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About MeProject MyWorld
Category: DMA Design Tags: Computer Games Project MyWorld-----
I always thought I had a finite supply of stories to tell about my time at DMA Design. But an announcement from Realtime Worlds, which I only saw this morning, made me realise that even something which was only a few minutes long can still be relevant today. RTW have been working for the last five years on Project MyWorld, an ambitious online world which mixes social networking and gaming. No doubt the subtleties are more nuanced than that and most of us will note that five years is a long time in technology.
Mike Dailly, whom I’ve now known for something like twenty six years, had been working on it in complete secrecy. But now that the story is out, I realise that I’ve known the seeds of it since 1996, an entire fourteen years ago. Dave Jones, now Mr RTW and ex Mr DMA had clearly been thinking about it for that long. Back then I worked in DMA’s Design Department alongside Mike and Dave would often come in to talk about whatever was on his mind; normally an idea for a game or about games in general. (Or about cars.)
Mike and myself were working on a project known informally as The Space Game, a name it’s kept to this day, where each player would take control of a particular console such as tactical or navigation, instead of an entire ship. It didn’t ultimately progress very far, but it was during this time that Dave wandered into the design dept and we told him something of the plans for it. This was also midway through the development of GTA and Dave said wouldn’t it be great if you could find a planet in the game, fly down to the surface and find a city where a game of GTA was taking place. Not only that, but if you drove past some guys by the side of a river, those guys could be playing a fishing game!
This, we all agreed, would indeed be great but at the time I didn’t think any more of it than just another idea in a sea of ideas. Any developer, I’m sure, will tell you that they have many more ideas than could ever be brought to fruition in several lifetimes. And that was it, a small conversation that didn’t have any great significance at the time. Obviously Dave had the seed of an idea even all that time ago and has never forgotten it. What drives all the best ideas isn’t stakeholders or technology, though they may enable them.
No, what drives them is simply asking “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”
Categories
Writing
Alan Grant • 16 Psyche • Proof Mode • I Am Freelance • The Circle is Complete! • Bit Patterns Redux • An Intrepid Update • Hammond’s Law • Edinburgh Book Festival • NaNoWriMo Crash and Burn • What is Science Fiction Anymore? • Blogging from Anywhere • NaNoWriMo has Stopped! • NaNoWriMo has Started! • NaNoWriMo • Why I Shouldn’t Skip PE •Moviemaking
Intrepid: Echoes • Intrepid Release Day • Where there’s a Sea… • The Stone unturned: Friday’s Shoot • The Stone Unturned • Come for the Cave, Stay for the Dead Whale • Where There’s a Sea • Lorraine Kelley Visits • And so it Begins •Intrepid
Bit Patterns Redux • Epistemology pt 3: How I founded a Star Trek Club • Intrepid Release Day • An Intrepid Update • Silicon Heaven • I’m Not in SciFi Now!!! • Where There’s a Sea • I’m Making a Movie! • I’m on Telly! • Holiday Coming Up •Whimsy
Windy OpSec • Wildly Improbable • Cyberpunk 2020 • User Interface • Lemmings Plushies • I Have a Bacon Number of 4! • Carl Sagan Sings! • So What Happens if I Say Yes? • Enchanted Picture • Twitter • Bob Exists • Currying Favour… • Convenience Reduction Measures • Buses • Music and Lyrics • Proof of Concept • Basic Assumption •Miscellaneous
A Long Overdue Update • Update from the Maemo • Overpackaged • Adventurous Scots • Light Aircraft Crash • A Wikipedia Upgrade • Too Tasty for Geeks • Microsoft Surface • Spooks Series 7: Episode 2 • The Satellite Dish • Cardiff • Deliveries • No More Intrepid Blog • Erk •Science Fiction
Alison Rowat and the Licensed Imagination • Bit Patterns Redux • An Intrepid Update • Hammond’s Law • Banks’ Law • Intrepid: Sisters • Arthur C Clarke • What is Science Fiction Anymore? •DMA Design
Public Appearances • Babbling On • Play Expo Blackpool • Grand Theft Auto Begins • Where Does the Time Go? • On No! • A Short Video History of DMA Design • • Newly Appeared Lemmings Graffiti • First Shots from GTA Drama • An Interview and a Repost • Lemmings Plushies • Bill Paxton Talks GTA Game Changer • Tweet from Brian Baglow (@flackboy) • Check This Disk! • The GTA Making-of Drama • Lemmings Merchandise is Go! • DMA Lives! • Project MyWorld • A Lemmings Conversion in 36 Hours • BBC Radio Scotland • You're definitely over the hill when... • Grand Theft Auto (via Gameswipe) • The Circle is Complete! • Epistemology pt 2: The Story of Hired Guns • Epistemology Pt.1: How I Co-Founded DMA Design • Lemmings II • DMA Design Office Tour • Kid Kirby • GTA Remembered •UFOs
Public Appearances • Rational Explanation Unlocked! • Seeing Shapes in the Cloud • The Scottish UFO Casebook • Naming those Pesky Flying UFO Objects • 
Post Tags
GTA
Bill Paxton Talks GTA Game Changer
Tweet from Brian Baglow (@flackboy)
You're definitely over the hill when...
Lemmings
Lemmings: Can You Dig It? Guardian Review
Lemmings: Can You Dig It? Released
A Short Video History of DMA Design
Newly Appeared Lemmings Graffiti
Hired Guns
A Short Video History of DMA Design
A Lemmings Conversion in 36 Hours