About Me

Hello world :P, my name's Dan Hill, I'm 20 years old, and am currently doing a game programming (development) course at UClan. I used to live in Carlisle, but am now living in Trinity Hall's of Residence, Preston.

I try to keep myself amused by surfing the tinterweb and programming random thing's in C++ with Allegro, I'm currently trying to make an RPG and a scrolling shooter game, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting the collision detection to work in the shooter, and the RPG was one of the first game's I ever tried to make so that could do with being re-coded entirely, assuming I go back to finish it at all. I also enjoy doing graphics for games/fun, I like to use the programs GIMP a program which is very similar to photoshop for those who don't know and Blender, which is a 3D modelling program.

I also play load's of guitar and used to play in two band's until I moved, one was a Thrash band, the other was a rhythm and blues band where I played bass rather than the usual guitar. I currently own three guitars, one is an Ibanez RG42 with a floyd rose tremelo, which I keep in standard tuning, another is a Jackson DKMG which I use drop tuned, generally in D standard, but sometimes C, and my other guitar is a slimline Ibanez classical, a really nice guitar in my opinion. As far as what I play on electric in my spare time I play Mettalica (BEFORE LOAD!!) Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Dream Theatre, and every now and then some Pantera. I also play classical guitar, stuff like Bach and Francisco Tarrega, I just do this as a relaxing thing and to keep my guitar playing from getting rusty.

As far as the games I like, I like a hell of a lot really, I'm into retro games and more modern one's. I've always played the Battlefield series right from 1942 up to Battlefield 2, I also like Gears of War (controversial choice I know). I like space exploration games a lot too, and really wish someone would make some decent next gen one's, but my favourite retro ones are Frontier Elite, I especially like the new OpenGL remake Oolite, and my other favourite space themed game is probably Star Control II ( the Spathiwa are hilarious ;) ) . I also like some online browser based games, I was addicted to a site called Funkypool at one point, which is just an online pool game, and blockles, which is a multi-player version of tetris, with what's called "items" which you use to add or take lines from you or an opponent, on a site called Iminlikewithyou.com (a wierd name I know).

So that's pretty much all I can think of right now, I'll keep this blog updated as and when I think of something else to put on it, or am bored ;)