So, Improbable Island has been going for a couple of years now and it's turning into something that can keep me alive and with a roof over my head without me having to do website design. It's turned from a hobby into a full-time job.

Since then, I've gotten married, and my wife, Emily(*), has gotten increasingly frustrated with her job. She does database work for a hospital; the pay's good, but the hours and the work itself is pretty depressing.

I've noticed lately that my original goal - "Hey, I'll write a text adventure game!" - hasn't quite worked out the way I wanted it to, because I thought it'd be about writing. I figured I'd have a plot, decent characters, a beginning, middle and end - you know, a story. But lately I've been doing a lot more building of games and systems than I have building of worlds, and I'm beginning to realise that that's what I'm good at.

The Island needs a writer.

A dedicated writer, so that I can be a dedicated coder. Recently I've done all sorts of stuff with Titans, Onslaught, new Commentary, Dwellings, and all that jazz - but the last actual piece of world-building writing that I did was in Common Ground, with its time-sensitive description text. I believe that was before Christmas.

Oh, and there were some lions, too.

To give you an idea of where I am right now, let's say this: the system is in place to extend that level of time-and-context-sensitive detail to every Outpost. I just don't have any writing to go in the system.

It's not that I don't like writing, and forgive me for parping my own horn but I don't think it's that I'm not good at it (although that sentence may have been evidence to the contrary). It's just that I have so much else to do.

I need help.

Hey, you know... my wife is an excellent writer.

(hit "full article" for the rest!)

So it's not enough that I code me fingers to the bone stayin' up 'til four in the morning most nights, you want me to write about what I code?

Well then!

Latest updates:
1. Type GREM in a chat box to have your last comment removed.
2. Type AFK in a chat box to go Away From Keyboard (turns your chat icon grey).
3. A new Mount Accessories system is coming along nicely.

Honestly most of what I've been doing the past couple of weeks is cleaning up and tweaking the new commentary system. :P

So, that's updates out of the way! Now let's talk about indie gaming. Hit "Full Article" for the rest.

In October, I asked you lot to sing the NewHome theme song.  It's now January, so I think it's about time to judge the entries!

The contest was announced on the first of October.  The objective was to make up a tune for the words to the NewHome theme song "NewHome is Full of Noobs," sing it, and upload the results.

Hit "Read More" for the sordid details!

We, the editorial staff at the Enquirer, have a special treat for our readers today.  After months of waiting, The Watcher has finally agreed to tell us a little about herself!

We originally wanted to conduct a questions-and-answers interview with The Watcher, but she said her work schedule was too erratic to make a solid hour-long distraction feasible.  Instead, she suggested that we leave her alone with her word processor, and she would type something up for us.  A couple of weeks and one or two phone calls later, we spent a merry afternoon picking our broken teeth up off the floor and agreed not to contact her again, and that it would be finished when it was finished.  It turned up on our doorstep yesterday!

Clarification: by "when it was finished" we mean "when the first part was done," by "our doorstep" we mean "the front flap of our rancid, urine-soaked tent," by "turned up" we mean "was wrapped around a brick and violently hurled through" and by "yesterday" we actually mean "in the middle of the night, accompanied by a sack of wriggling spiders."

We hope that you enjoy the first part of what The Watcher has chosen to reveal about herself.  We found that, despite the disappointing title and shoddy, half-English half-American spellings, the story was disarmingly honest, revealing and even intimate.  But then, she could be just making the whole thing up.

Hit "Full Article" to read part one of "I am The Watcher."