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My Top 5 TV Shows Of 2018
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My Top 5 TV Shows Of 2018

2018 was another stellar year for television, it was also the year that streaming became the most watched thing in my household something I hadn’t expected to happen for at least another few years. Similarly to last year, this post will look at the 5 shows that had me hooked and that I would recommend to any fan of TV.

Altered Carbon

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Altered Carbon was one of the most highly anticipated TV shows of the year for sci-fi fans. The book series was long regarded as some of the best-written cyberpunk stories ever so when Netflix announced they’d be doing a big budget adaptation the hype was real. The show delivered on that hype and then some. It was a sheer visual spectacle from start to finish featuring some of the best CGI I’ve seen on a TV show. That isn’t to say the storytelling was awesome as well, it was as good if not better than the visuals. I’d regard this as a must see for any sci-fi fan.

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Looking Back At Bob’s Space Crusade

Bob’s Space Crusade was the first game I ever published, it was released on Kongregate, on the 30th of December 2011. It was my first project using Unity3D and it served as a great learning experience in actually getting something out there to be played by the world. It was by no means a masterpiece but the character (who I still have plans to resurrect in future projects) and core mechanic was great. This post will talk about how Bob was originally brought to life and the process that was behind that.

Going into this project I had a single focus, keep things simple. I didn’t want a spiralling list of features that could never be achieved, I just wanted a core mechanic that was fun and simple. This was for a couple of reasons, the main being I didn’t have enough experience to actually finish a large expansive project. The main goal of the project was to finish it, which I did. In hindsight, I would say the scope was too restrictive, the project in its initial state didn’t play particularly well and would have benefitted greatly from an increased development time.

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#30DayDev January

Sometime during 2016, I helped my friend Liam Twose found the hashtag #30DayDev and push it to become of the most widely used game development hashtags on Twitter with a huge number of people actively taking part and even more people seeing the content being developed by the hashtags ever-increasing reach. However, throughout 2017 activity wained as algorithms on hashtags were changed and focus was directed elsewhere into other endeavours. We decided it would be a good thing for the game development community at large to try and revive the hashtag going into the new year and this is what this post will cover, my plan of action for the first #30DayDev of 2018.

This month will be the first month I’ve gone into with a solid plan of how to tackle #30DayDev pretty much since its inception. I’m not solely focusing on game development this month with some time being dedicated to trying to help revive the hashtag as well. I’m essentially splitting my 30 days into 3 tasks; Twitter Bot, Super Blasty Blasty V2 and knowledge sharing. Between these 3 tasks, I think I should be able to learn a fair few new things as well as produce some quality content.

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Top Games 2017 Header Image
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My Top Games of 2017

During 2017 I managed to get a fair few hours playing games compared to some other years, I even had the added benefit of having an extra platform to play them on with my purchase of a PS4. I won’t bother doing an arbitrary number of games for each platform but instead, I’ll do my favourite game of each and a runner-up. The platforms I’ll be commenting on are; PS4, Xbox One, PC and Mobile (Android). These games might not have been released in 2017 but they are ones I played in 2017 so they fit the criteria.

PS4 – Doom (2016)

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The game I played and enjoyed the most on PS4 this year was actually a smash hit title from 2016, that I never got around to playing. Doom was the reboot that the first person genre needed. It was an absolute spectacle from start to finish with its flashy push forward combat feeling like the original games and yet still seeming surprisingly fresh. The graphics were outstanding and the framerate was solid on PS4 leaving nothing to be desired. The customization elements it had were great accents to an already excellent set of weapons that really catered to a few different playstyles. Doom is a game I’d confidently recommend to anybody who is a fan of games, even if they usually aren’t big on FPS games.

My runner-up this year on PS4 would have to be The Last Guardian, I never played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus but after playing this they are definitely on my list to play for 2018.

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Header image for my top shows of 2017
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My Top 5 TV Shows Of 2017

2017 was an absolutely fantastic year for television, between the quality shows being aired on traditional TV to the new offerings by streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, we as viewers have been spoilt for choice. In this post, I’ll look at the 5 shows that grabbed me the most and I’d highly recommend giving any of them a try if you haven’t already.

Stranger Things (Season 2)

Stranger Things Season 2 Header

Stranger Things Season 1 was an absolutely fantastic show which grabbed me immediately. It has so many aspects which appealed to my inner geek that I ended up watching the whole series in a single weekend which is very rare for me. So when Season 2 arrived I had a lot of hype going into it. It lived up and even surpassed the hype. Everything was bigger, the stakes had been upped and the cast had clearly developed their skills since the first outing. Netflix knocked it out of the park with this series and the influence it has had on TV and movies is obvious. I’m planning on doing exactly the same when Season 3 hits screens and marathoning it.

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