It’s an exciting day here at Starfruit HQ. I just received two new pieces of hardware which will impact my work significantly over the coming years! The first is fairly straight forward… it’s an iPad!

I’ve already announced that I’ll be releasing Tumbledrop on iPad, so now that I have the hardware I can start development on it properly. Call me old fashioned, but when possible I prefer to have the hardware I’m developing for! I went for a 3G 32GB model just so that I can use it when traveling if need be, as I can just pay for one day’s usage. So, there might be some interesting iPad games coming in the future…

Far more interesting (and expensive…) is my new laptop! Amazingly, I decided not to get a macbook of any sort, and instead opted for the Sony Vaio-Z. It has a 13″ screen, Core i7 CPU, nvidia 330m GPU, 4GB ram, and lots of other really high specs! My current laptop is a Toshiba Portege A200, which is a very compact but competent little laptop, and it’s served me well for the last five years. I adore the compact form factor, and I loved having a Windows machine at all times, but I hated that it wasn’t powerful enough for much gaming, or heavy 3D graphics work.

Now I have a very powerful and portable laptop I’ll be able to work away from my desk more often. I’m looking forward to being able to work on Unity games, and do lots of 3D modeling without the discomfort of a low-spec machine. It also allows me to play PC games (especially indie games) in the living room, or hooked up to my TV, which helps to give me more time for relaxation in general.

Whilst these are just pieces of technology, they help me to do my job (and live my life) more effectively. It also feels nice to have something shiny after a long period of hard work. Even indies deserve to have something nice once in a while!

With that in mind, I will probably play some PC games this weekend. Any recommendations? I might start Dragon Age again, or play some Fuel, but I’m open to suggestion.

Every Tuesday afternoon I uproot from my regular work environment and head to a local bistro with my laptop!

It’s part of ‘Cambridge Friendship Club’ (otherwise known as CB2Indies), in which several indie developers get together and work. It’s a great opportunity to get out of the house, and I use it in lieu of my previous ‘Fun Friday’ as a day to work on experimental projects. We’ve been doing it for about five weeks now, and I’m definitely enjoying the routine. It also goes some way to counteract the maddening isolation from working all alone all the time.

I might start doing some full days working away from home, as often all I need is a laptop and an internet connection! I’m learning to take advantage of my indie status, without letting my work hours eat all of my time.