Surfacing for Air

Finally back from an extended stay in Rapture. This is mostly a scattershot attempt at recollecting my thoughs and stoking the coals of this thing once more.

Just finished Bioshock 2 with a great team of designers and other devs. Got back from a holiday break and have begun to ramp up on another project that looks promising.

Darksiders shipped recently. I was on the project for a year and a half, and I'm curious to see it after being absent from its development for a couple of years. It's a talented team, and I know they've busted ass to see this thing from concept to physical manifestation.

Currently rifling through my myriad side project ideas trying to find something that grabs my attention and is feasible. Trying to choose between the following:

• Sim/adventure game where you are in control of a family line of monster hunters. Manage relationships to develop the family as well as the research and development. Use the resources you develop to fuel dungeon expeditions and gradually rid the land of monsters after generations of hard work.
  
• 2d platformer where you can occupy different scales by inhabiting and controlling larger creatures that also serve as parts of the exploratory landscape.
• Exploratory adventure game that primarily consists of traveling across massive landscapes from A to B. Mechanics emphasize methods of travel, morale maintenance, route planning, adversary avoidance and engagement.
• Figure out a direction to take the internal/external identity prototype I developed recently.
• Finish a couple of simpler XBLA style games. One is an acrobatic arena combat game involving grappling hooks. The other is an action/puzzley game where you control 2 nodes connected by a string and try to collect moving objects of one color while avoiding moving objects of another color.
• Co-op cyberpunk mod using the Unreal Development Kit

These all vary in scope, technical complexity and design weirdity, but hopefully I'll nail something down soon and start posting my travails as they come up. Maybe more design related stuff soon as well.