dwlt.net

About David Thomson

I'm what you might call a miscellaneist (a word I'm fairly certain I coined) - that is, I've turned my hand to a few different things:

Programmer I have a degree in Computer Science, and my first job was as a programmer, where I worked on projects for Schindler Elevator and RBS. I also wrote a computer game while at university that was well received.

Most of my programming these days is on the web side of things, such as this site, Joyboost and Bookweave. I also wrote a mobile games shop/portal a few years ago, that included purchasing direct from phones itself.
Entrepreneur Currently, I'm VP of Slam (since 2005), an independent game developer and publisher headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland. Half of that role is business development and strategy, and the other half is game design.

Prior to that, I was CEO and co-founder (1999-2004) of one of Europe's first mobile games developers, called The Games Kitchen. Our clients there included Disney, Sega and Panasonic.
Screenwriter My most recent diversion, I'm only just getting going in this arena. My first screenplay (a 3-minute short) was shortlisted in competition, which I was obviously pleased about. I'm not (yet) on IMDB. In addition, I've co-written stories for a few games.
Writer I've had articles published in Linux Journal (on game design) and OnJava.com (on a programming tool, Ant). I've been a reviewer for UML Pocket Reference and Citizen Marketers. Obviously, I also write this blog.
Game Designer I've been involved in over 60 games projects, usually working with a colleague on the design. I've worked on a range of genres: action, virtual pet, card, puzzle, time management and sports. I've spent time investigating the fundamentals of design, coining a potential grammar of game design (which is patent pending!), and am currently investigating a pattern language of game design.
Adviser Currently, I'm an adviser to Dynamo Games (on strategy), an award-winning mobile games developer, and to PeopleMaps (on technology and strategy), an online personality profiling company.

In the past, I've also worked with Scottish Enterprise (Scotland's economic development agency) and ScotlandIS (the trade body for software, telecoms and IT in Scotland).

In addition to the above, I also give the occasional presentation to classes at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurialism and take part in panels at events such as Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The Site

The site is built on my own custom blog software, developed with Ruby on Rails. I used to run MovableType, which I did like, but there were a few custom things that I wanted to do with the site and I don't know Perl, so I decided to roll my own. Much of the custom stuff is behind the scenes, but there are a couple of things I want to add in the near future. The site is hosted at Site5.

The cute little icons are from the famfamfam silk collection. Spam protection is provided by Akismet.

Latest Book Reviews

Elsewhere

  • Bookweave. Explore the connections between books.
  • Joyboost. Lots of great games for Windows and to play online!
  • Tapestry. Most Web Comics Now Have RSS Feeds As Standard!

Copyright © 1976-2008 David Thomson. Some rights reserved. Incorrigible punster. Do not incorrige.