There and Back Again — Sentenced VR

I write this from my parent’s house in Buckinghamshire, England. I’m back in the country after almost a year in New Zealand. It’s a beautiful sunny afternoon, my third summer in a row thanks to my hemisphere-hopping antics, and the birds in the garden are tweeting up a storm. Life is good.

First, allow me to apologise for the extended silence here on the Phantom Magazine blog. When I work in VFX, I have to sign a strict NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), which prevents me from talking about or showing work from anything I’m working on professionally. In addition, I’ve been working for Weta Digital, (The Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes), a company with a 50 hour standard work week, which often rises to 60 during crunch time.

This lead to a situation where I spent the vast majority of my time doing something I can’t legally talk about, which is not a great recipe for social media output. It’s a source of frustration for me, as I love to share the things I’m doing with people, however, in the corporate world of filmmaking, the profit is master and we must obey. It also left me little time to work on my game.

However, all that is changing as of right now! My contract at Weta is up, and I’ve saved up a fat stack o’ cash, hopefully enough to support myself until I finish development on my pride and joy, Sentenced. I’ve already resumed work on the game, and re-assessing some of the work I did last year and bringing it up to standard.

An updated version of the Magistrate. New style!

Heraldry for the Port city of Sentenced.

I’m going to be staying with my parents up until the end of July while I catch up with friends and family in London, after which I’ll be moving back into a place of my own, most likely in Berlin. I’m also currently in the process of applying for German citizenship, so it seems like a good time to go the country and learn the language. Also, I hear that’s where the cool kids are at. Maybe the coolness will rub off on me? Is that how it works?

Anyway, it’s all go go go again on the Phantom Magazine front, so follow me here on the blog and also on Twitter and Instagram for all the regular updates!

Keep it weird,

Sam