week!

First things first. The Plain Sight gamma test - what's happened to it? Were we just making it all up ? Was it all a sham?

No, it really isn't -it's just a bit complicated...

Firstly, as you may have seen on the interwebs (Rock Paper Shotgun/ TIG Source/ Develop), Channel 4 are commissioning indies to make games for them.

We are one of the lucky few that are working on a 12 month contract for
C4 to make something 12000% awesome.

Frankly, it's the best gig in the world and we're all chuffed about it.

However, it has meant that work on Plain Sight has had to take a back seat.

At first we thought this would be ok. We honestly thought it was 99% done. But, on the run up to the Gamma, we had a nasty shock - it still needs a bit of work. Since we started work on the C4 contract 2 months ago PS development has slowed greatly. This, frankly, is unacceptable.

So, what are we going to do?

Firstly, we're building up the Plain Sight team so the project is running at full speed. As you may or may not know, Plain Sight is also hitting the consoles next year. This means that the quality bar for the PC version has been raised significantly. After all, who wants to splash out £10 on a PC game to find the console version is the same price and better? Although the console and PC versions will be quite different animals, we still want to keep our original fanbase happy. So, yeah, the wait is infuriating but it'll really be worth it in the end.

What's next? Well, we're having a closed beta to test out what we've got. I'll start a thread in the forums, just slap your name down and we'll get back to you asap.

All the hard work is done, we're now just adding stuff we think is awesome -- which is the real joy of game development.

Anyway, feel free to speak your brains on the forums !

Ok, this is where we stand. The gamma is now ready to go. There were some last minute bugs that needed fixing, but they’re now happily squished.

The problem is the timing, or the lack of it. If we did release the game today not only would it be rushed, but we also wouldn’t be able to provide any real support until Tuesday. This is because Lawrence is out of the office tomorrow and, in the UK, we have a bank holiday (meaning no one works on Monday).

Personally, I think it is prudent to learn from past mistakes. During the previous open beta, everything went up in flames whilst we watched hopelessly in the pub. This time we want to be there if anything happens to provide support and quick response patches. It’d also give us an extra day to test the release....

So, apologies for the continued delay – it’ll be worth the wait!


Have a great weekend!

Before the joy of the open beta starts, we decided to give the forums a re-jig.

Along with the Plain Sight forums that you’ve all grown so very fond of, there’s now a new Magical Mystery Forum. This is a wonderful place where you can rant away and see sneak previews of what we’re working on.

If you’re one of these people who rely on bookmarks, the URL has changed to forums.beatnikgames.co.uk

Enjoy!

Thank God that’s over!

http://www.beatnikgames.co.uk has had an art-gasm and is now happily tied into the rest of the Beatnik network. At the moment, pages are basically placeholders - real content will be added tomorrow. next week.

Also, I’ve moved the forums to http://www.plainsightgame.com/forums - this will fix the logging in issues.

UPDATE: due to a bug I've had to disable comments. Feel free to rant in the forums.

Hi Everyone,

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of work on the Plain Sight and Beatnik Games websites so there will be some downtime at some point. This might last from few hours to a day - it really depends on what goes wrong!

Don't worry - it'll be worth it !

UPDATE: Ok, basic work done... forums (and website comments) look ugly as sin! Will update tomorrow

You may have noticed a slight lull in our usual activity on the Beatnik blog... but fear not - we're still here, ferreting away in the background, striving night and day to make the most awesome improvements to Plain Sight and so much more...

Plain Sight... far too many things to tell you all - do I dare let slip that we are talking about a 2nd beta...
have I said too much... did they hear me..?!
Tell no one... especially you, Neatnit...

Anyway... we just thought we'd pop our head above the surface to say hi... before we venture back underground to our respective grindstones... much more to come. Stay close and prosper.

P.S.

As we toil on, do let us know what's going down in the outside world - what are you all playing at the moment?