ChapHat – Ciaran Laval

January 30, 2015January 30, 2015

Rod Humble’s Chaphat Reveal Details Behind Cult & Daggers Game

I’ve talked about Rod Humble’s Chaphat more than once, most recently a week before Christmas when I noted that their game, Cults & Daggers was scheduled for a January release.

As January comes to a close, official news about Cults & Daggers has started to be unveiled. A press release on Steam has appeared :

As the Old Gods plot to destroy a planet they can no longer rule, you are tasked with creating your own religious faith to fight a secret war for the soul of the world. Recruit loyal disciples throughout the Mediterranean in order to spread your faith by preaching to the masses and converting noble families. Along the way, you’ll have to deal with spies, assassinations, martyrs, occult forces, prophets and blasphemers, all while battling the Old Gods and other rising cults for the hearts and minds of the world.

The press release also includes a quote from Rodvik himself :

“With Cults & Daggers, I sought to explore beyond the traditional strategy game model of ‘build and fight’, and offer up a more cerebral experience,” said Humble, CEO of Chaphat. “At the same time, I wanted players to challenge themselves by navigating the chaotic web created by corruption, religious avarice and betrayal as rival factions vie for power.”

Rod Humble’s name still carries quite a lot of weight in the gaming community and this can be seen via some articles that have appeared about the game.

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December 18, 2014

Former Lindens Making The News, Games, Music & Art

Some former Lindens are making the news or quietly making moves in certain areas. Hamlet Au over at New World Notes reported : Cory Ondrejka Leaving Facebook to Launch New Company: Second Life Co-Creator Helped Drive Oculus Acquisition. Cory, who was once Linden Lab CTO and played an extremely important role in the evolution of Second Life. Cory, whilst praising Mark Zuckerberg as his best ever boss is also quoted as saying :

December 22nd will be my last day at Facebook. From high-performance javascript through mobile to virtual reality, I could never have predicted a journey quite like this one. I will miss working with everyone, but I am excited about building my next company from scratch.

We’ll come back to that quote later because it’s not an easy step to make. Meanwhile, VentureBeat reports : Metric Insights’ $2M funding reflects the feisty nature of the business analytics market. Metric Insights are, as the title of the linked article suggests, in the business of business analytics. The founder of Metric Insights is not a name I’m familiar with, his name is Marius Moscovici. However the article provides the link to Linden Lab :

Moscovici originally got the startup going in 2010 after he had been frustrated by the lack of extensive and consistent usage of analytics tools at Second Life developer Linden Lab, where he was head of the company’s data warehousing and real-time-analytics group. Previously he had run a business-intelligence consulting company.

I’m not sure if Marius was ever a Linden we’d know from inworld. Maybe someone else knows. However rather interestingly the article also suggests that Philip Rosedale participated in the funding.

Meanwhile, the Fort Mills Times Informs us : Tom Hale and Larry Kutscher Join ReachLocal Board of Directors. ReachLocal are a company who specialise in online marketing for local business. Tom Hale is currently the chief product of officer of HomeAway, a company who specialise in vacation rentals such as Beach Houses and cabins. Tom Hale was Linden Lab’s Chief Product officer between September 2008 and some time in 2010.

Then, a more quiet development that involves a certain Rod Humble, former CEO of Linden Lab.

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June 2, 2014

Has Rod Humble Gone Techno?

When Rod Humble left Linden Lab he did so with a statement on Facebook that said in part :

I am starting up a company to make Art, Entertainment, and unusual things! More on that in a few weeks.

Since then, many many weeks later, we haven’t heard a lot. Puzzled by this I decided to do some investigating but could only really find links to articles about Rod Humble leaving Linden Lab. I had heard a whisper that I should be looking for a chap in a hat, but that really didn’t take me far. I did find one or two odd links, links that left one saying “No, that can’t be him.”

I was about to call for assistance, I was halfway through writing a telegram to Inara Holmes when a certain odd link cried out to me :

Can I pimp my own stuff? I just released a techno / EDM album on iTunes & Amazon, woot!

My bands name is Chaphat and my Album is Outsurge.

This leads to an album on iTunes called Outsurge by a band called ChapHat.

Now you may be wondering what on earth stood out about that link, well it was the user who posted it, a certain Rod Humble, AKA Rodvik, from the San Francisco Bay area who also happens to be a fan of Aston Villa. Coincidence? Identity Theft? Neither can be ruled out, but there’s more.

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