GMX have released their event schedule, and the date and time of the PortsCenter Presentation has now been set in… well, not stone. Spreadsheet. Set in spreadsheet? Is that a thing?
But anyway. it’s taking place on Sunday at 12pm in the Franklin Room. If you’re going to be at GMX, you’ll want to be there. Oh, and here’s the rest of the schedule in case you’re interested.
See you there!
As you can probably tell from the snazzy Kickstarter widget on the right, our attempt to fund PortsCenter was slightly more than successful (and I use the word “slightly” in a literal sense – no typical British understatement here).
I’ve already ordered almost all the equipment needed to produce all 13 episodes, and this weekend I’ll be moseying into my local “Holy Shit, They Sell Everything” store to buy pretty much all of the games and hardware.
The last year has been building up to this moment. I am preposterously nervous, but very excited to finally be working on the show. I’ll probably post occasional updates here, but for more news and announcements regarding PortsCenter keep an eye on PortsCenter.tv. PortsCenter is also on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
I’ve already tweeted a fuckton of Thank Yous, but… thank you to everybody who pledged for the show. You have no idea how incredible grateful I am for the opportunity to make this happen. I hope you won’t be disappointed with the end result.
Incidentally if you weren’t able to pledge to the Kickstarter, consider pledging to this one instead. Joe Walker is trying to raise $700 to produce a webseries about underrated and inexpensive gaming gems called “The Backlog”. It’s a marvelous idea, and he isn’t asking for much money, so do pledge if you’re able.
Heading to the Geek Media Expo this October? So am I!
This year the fourth GMX takes place in Nashville, Tennessee. There are a number of cool guests with a ton of geek cred, including voice actors like Rob Paulsen and Billy West, actors such as Star Trek: Voyager‘s Garrett Wang and Marilyn Ghigliotti of Clerks fame, and internet personalities such as “That Guy With the Glasses” Doug Walker.
Oh, and me. No, really.
Not only will I be at GMX this year, but I’ll also be hosting a one-hour presentation on videogame ports, looking at a few specific titles as well as going into a bit of the history of how, and why, some ports are so radically different from others. It’ll be a sort-of kitbash of PortsCenter, a stand-up comedy show, and a PowerPoint presentation.
I’ll also, in theory, be participating in a couple of Doctor Who panels as well.
GMX haven’t announced their schedule yet, but keep an eye on their programming page for updates. I’ll also be updating this post with details once they’re available.
See you in Nashville!
Once a year, every year, I re-read The Writer’s Tale. According to Russell T Davies’ foreword to the book, Steven Moffat said of this book, “If you still want to be a writer after reading this, you probably will be.” I always, without fail, finish my re-read creatively charged and itching, itching to write. No, not even when I’ve finished reading it. Before that. Long before that. Less than 100 pages into the book, and I’m yearning to be at my computer, tap-tap-tapping out a script, or a short story, or some other manner of thing.
The Writer’s Tale is responsible for a good chunk of writing. It’s responsible for dozens of Ficlys, for huge swathes of Jump Leads story. The last time I re-read the book I knocked out two Jump Leads scripts that, owing to current artist-related circumstances (JjAR had to step away from the comic due to freelance commitments, leaving stand-in artist Mr Phillby to finish what will in all likelihood be the last Jump Leads comic story ever), will probably never be seen.
This year, re-reading that book for, what, the fourth time?, I find myself wanting to return to those characters, to revisit them and give them new adventures. But I can’t. The comic is done. Jump Leads is no more.
…Or is it?
See, last year I wrote an audiplay adaptation of the first Jump Leads story, “Training Day”, with a few to recording it and using it as a jumping-off point for a series of brand spanking new audio-exclusive Jump Leads adventures. I talked to Dino about recording it, I spoke to Adam about playing Llewellyn. I spoke to rather a lot of very excited people about the prospect of giving Jump Leads a soft reboot and continuing the adventures as monthly audioplays… or maybe weekly serialized ones, like old-school Doctor Who.
But those plans fell by the wayside. Whatever happened to them? It wasn’t so long ago – January, as I recall – that I was frantically emailing people about making those audio adventures. What happened in January that–
Oh yes. I got a job. I got a job working for a wonderful company – Quantum Mechanix – working with people I loved spending time with, and serving as a cog in a machine that made the shiniest, most wonderful geek candy.
Except this month – July, nearly three weeks ago now – I left QMx. Not by choice, mind, but a necessary decision. Since then I’ve been remarkably busy, launching and continually writing Deadlong, relaunching the PortsCenter Kickstarter (it’s at 22% right now, if you can believe it!), preparing for my appearance at GMX in Tennessee, and working on another incredibly secret but tremendously awesome project I can’t really talk about yet… and that’s all before the other two webseries I’d like to develop if PortsCenter gets funded.
But there are still a few hours left in the day, and I really want to write for these characters again. Surely I can squeeze another project into my schedule. I can feel Jump Leads stories pressing at the temples of my head – stories I wanted to write, but didn’t, or couldn’t. Don’t they deserve a second chance? Don’t I owe it to myself to write them?
Or am I just being self-indulgent? Should I take that creative energy and channel it instead into Deadlong, a project that deserves my full attention? It’s a dilemma.
Perhaps this blog post is a load of old wank. I don’t know. It does feel good to get it out of my system, though. And I still have that itch…
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog for the last couple of weeks, mostly because I’ve been gearing towards re-launching the Kickstarter fundraising efforts for PortsCenter, which we’ve now done. Less than 24 hours in, we’ve received almost $700 in pledges, taking us that bit closer to our $4,200 goal.
I’m really excited about this project, as I’ve been since we first tried to raise money last October. This is something I’d love to be able to make more of (if you haven’t watched the pilot yet, head over to the Kickstarter to check it out). I’m fascinated by the way so many people remember playing so many games, seemingly unaware of the minor (or, in some cases, major) differences between the same game on multiple platform. All of those memories coalesce into a collective stored databank of what made a game what it was. That stuff fascinates me.
But anyway. Do check out the Kickstarter, and if you’re in a position to pledge a few dollars please consider doing so. At the very least, spread the link around. Let other people know this is going on. I’d love, love to be able to get this project going.
If you are in the LA area and have an office space I can shoot in either in the evening/night or at the weekend, please let me know ASAP. Ideally something like a cubicle farm would be great, but at the least a professional-looking office environment with anywhere between two and five desks would be ideal.
Cheers in advance.
