Is this going ahead? Are there any concrete plans?
I want to be involved somewhere - I'm a COBOL programmer professionally (mainframes) but I do a lot of homegrown 'dabbling' across lots of languages. I'm great at starting 'pet' projects, but not very good at finishing them. It's easy to leave stuff if the only driving force is your own free will - probably be a different story if there's a few of us working on something.
A 'potted' history of my computer exploits:
I've played games since the 1980's - first machine I ever got was a 'pong' variant made by Ingersol - it had a huge black light gun! Great fun shooting the white square target that bounced around the screen.
Christmas brought me a console 'cartridge' machine made by Hanimex - big improvement over the Ingersol - colour graphics that actually resembled real life objects. Wow!
The following Christmas brought a ZX Spectrum with 48K, whoo! Later I moved onto a ZX Spectrum +2, 128k with a real floppy disk drive and printer.
Dabbled in BASIC and moved onto Z80 Assembler - I wanted to write the next hit game, but never managed it. If I could just go back 20 years, knowing what I know now, I could make my millions... oh well.
Had an Amiga A500+ for quite a few years (it's now in the loft, I get it down every now and again) - wrote lots stuff in Amos Basic - but nothing I'm particularly proud of - no I take that back, I wrote a Terminator slide puzzle with sound samples from the movie, I was pleased with that.
Dabbled in C/C++ and Pascal - I even bought a piece of kit that turns the Amiga into a 286 PC. Ooh, the power! Managed to complete my Open University courses on it though
Bought my first PC about 10 years ago - a 486 (66Mhz) - I've still got it - I don't use it much though, cos I later bought a Pentium 3 (500mz) and just recently a laptop (2Ghz), which is what I'm currently using. I plan to buy a really fast desktop next year - don't know why, I just like 'fast' stuff
As far as games go, I got fed-up with the PC format and bought a PS1 when it first came out - I've now got a PS2 and am very pleased with it.
I've just ventured into Linux, but I'm still reliant on Windows for most of my development tools and stuff. I really do want Linux to succeed Windows so I'm aiming to move across completely....but not yet.
Gaming experience:
I have over 20 years of game-playing experience (have I really wasted all that time?) on both PC and console.
The only 'MOD'ing experience I have is some minor level design in Doom and Duke Nukem 3D - I also coded some modifications in Duke Nukem using the (limited) scripting language that controls the 'logic' of the levels. I successfully implemented an audible 'pinging' radar that warned when the enemy was close - very useful for tracking 'invisible' opponents in deathmatch.
I did buy Half-life - but I got bored with it and left PC games in favour of my console.
The only other level design I've done is with Timesplittes on the PS2 - but that doesn't really count as it's a very 'sanitised' (and limited) design system.
The only PC game that I still play is Blade Runner.
I have lots and lots of ideas for games - I very rarely get the chance to even think about creating them. I'm trying a go back to 2D games with Pure Basic - the language is very powerful (and fast) but is still in it's early days of development...
When ever I try out new code I always want to make something Blade Runner related - I've got lots of ideas for Blade Runner mini-games...
So there you have it - my 'gaming' CV - if you have a role for me, let me know and I'll see what I can do - but just remember, I have to work Mon-Fri, 09.00-17.00 , so my free time is limited.