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TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY

Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.

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By me. Uses Adaptive Images by Matt Wilcox.

Tom’s Timer 5

The Bone Queen And The Frost Bishop: Playtesting Scavenger Chess In Plasticine

Gridcannon: A Single Player Game With Regular Playing Cards

Dad And The Egg Controller

A Leftfield Solution To An XCOM Disaster

Rewarding Creative Play Styles In Hitman

Postcards From Far Cry Primal

Solving XCOM’s Snowball Problem

Kill Zone And Bladestorm

An Idea For More Flexible Indie Game Awards

What Works And Why: Multiple Routes In Deus Ex

Naming Drugs Honestly In Big Pharma

Writing vs Programming

Let Me Show You How To Make A Game

What Works And Why: Nonlinear Storytelling In Her Story

What Works And Why: Invisible Inc

Our Super Game Jam Episode Is Out

What Works And Why: Sauron’s Army

Showing Heat Signature At Fantastic Arcade And EGX

What I’m Working On And What I’ve Done

The Formula For An Episode Of Murder, She Wrote

Improving Heat Signature’s Randomly Generated Ships, Inside And Out

Raising An Army Of Flying Dogs In The Magic Circle

Floating Point Is Out! And Free! On Steam! Watch A Trailer!

Drawing With Gravity In Floating Point

What’s Your Fault?

The Randomised Tactical Elegance Of Hoplite

Here I Am Being Interviewed By Steve Gaynor For Tone Control

A Story Of Heroism In Alien Swarm

One Desperate Battle In FTL

To Hell And Back In Spelunky

Gunpoint Development Breakdown

My Short Story For The Second Machine Of Death Collection

Not Being An Asshole In An Argument

Playing Skyrim With Nothing But Illusion

How Mainstream Games Butchered Themselves, And Why It’s My Fault

A Short Script For An Animated 60s Heist Movie

Arguing On The Internet

Shopstorm, A Spelunky Story

Why Are Stealth Games Cool?

The Suspicious Developments manifesto

GDC Talk: How To Explain Your Game To An Asshole

Listening To Your Sound Effects For Gunpoint

Understanding Your Brain

What Makes Games Good

A Story Of Plane Seats And Class

Deckard: Blade Runner, Moron

Avoiding Suspicion At The US Embassy

An Idea For A Better Open World Game

A Different Way To Level Up

A Different Idea For Ending BioShock

My Script For A Team Fortress 2 Short About The Spy

Team Fortress 2 Unlockable Weapon Ideas

Don’t Make Me Play Football Manager

EVE’s Assassins And The Kill That Shocked A Galaxy

My Galactic Civilizations 2 War Diary

I Played Through Episode Two Holding A Goddamn Gnome

My Short Story For The Machine Of Death Collection

Blood Money And Sex

A Woman’s Life In Search Queries

First Night, Second Life

SWAT 4: The Movie Script

Hyperthreaded Depleted Uranium Turbothanks

To anyone who nominated me for a Games Media Award. I am a finalist! With any other award it’d be corny and false to say the nomination is what counts, but with GMAs that’s actually true. Like last year, the nominations are open to the public but the judging is by a panel of games media types and PRs. I’d love to win this year, but I’ll be honest, I’m not super concerned about my popularity among games media types and PRs. The really nice thing is to have a bunch of people put your name forward out of the blue.

In return, I will try to be slightly less inadequate over the next week about posting stuff, both here and on PCG. Starting with some fun news from Valve about Team Fortress 2 I’ve only just had time to write up, and a short series of stupid posts here that have nothing to do with anything. Yes. This plan makes sense.

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If you are a judge, you don’t have to vote for me, but you should definitely vote for:

  • PC Gamer for Games Magazine. We’re actually pretty good. The thing I really enjoy about our mag these days is being able to read a preview knowing it’s not just going to be, “This looks like a game that has some classes and some weapons and the graphics seem good”. There’s going to be something mechanically or conceptually interesting and we’re actually going to spend the words telling you about that. Also we do reviews. Oh no! That’s mine! How did that get there?
     
  • Rich McCormick for Rising Star. Rich has already established himself in our office as the person capable of the most tortured pun when we’re sitting around coming up with headlines, and this company is the Abu Ghraib of pun torture. Here’s his piece on Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. It’s a crime that Jaz McDougall isn’t also up for this slot, partly because it would lead to hilarious in-office brawling, and partly because his work on PCGamer.com is making me laugh every day.
     
  • Christian Donlan for Specialist Writer Online. I’m also a fan of Simon, Ellie and Dave, but I think I’m right in saying this is the first time Christian’s been up for this, and it’s way overdue. His stuff on Eurogamer and in Edge always shines, and he is quite literally The Nicest Man In Games Journalism, a title which I must some day kill him to steal.