I’d like to dedicate my first blog to Paul Cornforth who sadly passed away this time last year in a motorcycle accident. He was a valued member and friend at Project Echelon, and is sorely missed every time we play Gears of War.

So, to business.. Having been a gaming community leader for a number of years now, I felt I’d heard and seen most weird and wonderful things that could take me by surprise in a gaming environment. That was until someone asked for advice on running a ‘Clan’… So why did it catch me off guard? Well firstly it was nice to be considered as someone knowledgeable about such things, and secondly it felt really good to be in a position to help someone in a subject I enjoy very much. Thinking back though, it was a challenging start, but a valuable learning curve, and every minute has been worth it.

My intention here is to offer a guide to setting up your own gaming Clan, and I guess this can be adopted by any multi-player gaming system, not just Xbox as is my experience. I expect this write-up to be quite extensive so I’ll be spreading it over a few blog entries so as not to get lynched by the powers that be.

Why die alone when friends can take bullets for you…?

Once upon a time, there was a group of like-minded people…

Okay, so you’ve decided you want to start a gaming group or Clan, either your own idea or shared with a friend(s). This may be inspired by a particular game you play and enjoy online. Of course a gaming group could also be for local area network play as well, like a youth club for example so doesn’t necessarily need to be on-line like Xbox Live. As long as you can have a multi-player aspect to your games, you can form a Clan or club. I used to organise a small gaming group for young carers of families affected by Multiple Sclerosis, and we’d meet every Saturday morning for LAN games in Aliens V Predator and Quake2. Happy days :) What brings a Clan/group together? – essentially a shared interest, circumstances, and usually influenced by some game. Just look at what Halo2 did to inspire Clans!

What’s in a name?

Now you know what you want to do, you’ll need a name to declare your presence. Too often I see folk coming up with the stupidest names because they’re gaming ‘just for a laugh’. That’s all very well and good, but if you intend to function as a Clan and want people to take you seriously (even if you game for social fun rather than world dominance) for goodness sake pick a name that reflects your group, your gaming ethos, your console type, your game influences, etc. Draw inspiration from bands, games, animals, colours, weapons, vehicles, military references, etc. That’s not to say you can’t have a fun and funky name of course as often these are very catchy and funny, but put some thought to it before you’re stuck with it. My own Clan name came about from a variety of influences – some game related, some from work, etc.

That’s all for now, and in part 2 we’ll look at things like Clan Leaders and Recruiting members. Further blogs will cover having an on-line presence like a website or forums, setting rules, and organising matches against other Clans.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a strange game. Not in a “What? Why have they released this?” kind of way, but in the way that everyone who plays it has a slightly different experience.

My girlfriend and I have spent, over the past few days, something close to 9 hours on trains – heading up to Glasgow and Edinburgh for a bit of a holiday. The majority of this time, and several more hours in and amongst, have been spent with one or the other of us playing the game.

Prior to this week, I had spent a few more hours on the game than Carole, and was a few puzzles ahead. As I write this, on the way back down from Edinburgh, my beloved is busily ploughing through the game, solving puzzles like a trooper.

And it’s that element that amazes me. I’m not saying that Carole is thick (especially as she’s wanting to read this when I’ve finished writing it), it’s the fact that we’re solving puzzles in completely different ways. Some puzzles in the game I find incredibly easy to solve, but my other half takes longer to figure out the answers, and vice versa.

Case in point, there’s a puzzle fairly early on called “Parking Lot Gridlock” which asks you to move various parked cars around, both horizontally and vertically, to enable the Layton-mobile to leave the car park. I spent ages on this one. Ages and ages. Ages and ages and ages. And three hint coins. Carole discovers the puzzle during her play through. I think “ho ho, she’ll be on that for a while” and make my way down the train to answer a call of nature. Upon my return, the puzzle is solved and she’s working on the next one and, believe me, I wasn’t gone very long, helped in no small part by an ungodly smell that was not of my making!

Flip it around, puzzle 44 askes you divide a sheet of various denomination stamps into 7 different shaped sections, each totalling $1. This one, for me, was a piece of cake. My petal took a little longer over this one – having to restart the puzzle a few times before the solution presented itself.

Many games boast about, and offer, a unique experience for each player – Oblivion, GTA IV and Mass Effect being obvious examples – but I love the fact that even more “linear” games like Professor Layton provide a different experience for different people.

So, have you and another family member ever played the same game but with a completely different experience, And, if you’ve played Professor Layton – which puzzles have left you scratching your heads the longest?

Something I hate when it comes to gaming merchandise…