About Me!

Hi my name is Barkey well that's my nick name I've had since I was a wee young whipper snapper. I've been playing games since the days of the Vic 20 my first game I can recall is bomber run and a game I don't know what it was called, a sort of asteroids game. Anyway in my time I have had Vic20, Spectrum 128k +3, Sega Master System, Game Boy, Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Amiga a1200, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Game Cube, DS Lite, Wii and an Xbox 360.

I have also had a lot of PCs my first being a DX2 66 with 4 Meg ram, 420mb HD, 14" CRT monitor, 2X CD-Rom and Sound blaster 16. I created my first map on this machine for the classic Duke Nukem 3D, the map was created using ken Silverman's build. Over the years I progressed with Chasm the rift, Half Life, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Anachronox, Aliens Vs Predator 2, Max Payne, No One Lives Forever 2, Tron 2.0, Far Cry and Half Life 2.

A lot of people think it must be hard to use all these engine's but I disagree most utilize the same basic principles so you can easily transfer your skill from one engine to another. It's simply just remembering the key layouts but this can greatly help by using a gaming keypad.

Most of the time I pick up a new game just to play about with the engine tool set. I get a lot of enjoyment from using different engine and finding out all there little quirks. Most engines I pick up I produce a few mess about maps then move on but from this you can find out nice little features. For example I love Lithtech Talons -nosnapnocsg mode and its brush/object management system which it shares with Jupiter and EX. You haves Valves Hammer which is one of the easiest level editors to pick up and use (other than build but that's 2d), Unreal Ed (again another easy level ed) subtractive method plus you directly edit the compiled map file (not compile and output second file for the game engine like Hammer/Lithtech). Then you have Far Cry Sandbox where every thing is done in real time generate your terrain then add a car drive about in the level editor with little or no compiling needed. I would also like to play about with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Battlefield 2 /2192 as well but I just can't find the time at the moment.

Which leads me onto my main problem is time I just don't have enough some times I'm lucky to get 10hrs of mapping done in a month and when you have your own project and helping other people out with mods means things progress very slowly. Hell the only reason I got this site done was because it’s a bank holiday weekend.

By the way please forgive my English, I already know it isn’t that great

Barkey