So 2014, that was a bit hectic. We moved out of the bedroom, got a game on Steam (woo), put Friendship Club into full production, had a few trips to the states*, met a few heroes, won a few awards, drank around seven hundred cups of tea and a few hundred cups of coffee each, continued to get stuff done on Maia, got a few new toys and generally worked our kindly little arses off.

Rather than bore anyone with some sprawling blog post about the usual highs and lows of trying to make it on your own** I figure we’ll just do a quick 2014 list, a bit different to most of the others:

BEST GAME

• Sophie - Nuclear Throne

• Tom - Destiny (Oh god I’m so mainstream)

• Nick - The Last Express or Total Annihilation (old, but who cares…)

• Ashley - Crawl

BISCUIT OF THE YEAR

• Sophie - Jaffa Cake. Technically not a biscuit, but still…

• Tom - Extremely Chocolatey Milk Chocolate Rounds (by M&S)

• Nick - The Chocolate HobbNobbs that have been on sale at the offy all year

• Ashley - Classic Jammy Dodger

FAVOURITE NEW THING THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BEFORE BUT NOW KNOW ABOUT NOW

• Sophie - Nick’s Password Creation System TM

• Tom - Spine by Esoteric Software (animation tool)

• Nick - Temper (MIDI sequencer)

• Ashley - AntTweakBar

THING THAT MADE LIFE BETTER THAT ISN’T A PERSON/PEOPLE

• Sophie - Ball and Tin***

• Tom - Morning coffee

• Nick - The ferry ride to the studio each day

• Ashley - Burrito

THING THAT MADE LIFE WORSE THAT ALSO ISN’T A PERSON/PEOPLE

• Sophie - Ball and Tin

• Tom - Cars being driven by other people

• Nick - Admin. Bureaucracy. Dumb, boring, entropic shit.

• Ashley - First Bus #. 50 bus route.

THING YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR

• Sophie - More nonsense (just generally)

• Tom - More Bibble’s

• Nick - Finishing things

• Ashley - More side-projects AND fewer side-projects. Oh, and GDC.

WEIRDEST FOOD THAT YOU ATE ONE TIME IN THE YEAR OF 2014

• Sophie - Chocolate naan bread

• Tom - Marmalade vodka (especially as I’m allergic to oranges…)

• Nick - Bacon jam, seriously, what the hell America?..****

• Ashley - Brains (actual brains)

WORST THING YOU SAW WITH THOSE SOLEMN EYES OF YOURS

• Sophie - The maggoty human poop I had clean off the office steps

• Tom - The Internet

• Nick - Lots to choose from here, but ignoring The Internet and that poop* for a moment, I caught a few minutes of Michael Buble’s Christmas Special on TV the other night and it gave me acid reflux and diarrhoea**.

• Ashley - Twitter

See you in 2015, when you’ll get your proper present!

Cheers,

- Nick, Ashley, Sophie, Tom

• So that’s where all our money went?..

** We’ll save that for when we go bust

*** A game we play in the studio using table-tennis balls and a biscuit tin. No really, it’s amazing.

**** As some of you know, I’m vegetarian, I was just really curious…

***** It wasn’t me.

** Honestly, it wasn’t.