Welcome to the new office, baby! (cue the Guns n Roses)

Last Friday, we began the epic migration of 20-some developers and their nerd paraphernalia from one side of the street to another. Yep, we literally moved about half a block, but it took the better part of the weekend to ensure everything made it and would be up and running (mostly) by Monday.

Turning on the coffeemaker Monday morning in our new space was a singularly splendid feeling: home. Le sigh!

So why the move, why the past months of picking out carpet patterns and paint chips? Easy answer is we had to move – we were in a sublet and our time was up. The more important answer is that long-term, the space we were in was great for an unknown clutch of 17, but at 25 or so folks here now at Runic, we were literally bursting at the seams and were practically going to have to put desks in the hallway.

In our new location, not only do we have the space we need, but we also have a long-term lease, a conference room that will actually fit the art team, a game and media room (try getting away with not having this room at any other developer!) and most stupendously, a dishwasher. Do you hear angels singing? Yes, yes you do.

So naturally, we had a bit of a celebration with some microbrews, friends, dogs (not hot ones, furry ones) and a colorful cake. Don’t worry though, we put in a full day first, enabling us to bring Torchlight to Mac Steam at launch. Huzzah!

We want to thank YOU for helping us get to where we are! Here are some photos of the new office, taken by our good friend Denise Sakaki (many thanks, Denise, you rock!)

We made this official on a very special episode of “New office move-in day,” putting the finishing touches on the press release as boxes were still being unpacked.

So, yes! It’s official! We can finally say, it’s here! Torchlight for Mac will first launch on Mac Steam at its inauguration Wednesday, May 12. Upcoming, the Mac version will be available in DRM-free box form as well. Huzzah! And yes, if you already bought Torchlight for PC on Steam, you will not be required to re-buy Torchlight for Mac. Double huzzah!

As a special bonus to everyone who has already purchased Torchlight directly from either Runic Games or Perfect World ( as of about 3 PM PST yesterday ) – your unlock key will now ALSO unlock the game on Steam, granting you access to both the PC and Mac versions there. Any individuals purchasing from either Runic Games or Perfect World between now and next Wednesday, the 19th of May at noon ( PST ) will have their keys activated on Steam as well. ( The process will not be immediate, but on the 19th we will submit those keys to Valve ).

This has been a really interesting process that turned out to be much trickier than we’d first expected, and we can’t thank you enough for your patience. We’ve wanted a Mac version of Torchlight from day 1, so this moment is fantastic. You guys seem to be as excited as we are, which is awesome!

Enjoy hack n slashing,

Runic Games. Now on Mac.

Rats. Wonder finally got around to hounding me for one of these ‘Meet the Team’ bios.

I’m Brock Jones and I’m a producer/gap-filler here at Runic. My history is pretty similar to several of the other folks here at Runic. After graduating college with a degree in philosophy I decided to pursue the logical career choice and get into games. I’ve been working on games for 10 years now and Runic is hands-down the most fun I’ve had. I cut my teeth in ‘the biz’ as an engineer coding casual games that you’ve almost certainly never heard of. If you have heard of them, I would probably be too embarrassed to admit to your face that I made them. As a producer at Runic I still do some coding from time-to-time, but most of my time is spent being an IT guy and jack-of-all-trades; doing a lot of the little things that just have to get done for everybody else to be able to work. I set up and maintain our network, source control, bug tracking, email, and automated build systems. I’ve recorded and edited minor sounds and voice-over, generated a lot of in-game traps, and scripted installers. I have created advanced carpet tile simulators, hunted for furniture, and am currently considering building a totally wicked conference table for our new office.

In my spare time, I roast my own coffee, brew my own beer, lift weights in my garage, walk my dog in the park, play D&D (well – Pathfinder lately) with my crew, go backpacking, lay flooring, stream Netflix movies, and find quirky games to play on XBLA. To quote Robert Heinlein: “Specialization is for insects.”