With University complete, the option to live in halls of residence expired and student loans spent, it was time for our four to get serious. They all needed to start looking forward, to get themselves a career, so they could put food on the table, and they needed to work out where they would be living for the rest of their lives (or at least the next few years). These were indeed critical times. It would have been easy to have put thoughts of developing computer games to one side, while more important life matters took over, but these lads had just tasted their first success and they were pretty eager to get some more.

In between looking for work and residence, the group set about planning for their next project. The obvious choice was to play it safe and make a sequel to the project that had given them such a sense of achievement, but the planned Dome XIV was unfortunately ill fated. Let’s face it, educational games are a bit boring when all’s said and done. The next thought was to return to good old Zip n’ West, but in an unforseen act of sanity, the group realised that it was probably too big a project for them at that time, so they decided to do something new.

The only thing they were sure of at this point, was that they wanted to create their next project using C++ and, preferably, DirectX. This proved to be something of a stumbling block, as despite their numerous degrees and awards, none of them could program in C++ (De ja vous anyone?). Fortunately, Jim knew a man who could…

Let’s look back a few years to 2003 when Jim was still studying at Coventry University. There’s a group of friends sitting in a pub that they refer to as ‘the library’, for reasons best known to them, who’ve recently formed a ’study group’ known as ‘The Pork Pie Club’, for reasons best known to no-one. Now, one of the group is someone we’ve met before, Jim, who at this point, as we’ve mentioned, still has a fairly large amount to learn about programming, but he is getting there. Fortunately there’s another lad sitting close by who’s far more adept at the aforementioned artform, known as Chris Siddall, or to the group as ’Little Chris’ or ‘Other Chris’ (all the good nicknames were apparently taken…).

Now, at this time Chris was, unfortunately, not a great Pool player and he most certainly could not hold his liquor, but what he could do, what he could do better than anyone else in the ‘Pork Pie Club’ and possibly better than anyone else at their University, was program. He’d been programming for years and could code in VB, Java, C, C++ and most likely many more besides. Clearly, him and Jim had a lot to offer each other. Many games of pool and even more pints of beer, plus one rather dubiously completed Java coursework, followed and not only were the two now friends, but ‘Chris’ had become known as ‘Sid’ (now that’s a much better nickname isn’t it?).

After introducing Sid to the rest of the team, some modest plans were made for the next project. It was a top down, 2D, flash style affair that could be completed very quickly and would be a stepping stone to the next, more modern and professional, game. Those more avid readers of this here website will know that, in typical Psync style, it didn’t quite work out that way…

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Anyway, that brings us up to date. It’s 2010 and not only can Sid handle his drink a lot better and play a mighty fine game of pool, but we’ve also nearly finished our first attempt at a game since we grew into a five piece band. If all goes well ’BL!TZ: Requiem’ will be finished and released soon, then we can get on to the next stage of Psync Interactive, which will hopefully lead to that shelf in HMV before we’re too long in the tooth. Fingers crossed!