TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY

2013

This has obviously been the best year of my life. When working on Gunpoint got tough towards the end, and the amount of sustained effort required exceeded my intrinsic determination, I made a guilty little list of all the things that releasing a game might improve about my life in the best-case scenario: Gunpoint motivation.txt. Nothing on it was anything like as good as the reality. Continued

Clack: A Very Short Story Inspired By An Amazon Review

Niece Vs iPhone

You can set an iPhone to show and photograph what’s facing the screen, like a mirror. The two things my niece finds fascinating are this, and my face. Continued

I Made A Physical Version Of Word Game Letterpress

For my parents’ birthdays, I made a physical version of the excellent iOS word game Letterpress. This makes me a terrible pirate, I hope no-one minds. I made this video to explain it to them.

Leaving PC Gamer

I haven’t actually done any work for PC Gamer since March, and I haven’t officially left until tomorrow. But I’ve been there nine years, it’s the only full time job I’ve ever had, and I felt like I should mark its end somehow.

So on Saturday we had a Gunpoint-themed pizza and bourbon leaving party. And melon. It was thematically confused, but excellent. Continued

First Time Using An iPhone

When the iPhone was announced, I laughed at the notion of spending SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS on a phone. You should imagine that laugh attenuating, bitterly, over six and a half years of me using the cheapest object Nokia can produce, until Gunpoint launched. Then I stopped, and thought, “Huh, I can actually afford to be one of the assholes who have these things now.” Continued

My Short Story For The Second Machine Of Death Collection

My second piece of published fiction will be out in July this year, as part of This Is How You Die: the second collection of stories about a machine that can predict your death. (My first was a story in the original collection, and you can read it here).

But! Editor David Malki is also Kickstarting a card game based on the same concept, and since it’s blown its funding goal by over 1000%, they’re releasing a few stories from the anthology to say thanks.

One of them is mine! You can read it now! Here it is!

It’s about a supervillain’s henchman tasked with the job of having their enemies killed in a way that doesn’t contradict their predicted deaths. It is called: LAZARUS REACTOR FISSION SEQUENCE!

If you can’t read it, go here.

Not Being An Asshole In An Argument

I don’t argue on the internet anymore. The short version is: it usually gets hostile, and that drives everyone further away from changing their minds.

But I spend a lot of time thinking about whether there’s a way to contribute to a discussion without derailing it. Whether there’s some way of knowing, in advance, that what you’re about to say will make you look like an asshole, start a fight, or be outright wrong.

I think there is. Continued

Welcome To Site 7

Look, I changed everything! I usually redesign my blog a bit at the start of every year, but this one is the first time I’ve built a completely new one from scratch in more than eight years. As is now tradition, I’ll give you a song to listen to while you snoop around. Continued

What I Learned From Gunpoint, And How To Make A Game

I wrote a feature for PC Gamer in which I look at each of the easiest tools you can use to make a game, and interview indies who’ve made great things with them. It’s the Indies’ Guide To Game Making, and I’ve just updated it with some more detailed answers we didn’t have room for in the magazine.

Oi, aren’t you making a game?

I am, but I haven’t finished it yet. I’ve learnt a lot so far, though, and at Minecon in November, I gave a talk about what I’ve learned so far, and what I’d do differently if I was making my first game today. Here it is! Continued

Arguing On The Internet

 
I don’t argue on the internet anymore, but I have some ideas on how to do it without defeating yourself and also human decency.

Update: This post now has a sort of sequel, suggesting ways to contribute to an argument without being an asshole.

Résumé

2000-2003: University of Southampton

Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, First Class

Doing maths and philosophy at the same time made sense to me, but then in a Relativity module I found out that simultaneity depends on your inertial frame, so now I’m not even sure I did.

My dissertation was on the ethics of teleportation by replication: scan, clone, destroy the original. Like in that movie I can’t mention, because it’s a spoiler for that movie.

2004-present: writer and editor at PC Gamer

Games Media Award for Best Specialist Games Writer in Print

I was assembling skateboards in a warehouse when a staff writer job opened up at PC Gamer. I didn’t get it. But later I got a job doing their coverdiscs, and successfully got myself demoted to writer a year or two in.

2012-present: director, Suspicious Developments

Finalist, Independent Games Festival Award for Excellence in Design

I entered Gunpoint into the IGF mainly to get feedback from the judges. Becoming a finalist was an extremely expensive accident: I tragically had to fly to San Francisco to attend the swanky awards ceremony and related parties.

The winner of the Excellence in Design category was Spelunky, the game that spurred me to make games in the first place. Even I would have voted for it.

Suspicious Developments announces existence

BATH, UNITED KINGDOM – January 24, 2012 – UK game developer Suspicious Developments today announced that it exists. The news marks a major upturn in the firm’s previously disappointing existence results, and a year-on-year existence increase of divide by zero error.

“No-one could have foreseen this,” said company director Tom Francis, shortly before the result. Francis controls 100% of the company’s shares, beating its second largest stakeholder Sylvester McCoy, who controls 0% and is not aware the company exists.

“I don’t know who you are,” McCoy said.

Suspicious Developments headquarters broken into

BATH, UNITED KINGDOM – January 21, 2012 – The headquarters of UK game developer Suspicious Developments were broken into last night by the company’s own director, Tom Francis.

Continued

Beheading Gmail’s New Look

Gmail’s new look is optional – FOR NOW – in the same way that Twitter’s was – FOR A WHILE THERE. And like Twitter’s, it’s sort of vaguely pretty but twice as awkward to use for all of my most common tasks.

I just found a script that lops off most of the wasted headspace that scrunches all the e-mails down, even in Compact mode, and it’s made a huge difference for me.

Works natively in Chrome, needs Greasemonkey in Firefox.

It’s weird how all the extra spacing made the default view look claustrophobic. To a certain mindset, white space isn’t open air, it’s the walls closing in.