Holy crap, Dishonored won a BAFTA for best game in 2012. I think I can safely say that no one on the team was expecting this. Which is why our office went bananas when we heard the presenter Danny Wallace say “Dishonored” into the microphone (we were watching the live stream). I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of the team at Arkane and to have the opportunity to make the kind of games that Arkane makes.

You can watch the acceptance speech by my excellent teammates here: BAFTA 2012 Best Game

In a few weeks I’ll be attending PAX East, which is a first for me so I’m looking forward to that. While I’m there I’ll be on a panel for ‘Narrative Design’ moderated by the amazing Austin Grossman. Should be fun.

Line editing on Jack of Hearts continues in the wee hours of the morning.

I should have made an official announcement a long time ago, but things got a little hectic last year. There was this little game I was working on at the time called Dishonored, and it made thinking about anything else really difficult. But now the game is finished and out, and if you’re a gamer I hope you get a chance to play it. I’m really proud of it and all the work the team at Arkane did. I work with some really incredible people.

So, what I should have mentioned last year is that my first novel, Jack of Hearts, is going to be published. That’s right. Achievement unlocked at last. This is something I’ve been striving toward for a long time. Something I dreamed of as a kid, looking for Tanelorn with Prince Corum, visiting the Silent Planet, and following the Black company among others. It’s been a long grueling road, put off for years at a time, and I couldn’t have gotten here without the support of my amazing wife, a cloud of exceptionally talented and inspiring friends (some of them fellow game developers at Arkane Studios), and extended family. You know who you are and you rock.

Jack of Hearts is coming out in the spring of 2013 and will be published by the wonderful people at Belle Bridge Books. Click here to read more about the book.

I realize that many things which lead to our successes or failures are beyond any one person’s control, and so I feel incredibly blessed and grateful.

One last thing. As you might know if you’ve seen the site before, (or know me) I like to sketch as a I write. So, here’s a quick sketch I did of Jack the other night.

Nathaniel Katz posted a new review of Shock Totem #2 on his blog, The Hat Rack. My story, The Rat Burner appeared in that issue. I enjoy seeing  how people react to something I’ve written. Even if negative, it’s always a chance to learn something new. In this case The Rat Burner is noted as one of the stand out tales, along with the work of Leslianne Wilder (fellow Austinite, I believe), Grá Linnaea and Sarah Dunn.

In other news, I’ve been polishing up several of my stories that take place in Cedar Park. Yep, that’s right–I looked outside my own front door at the benign suburban landscape spreading along the edge of Austin, and tried to see it in a different way. A drain hole at the bottom of reality sort of way, where all the weird-shaped bits get stuck on the grate. Hopefully you’ll be seeing them pop up in a few places soon. More on that in a while.

And in the deep background, the sequel to Jack of Hearts is simmering.

Adios.