A flat on Millennium Drive…

This week, Arivind Abraham and Samantha Tan moved out of their flat in London.  Arivind, who I work closely with on a whole bunch of Chaos Created projects (recently Timedancer and Zombies Ate My City) is off to LA for three months whilst Sam is heading off to New York for three years (She got into the Actors Studio Drama School there).

Not only will I (obviously) be sad to see them go (as well as colleagues, they’re two of my closest friends), but I’ll also miss their flat.  Wait, what?

I’ll miss the random house parties (the helicopters, the bottle-cap games, the iPod drink coasters, the FOOD), Sam’s cooking (drool) and kicking (moderate) ass in some sort of drunken state on Guitar Hero (except on drums…  I suck on drums).

More than that, I’ve always had this feeling when I’ve woken up there that we’re achieving something incredible.  There’s been something amazing and motivating about waking up to that view (above photo) on a day full of potential.

We’ve watched the final edits of two of our feature films there, we screened 5:13 to a group of friends (and Daniel Dae Kim), we conceived projects there, we shot cast photos, we filmed Timedancer…  We pulled all-nighters finishing a beta build before Comic Con, we coded, we wrote, we blogged and we tweeted.  We built prototypes of games we never released and we thought up crazy ideas that we’re working on to this day.  We had meetings, struck deals, brainstormed and ate pizza.  We built sets in warehouses and crashed there for two hours sleep before a weekend of filming.  I’ll miss the sofa, the floor and the sense of achievement that comes with ideas, all-nighters and good friends.  That flat has been the place where projects were thought up, built then shown off.

That place has been “our base” as we’ve done our stuff but now these guys are off on their next big adventure and they’ll be more than fine.  I’ll barely get the chance to miss them as we’ll still be collaborating on all sorts of crazy stuff, probably more so, but it’ll be a while until we’re all in the same room again and that makes me a little sad, but what happens next is more exciting than the stuff that’s happened before and if two people deserve success in their professions, it’s Sam and Arivind.

Anyway, the views in New York and LA are just as impressive.  Have a couch ready for me.  And some strong coffee.