It might seem strange to some people that I have recently left Reflections and decided to enroll on a Masters degree course; it's a strange thing to do at 38 years of age. Even stranger, the Masters course is not strictly games-oriented. Well it's not as big a jump into the unknown as it looks: many of the new mobile platforms use Java, databases are increasingly important - both as repositories for the huge number of assets used in game development, and for the backend of MMPORG's as well as their more humble play-by-web cousins.
The web itself is probably the most interesting platform around today: it's a mass medium based on a mishmash of standards and technologies that can be bent to do almost everything; a giant laboratory free from the restrictions of proprietary console platform development.
I'm beginning to suspect a much better (as in scalable, among other things) platform for games development can be assembled out of some of the emergent technologies available now; a distributed, social system capable of handling vast amounts of assets, and large numbers of distributed collaborators. It's my intention to try and assemble a platform capable of this, and offer it as a model for further research.
It's also my intention to learn as much as possible in a short time whithout my brain exploding; as this is the most challenging course my local university has to offer, that might be hard. Still, onwards...
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