2011 - A Year of New Experiences

December 2011

I'm typing from my parents' laptop while they're watching that horrible Australian X Factor show. Sigh. It's been a wonderful year, and like many before it, full of its own ups and downs but on the whole, I'd say it was enjoyable. Here's another end of year summary.

The biggest highlight of my year would definitely be my stint in the US to help set up an iOS project with a company based in San Francisco. Four of us - two programmers, an artist and a game designer - were sent over by Sidhe just after Easter for two weeks to gather requirements and research various technologies to incorporate into the game. It was my first experience working in a different company to Sidhe and it was such an amazing eye-opener to see the kind of working environments that exist in other places. I was blown away by the free delicious food that got served every lunchtime (I was chided by Andrew for going on a "gastronomic safari"). It was interesting to see the kind of tech and tools they have and how different their processes are compared to ours. Expectation management was crucial because they are used to Flash development and we needed to stress that we didn't have an existing engine like that - we had to write it from scratch and progress wouldn't be visible immediately.

Nevertheless, it was a productive two weeks at work with the sumptuous food and the brand new Mac Book Pros and the air conditioning, and it was a wonderful holiday during the weekends seeing Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, Alcatraz and the Winchester House in San Jose. The last time I was in San Francisco was 1996 when I was 10 years old and on this recent trip, I had the freedom to go where I want, do what I want, buy what I want and eat what I want (ha). Most poignant was a photograph I took on a large cross-section of one of the Golden Gate Bridge cables that mimicked a photo from 15 years ago, which in turn matched a photograph that my father had taken at the same cross-section when my mother was still pregnant with me! I'm so thankful to everyone who made this possible and thankful to my workmates Mike, Tony and Jimmy for making the trip so awesome.

We brought the project back to New Zealand to finish. We encountered several challenges and complications and finally at the end of November, we delivered a solid product back to the guys in San Francisco for them to tweak and tune to their own desires. While the game unfortunately didn't make the Christmas deadline, we hope that the game will be released next year. It's not a game I would personally play, it wasn't a dream project to work on, but I am proud of what we did. When it gets released on the App Store, you'll hear it first on this blog (Or PikPok's social media accounts).

In other Sidhe news, we released Rugby Challenge on console in time for the Rugby World Cup, as well as Adidas's Own The Game, Monsters Ate My Condo and Slam Dunk King for iOS, as well as several updates to our existing portfolio. We went through some redundancies again and in addition to some voluntary resignations, we lost some incredibly talented people whom I will miss having at work.

The beginning of the year was tough for me. After returning to Wellington from the Christmas/New Years' break, I moved house from Hataitai to Mount Cook and was assaulted on the way home after a night out with some friends. Two guys (teenagers, I later found out) attacked me from behind and broke my glasses; I was punched and kicked (though I don't remember being too badly injured) and while I heard one of them say "grab his stuff", I came away with all my possessions and promptly called the police, who turned up less than five minutes later. They managed to apprehend one of the guys by the Taranaki Street Shell Station (my description was "a Caucasian male in a white hoodie), much to my relief. I was taken from there to the Wellington Police Station by work, and then via ambulance to Wellington Hospital. New experience, huh? I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was just a huge inconvenience for me. I'm mentally strong and haven't let this get me too worked up, but at the same time, I am a bit more cautious about my surroundings and the route I take home.

I thought I'd heard the end of all of that when I had my last visit to the ophthalmologist, but I got a letter from Child, Youth and Family concerning the jerk they managed to apprehend. Turns out he was 16 years old and was drunk on the night, and just out for trouble. CYFS have this thing where they hold a conference between the victim and the offender in an attempt to make the offender realise how their actions have had such an impact on the victim's life. Meeting the guy was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I wanted to make sure he wouldn't do anything like that again, and I was willing to give up two or three hours of my time to prevent anyone else from having to go through what I did.

I later learned that the guy reoffended. So screw him. In any case, I'm blessed to have no permanent injuries and thankful to the police and ambulance for taking care of me. Most of all, I couldn't have done the CYFS conference without the support of Darren and Charles, both of whom I express my deepest gratitude to. I hope I never have to go through something like this again, though it pains me to hear of so many similar incidents happening in Wellington CBD - especially the death of the journalist outside my church.

On the gaming front, I completed Final Fantasy X and beat Penance after 150 hours, and went on to 100% complete Final Fantasy X-2. I'm working my way through Kingdom Hearts at the moment and will move onto Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy XII next year. I went through two Professor Layton games and have started the third. I finished Portal 2 and loved it (though I haven't done the co-op levels yet), and purchased Limbo and Bastion off Steam a few days ago (yay sales!). I tried playing Pokemon Black and White, but they're the same boring game as before, except with different Pokemon. I was introduced to 7 Wonders, an amazingly balanced and incredibly fun board game, and had a taste of Battlestar Galactica, Pandemic, Anti-Monopoly, Carcasonne, Powergrid and Thunderstone. May Friday night games continue!

I guess the other big thing that happened this year was that I finally signed up for a Facebook account. Those who have known me for a long time will know how much I hate Facebook (still do) and hopefully those people would also know it must have taken something extraordinary to make me sign up. I still don't really understand how it happened, but one of the technical recruiters from Facebook emailed me through my blog, despite my blog being filled with anti-Facebook sentiments, and asked me to apply for a job there. So I did. And I thought that if I should have any kind of chance succeeding in an interview, then I should have a Facebook account. So I got one. I had to drink some vodka to dull the pain, it was so horrible. I went through the first technical interview in June and was rejected three days later. So that was that, and now I'm stuck with a Facebook account with dozens of pictures of food and Smudge. Sigh.

In a nutshell, I conquered the Tongariro Crossing, I played badminton almost every weekend, watched far more Rugby in two months than I ever have in my life, I grew out my facial hair, I became an uncle to an adorable little boy, I experienced snow in Wellington, I bought a server for Psypoke and helped migrate the site over (though Stephen did most of it, many thanks to Nic for helping to optimise the performance too!). I wrote 40 blog posts and posted a whopping 570 photos to my gallery, and will continue to do so in the new year.

Bring on 2012.