A long time between drinks

Well, as you can probably gather from the lack of blogging activity recently, it's been a madly busy and somewhat frantic ride over the last few months! Let me see if I can condense those events into a tasty, bite-sized summary.

First, the Melbourne office is now closed. This was a heavy-hearted decision, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to give it the attention it deserved while things were flourishing in New Zealand. Believe me, after almost 15 years of working with a great team on wonderful projects, it felt mightily sad to wind the Melbourne side up. But we're pleased that by making the decision before it hit a crisis point, we allowed a couple of months for staff to find other jobs, and they all have. Not hugely surprising— bright, talented people are usually snapped up! So our sadness is tempered by that result, and by the excitement of being able to focus on opportunities in New Zealand.

Speaking of which, Vicki Taylor of Taylor Boutique has really been flying with the blog we set up to support her Flash site! She's Twittering away too, and it all seems to be working— they recently opened their first Wellington boutique, so folks nearer the lower part of the North Isle can get their fix of fab fashion.

We've enjoyed doing some smaller websites too- just the right size to get some local businesses onto the web and let the world know about them! While we love large projects, there's something very satisfying about being able to whip up a clean, quick site and see a great result. Have a gander at Trevor Lamb's astonishing leatherwork at Leather And Art and Julie Madden's gorgeous tiling projects at TileIt.

There's been more action on the boardgame front for IQ Ideas, with Bek's gorgeous graphics (and my rule tweaking/mechanic suggestions) fronting two more games. There's Frogmail, which will be out in the new year, and Off The Beaten Track, the first expansion for the highly successful Amazing Moa Hunt. OTBT will be in-store for Christmas at Whitcoulls and The Warehouse and other game stores throughout New Zealand.

Oh, and we're noodling away on the early stages of a educational boardgame about food and digestion called Snacks and Bladders... tee hee.

In February 2010 I'm off to the Nürnberg Toy Fair, one of the largest events for toys and games. Very excited about that- it will be a huge opportunity to explore the wider world of gaming, especially in game-mad Germany!

Whew. Okay, that's about it, except for the fact that just to add to the fun, in the midst of all of this we've been building an upstairs and after 6 months of dust and debris have finally moved in. I'll post shots of our shiny new office with gorgeous views of the Tararuas soon. Oh, it's heaven!