Much to our continued surprise and general bemusement, we walked away with the victor's trophy at last night's Spring 2010 edition of the Develop Magazine Games Industry Pub Quiz. 20 different teams from all over the UK games industry were in attendance, including game developers, middleware companies and recruitment agencies.

Representing Splash Damage were Media Director Richard 'Fluffy_gIMp' Jolly, Tools Programmer Flavius 'Flawe' Alecu, Level Designer Jamie 'Fishbus' Manson and Community Relations Manager Steve 'badman' Hessel. After all was said and done, we narrowly edged out Curve Studios for the win, while Rocksteady clinched third. Embarassing photos are sure to follow at some point - in the meantime, enjoy this artsy shot of the trophy.

As pointed out in her staff interview a while back, our Senior Concept Artist Laurel 'Tully' Austin regularly sculpts all manner of dinosaur/demon/monster-related creatures in her spare time, much to the delight of everyone here at the office. We've previously shown some of her work on our Flickr page and she's been pretty busy since.

Luckily, Laurel's more recent creations are now out in the virtual wild over at art showcase site Creature Spot, featuring a multitude of photos full of spikes, horns, and claws. Perfect for a rainy Monday afternoon, we think.

Level design has traditionally been one of the most accessible areas of game development for amateurs, with many shooters offering level editors as part of their SDK. However, while tools have become seemingly easier to use over the past few years, maps and mods are taking increasingly longer to produce. Professional mystery solver Jim Rossignol took it upon himself to find out exactly why that is and recruited Splash Damage's Lead Level Designer Neil 'Exedore' Alphonso to help him.

The resulting article features plenty of insights from Neil, including how he got his start in the industry, what game levels have inspired him over the years, and, of course, the fundamental issue that drove Jim out there in the first place: Why are the tools easier and yet levels take longer to make? Find out that and more in Jim's full write-up over at TechRadar.

Hello and welcome to 2010 - we hope everyone made it safely into the new decade. Most of the internet was on hold during the holidays, so if you spent them buried under presents/Christmas trees/family members or any combination thereof, you didn't miss out on too much. Here at Splash Damage, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming this week, with news, updates, and random ramblings about Brink, tapirs, and the studio.

Speaking of which, the chaps over at Develop Magazine recently put together their annual 30 Under 30 feature, highlighting 30 of the games industry's rising stars under 30 years of age. We're delighted to see that Splash Damage's Studio Director Stephen 'malarky' Gaffney made the list, joined by talent from other studios such as Epic, Guerilla Games, and Lionhead. Continue reading »

Another year's nearly at an end, which means delicious food and presents have us surrounded on all sides. Incidentally, the entire team at Splash Damage would like to wish all our readers a supremely Happy Christmas and a safe holiday period. 2009 was an eventful year for the studio and 2010 promises to bring even bigger and better things.

Now, last year's Christmas Tapirthon was a huge success and raised some 1250 pounds to help conserve tapirs around the world. What's a tapir, you say? Why, it's a large browsing mammal, roughly pig-like in shape, with a short, prehensile snout. Well, at least if you believe Wikipedia. It's also Splash Damage's company mascot and with all four of the tapir species facing extinction, we try to raise awareness (and money) for their cause whenever possible. Continue reading »

UK gaming magazine PC Zone has kicked off its 2009 Reader Awards, allowing the public to decide which games and developers stood out in 2009, and what they're looking forward to in 2010. Not wanting to sway you too much, but Brink is eligible in the Most Wanted category, while Splash Damage fits snugly inside the box for Best Developer.

Voting is a quick and painless affair and closes on 11 December 2009, which is just over three weeks away. To achieve maximum tapir happiness, be sure to submit your choices before then.

Bethesda's Fallout 3 was the big winner at the Golden Joystick awards last week, taking home the coveted Ultimate Game of the Year honors. Bethesda's latest also picked up Best PC Game and Best Soundtrack, making it one of the most highly decorated titles of the night. Competition was especially fierce this year, with so many great titles released across all platforms. We here at Splash Damage would like to throw a big, nay, humongous congratulations in the general direction of Bethesda Game Studios as well as all the other winners and nominees.

We're delighted to announce that Splash Damage was selected for inclusion on The Guardian's annual Tech Media Invest 100 list. Sponsored by business consultancy PwC and Kemp Little, the list "aims to identify and showcase the top 100 innovative technology and media companies in the UK". Other companies on the list include fellow developer Realtime Worlds, the popular music service Spotify and online retailer The Hut. You can read more about the list in this special section on the Guardian website, while the full top 100 is available here.

Splash Damage CEO and Game Director Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood will be giving a talk at GDC Europe on Monday. Titled "Triple-A or Bust", the 50-minute session will cover Splash Damage's shift from PC-only to multiplatform development and offer advice to studios wanting to make the same transition. Incidentally, it was also named one of the six must-see sessions at the event by Develop Magazine in their pre-show special, so if business and/or management is/are your thing, you probably can't go wrong here.

GDC Europe takes place from August 17 - 19 in Cologne, Germany - just ahead of this year's gamescom, where Brink will be shown to the public for the first time in Europe. More information on the event is available on the GDC Europe website.

CEO and Game Director Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood was a keynote speaker at Game Horizon last week, where he talked about Splash Damage's "Rules of Engagement" when it comes to game deals and how the studio is run. For those that couldn't make the conference, GamaSutra has a great write-up going over the key messages of Paul's talk using words and punctuation. It's a great read if you want to gain some insights into what drives Splash from a business angle.