Posts Tagged ‘anicom’

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So What’s Up?

June 10, 2010

Nothing’s up, really. I managed to get all my work handed in for my degree’s final year, so here’s hoping that I pass university (and don’t walk away with nothing, or even better, a HND worth £20,000 and three years of my life). I should be fine, though, as long as I can settle into a routine where I actually have to be a productive member of society. Find a shitty job, beg companies for gaming work, etc. Should be… nah, I’m not even kid that it’s going to be fun. Probably tough, but I’ll look back when I’m a successful developer (har har) and realise that it was worth the effort. I need to clean up all my final year projects, update my portfolio and CV, blog more, and start applying / networking as much as possible.

As a celebration for handing everything in a few weeks ago, me and Morti took a group of ‘special ed’ kids (affectionately known as Anicom) down south for the weekend for the MCM London Expo, and it actually went pretty well. It’s a success if nobody gets fatally wounded, in my book. I spend the weekend getting drunk, laughing at hilariously bad cosplay, and gaming – At DDR:UK‘s stall on Saturday, and at Funland in the Trocadero on Sunday. Boy, the latter place is big, and I wouldn’t mind going back there again the next time I head to the capital. The convention itself was okay, but maybe a little too big for my tastes. I definitely preferred Auchinawa and Kitacon because they feel so small and cosy, and it would be great it we can get some small groups going to other conventions over the coming year.

Wow, James has a lot in his pockets.
Haum, I seem to be going a little hyperlink crazy, but never mind. As for Anicom in general this year… *sigh*. It’s a shame it ended up like this, I was hoping we could have a good year. Several things went wrong – I fucked up the shows at the beginning, we got bad opinions from some of our advertising materials, and I ended up pretty much on my own after Christmas running the society, with the other two dealing with personal issues / work / no motivation to help the society at all. Hopefully an all-new committee should be able to sort things next year (Mole, Mizzy and Alex) and restore Anicom to it’s former glory like it was in my first year. I’ll be sticking around to help the new committee out wherever I can (although does Mole really need help? Probably not.), and no doubt I’ll be lurking around in Middlesbrough until the end of time itself.

Oh and a final note: Other people seem to be writing blogs too, so go and say hi to Allan, Dave, Kai and Emily for me :3

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Projects Galore

October 25, 2009

Anicom’s going swimmingly. Plenty of memberships, a good choice of shows (although all Eastern, so we might have to work something out), and we have our Halloween party and another chiptune night hosted by Phil this week. Awesome stuff.

The final year modules seem to have settled in, working on a few things at the moment. Most of my concentration is going to the Games Development module, working with Allan to develop a 2D adventure game engine in XNA by Christmas. The creative guys are bringing some initial assets together well for our presentation in just over a week’s time, so I hope we’ll have something to show from the programming side. The other independent module that I can start working on now is Practical Project, and I’m still not sure what to do for it. Something graphics-wise probably, because I’m not doing any 3D modules and I’d like to learn Direct3D – Tyrone’s my project supervisor, so he’s helping me decided a project. I shoudl e-mail him about it, actually.

Having to learn Java in the Multiplayer Game Development module isn’t too bad, although the course tutoring seems a little rushed from Jean-Luc. For anyone on the module, I’d suggest picking up Core Java Vol. 1 – it’s on the Safari Books website if you’re a student, and it’s helping me tremendously. Games AI is going alright, although I need to read more LISP reference material to understand the syntax. I also need to do more GP2X research.

So… yeah. Busy. But I’m enjoying it, and that’s what counts.

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Final Year. Whee.

October 12, 2009

So here I am, back for my final year studying Computer Games Programming at Teesside University (not University of Teesside), and I’m glad that the summer’s over so I can get back into the swing of things. And although the work should be a lot harder this year, seeing as it’s quite independent, I’m looking forward to the modules I’ve chosen. I’ll be working with the GP2X systems (and maybe the PSP), learning a little Java and networking, AI, and some physics if I keep tagging along to the lectures. My independent projects for this year consist of a 2D adventure game, looking at LOD using DirectX, and on the side, I wanna try and code the card game Fluxx into a DS homebrew application – I think trying to implement all the rules would be pretty fun logic coding.

I’m looking forward to this year because I’m part of Anicom’s committee along with Bob and Morti. And it’s not just about the animu (although I’ve been running around frantically trying to get the show selection sorted the past two weeks) – It’s about making sure the first-years have fun, be social, and make friends. Most people are usually on games courses, meaning that sometimes they can’t be the most social people… so we try and help them along by introducing them to people with similar interests. And the more involved they get with the society, the greater the chance they’ll make more friends – yes, that means you, the fresher reading this. Join in and stuff. You won’t regret it.

The first few weeks of Anicom have gone surprisingly better than last year’s… well, disaster. We drew in plenty of people at during the stall, filled OL7 on the night, and ran a great games day on the Friday. Phil provided a great chiptune night in the second week, and the second session was just as popular as the first. So… yeah. Things are going very well, and I hope it stays this way.

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Auchinawa 2008… Jolly Good, Chaps.

November 22, 2008

Last weekend, I went up to Auchinawa, an anime convention in Glasgow. I’ve never been to an anime convention before, and the reasons are probably obvious – I don’t think it’d be fun to stay in a hotel for a weekend while being surrounded by flailing crazies ranting on about how Natuto is better than Dragonball Z, and so forth. Myself, I certainly do like anime, and treat it as an equal to any other form of visual media, but I’m not an obsessive otaku. So when Anicom decided they were going to go to the convention earlier in the year and I put my name down, I didn’t really know what to expect, or whether I was going to enjoy myself.

Turns out that I had a fantastic time over the three days. I was right about the whole crazed otaku thing, but it wasn’t really that bad. Nobody tried to stab anyone with a cardboard weapon or pretended they had super powers, so any disasters were averted. Most of my time was just spent socialising with the Anicom lot, or slowly melting on the DDR machine (Damn you, DDR:UK!), but the events were kinda fun. Here’s a few highlights that you won’t get unless you were there with us:

  • Elevators and alcohol bring out Rob’s bad side… apologies to the Canadian cosplayer.
  • Bunnies are bad. Very, very bad.
  • We’re very susceptible to advertising, and the Glasgow Airport area is now Pimms-free. Bolly good.
  • PBC is the society’s ‘drunken uncle’ when it comes to dancing.
  • Pictochat is sadistically hilarious at times when you’re in a room full of retards.

So, yeah, good times. Made a few new friends, did some animu-related things, and had a good time overall. But compared to everyone else attending, our society sucks when it comes to liking anime. Oh well, at least we know our drinks.

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