What are the odds of meeting another person who loves the same narrow field of gaming industry as do you? Namely he likes changing the rules of the games, breaking them apart as kids do with their toys, just to reassemble them in a kinda odd order. It works, but not the way it was intended to do. In most cases new set of rules just changes the flow, the taste and even narrative of whats being played.
I know, the chances are slim. But I thank my lucky stars, because I've managed to meet two guys like that in my home town of Chester, UK. One turned out to be a 6 foot tall, bearded Russian, who (apparently) can outlast anyone in this town in drinking vodka and playing x-wing.(psst...I've never tried the first, but have beaten him in that game).
His name is Pavel Shorikov, hailing from the cold nowhere in Russia he has been exiled for his curiosity to blighty and developed a taste for a game design. Though, he still needs to finish at least one serious project, before the end of this year or I'll send him to GULAG! Other than that, he loves re-writing the stuff you show him. As he puts it: "to make it simple and elegant, like AK-47". In most cases, he is actually right, unless he is not. Getting the Studio together is his idea too.
Then, there is Tom Cockeram, the mad-one-of-a-kind inventor and designer. If you get to observe him in his natural habitat, surrounded by half-finished paper toys, gundam robots, skateboards, flying tanks, ancient game consoles, roller skates, metric ton of tools and gadgets you may think he is not from this planet. But only when you see how out of seemingly nowhere appears a toy, gadget, pizza or game with insane but incredibly fun mechanics, only then you will realize that he is an undercover alien. He is currently exploring the shores over the pond, but we are hopeful that he'll return to the pack.
Last but not least, there's me: Mark-Paul Severn, the aspiring game designer and writer. I'm doing my degree in Media in Chester University. With all that's implied by student life, I work on our current projects mostly as play-tester and blog writer. In most cases I'm the one who tells the other two to hurry up and show me something to write about. I know, its a hard job, but someone has to do it.
Thank you for reading this.
Mark.
