We had a milestone set for the beginning of February, so January was fraught to say the least, even by our standards. I think I had one day off in five weeks, much to everyone's horror. It was a bit slack I must admit. The recent progress is very pleasing and I feel that we're really getting into the groove, in anticipation of the year ahead. The living city is now working properly and it's populated by people walking around doing their daily routines. I'm delighted with the pathfinding; people change direction smoothly to avoid each other when they meet in the streets without that ugly mechanical turning through 90 degrees stuff that you see in many games. They actually look like they're avoiding people naturally; motion capturing everything has really helped with this.

They say in film that you should never work with children or animals and the equivalent in our industry is the PCs themselves. No matter how meticulous your preparation, always expect a hardware failure at the most inopportune moment. Predictably on the day of the milestone our demo machine decided it didn't like Direct X very much so we had to take two PCs down to Eidos. We went up to the boardroom and set everything up with Herve our Producer and then gave him a quick demo. He seemed happy, so we turned it off and waited for the others to join us. Everyone else came in and I started the demo. Nothing. I tried the second PC. Nothing. I spent half an hour trying to get both working. Everyone sat tapping their fingers. Needless to say, you don't keep people like this waiting. One of the Eidos IT guys came in to help me out, but actually made it worse by plugging the mouse into the keyboard port. Still nothing. Just as bands famously throw TVs out of hotel windows, I briefly considered instituting the games industry equivalent by sending my demo machine to visit Wimbledon High Street, via 5 storeys and a large window. Despite this everyone was very patient. All the same, I was hugely relieved that Herve had actually been there to see it working before. Eventually we managed to get the machines working. As you can imagine, this wasn't exactly ideal preparation but fortunately we had made a huge amount of progress with the game, so all was alright in the end.

We've entered a very exciting period of development that involves deciding on the actions that will go into the game. We're working on creating a set of actions that will provide the backbone to the game and this will be finalised by E3. We can then cram as many actions in as possible after that, safe in the knowledge that we already have the core game in place. I try very hard to make designing at Elixir a collaborative process and we're having Wednesday lunchtime brainstorming sessions to which everyone is invited. With a team full of gamers we'd be mad not to harness this talent and it's worked brilliantly. Not only does everyone in the team feel involved in the design but they've also come up with some great ideas. This week we've been working on information gathering actions and my own personal favourite was Sandy's suggestion for an action called "Grill Prostitute" which we thought sounded like a something you'd order in a dodgy restaurant on Bangkok's Pat Pong Road.

Planescape Torment has caused much excitement in the RPG faction in the office, who seem to be growing in number at an alarming rate. The number of fevered AD&D discussions have risen dramatically and some of my best programmers have spent days exercised by pressing questions. Please, can someone put them out of their misery: iron rations or standard rations - which is best? Fortunately I was relieved to discover that Colin our Head of Art is in fact a 15th Level Magic User, a skill earned during his Live Role Playing days down Chistlehurst caves and I shall be borrowing his Anorak of Protection (+5 vs. Beards) to to restore order to the office.

A couple more people have joined us over the last month. Sandy Sammarco has joined us to work as a Level Designer. His dedication to games is matched only by his dedication to the local McDonalds, that purveyor of fine American cuisine, which provides him with the four cheeseburgers he eats religiously every day of the week. A fanatical Angband player, Sandy also enjoys talking his Plasma ball, to which he is devoted. They share a room in Northampton and are currently looking to move to a semi-detached house sometime next month, although no children as yet. He's fitted in remarkably well. Duncan Jones joins us to work as cameraman on Republic: The Revolution, a role we've created specifically for the Republic: The Revolution. To my knowledge, this is a new role in the industry and I hope one that will become more prevalent in the future. He recently left film school and makes music videos and his expertise will I hope allow us to give the game the cinematic ambience I'm aiming for. He's taken to wearing a Soviet Naval trench coat and matching beret, which I've generously chosen to interpret as a sign of his dedication to the game, rather then a dubious statement of intent.

I read last month's article in Edge about Development Hell with the knowledge that for us at least, the year 2000 is drawing to a close. With E3 on the horizon and a projected release date of Christmas, time is upon us. I'm having to cut back on all non-essential activities such as friends, free time, sleep and diaries. Sadly this means that this will be the last diary for next few months. I hope to be able to continue it after E3, but until then, all there is to say is thank you for reading the diary and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

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