Elixir has expanded rapidly over the last two months and we've gone from 22 people to 30. It's the classic developer dilemma. You start with a small, tightknit team and then you find there's too much work for the team and you need more bodies. The problem is that it's very hard to find people with the right talent and the right attitude. There are a lot of talented people out there but a lot of them won't fit in or aren't really up for it. Do you a) recruit people and hope they'll fit in and do the job or b) hold on for the right people, meanwhile asking people to make up for the shortfall in manpower?

Our greatest need was to find quality animators. The industry is split between people who use animators and those who use motion capturing. Initially we went for motion capturing but were dissatisfied with the results. Given that Republic: The Revolution is about people, they have to be as convincing and realistic as possible, so we decided to bring animators in. Good animators are though are rarer than gold. Colin, our Head of Art, reckons that good animators are born rather than made in that it's an instinctive skill rather than one you can teach. Look at the recruitment pages at the back of Edge and you can see how much in demand they are, a situation exacerbated by the fact that they are also highly sought after in the film industry too. We've been tremedously lucky in finding and recruiting not just one, but two animators in the last two months. Matthew Everitt joins the company as Senior Animator with Werner Van Jaarsveld working alongside him as Animator. Werner lost no time in dying his hair green within a week of getting here, concerned perhaps by his apparent normality in an office full of odd-balls. It might also have been an attempt look less conspicuously normal amongst Camden's hordes of blue-haired, multi-pierced German and Spanish teenagers.

We've also been extremely lucky to have Tuomas Pirinen join as Lead Designer on our second game and he has a fantastic pedigree in game design. For the past five years he's been at Games Workshop where he eventually became Head of Games Development. The last project he did for them was to lead the 6th edition of the legendary tabletop fantasy wargame Warhammer. Previously an Anti Tank Sergeant in the Finnish army and a black belt in Kung Fu, Tuomas also carries a nunchaku around with him in his work bag. He also tells me that back home in Finland games are extremely popular amongst women and that he used to get mobbed at games conventions. Plans to set up Elixir's Finnish office are well underway as I write.

Republic: The Revolution has moved into a new phase of production, arguably the toughest one of all which is the one that ends with the game on the shelves. It's a time for hard-nosed pragmatism and painful decisions. If designers had their way, no game would ever hit the shelves. There's always more you can do and you're never satisfied with it. That's why you need a very sharp knife with which to cut out everything that isn't essential to the game, which, as you can imagine, is a source of much contention. We've had a lot of very tense meetings, some of which have become shouting matches. You might think it odd that we scream at each other over whether to have hills in the game or not, but we do and it's healthy - it proves that people are deeply committed to making this game a success. As ever the subjectivity of game design makes these decisions hard to make.

As part of this process I've undertaken a revision of the Republic: The Revolution game design bible and this now stands at about 30,000 words. It's a huge undertaking and one that requires patience and mind-boggling attention to detail. Despite the glamourous perception of the designer's role, much of his work requires a keen eye for detail and thoroughness. An example of this is the need to use consistent terminology. For example, if you have a commodity in the game which you are calling "Influence" you can't start calling it "Power". This sounds self evident, but it's a common mistake that leads to a lot of confusion. You also need give frequent, clear and idiot-proof examples. You need to check that there are no contradictions or inconsistencies across the breadth of a hundred page design document, which is no easy task. As ever you're striving for simplicity and elegance - to make a complicated game is the easiest thing in the world as it's very easy to be over-elaborate. Pace is a key factor in deciding whether a game is fun, and over-elaboration slows gameplay down.

Online gaming is the rage in our office at the moment and a number of people are committed Diablo II nuts. Most impressive of all is the dedication that Chris, our Systems Administrator has for Ultima Online. Eschewing the tedium of heroes, dragons, wizards and fabulous artifacts, Chris has decided instead to be a fisherman. He managed to rack up an impressive 15 hours online over the weekend……..fishing. He's even hotkeyed in "fish steaks for sale!" just in case the action proves too much as a solitary adventurer ambles past his furious fishing and a selling opportunity disappears in the blink of an eyelid. I've tried to put a positive spin on this by making encouraging noises about his 'commitment' and 'dedication' although my animated giggling fits may have led him to question the sincerity of these remarks. You've got to feel sorry for him - I mean, he spends his days dreaming of the day when he can break free from the chains of computer game development to reveal the beautiful mackerel fisherman he's always wanted be. It must be hell.

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