Well my brain is numb, so I'm calling it a night for the game. I worked for a good while tonight, fixing some bugs, tweaking some stuff, adding features (like music!), and messed around with it for a while to make sure nothing else bad popped up.

But you heard right, I've added music. I actually think it sounds pretty good, considering it came from me. hehe. I've made two tracks so far, but only added one to the game. The demo will probably only include one anyway, so there's no rush to get any of that added yet.

I'll go ahead and let you know some of the things you get when you buy the game (for just $5, mind you):

- no more nag screens (even though I'll make sure they aren't totally annoying, so that even the demo is still fun)
- all options will be unlocked (certain options/features in the demo will be limited to 15 days or something)
- additional music tracks (the demo will just have one)
- you'll get all future versions free, even if I add a ton of cool features one day and raise the price or something
- some other stuff I haven't thought of yet

I also thought I would make new music tracks over time and let people with the full version download them individually, and they can just dump the ones they don't like and such.

As of right now, a "retail" version won't be ready by the launch date (which is less than 24 hours from now). But that'll give everyone a chance to get the demo and see if they actually want it or not.

So like I said, keep an eye out Sunday, because I'll have the download link(s) up!

posted at 3:09 AM

Just a quick note... the message boards work again! Well, it's a totally different board, but it looks ten times better than the crappy Tripod one did if ya ask me. Go ahead and start posting. You know you wanna.

If you're really lazy, like me, just click here. You have to sign up first, so make sure ya do that, unless you just plan to read stuff. But considering there's nothing there to read yet, you would get bored pretty quick.

So have any comments, suggestions, requests? Or just general banter? Lemme hear it!
posted at 8:05 PM

Well that's real bright of me. I edited the Electris page about a week ago, and then I forgot to upload it afterwards. So all this time the old page has been sitting there, even with the title misspelled. Blah. I'm still accepting beta testers though. Look at the Electris page for info.

And since I've been asked... no, I didn't mean to say "log" last time instead of "blog". A blog is a web log. There's lots of'em out there. I use Blogger. Click their little button down at the bottom of this page to check'em out. I haven't used any other blogging sites, but this is one of the best from what I hear.

I changed the button bar over on the left in case ya hadn't noticed. Despite the obvious addition of a cool background and plasma effect(cut out of the larger image I rendered which I also got the Flash background from), I went from a solid image and cutting out hotspots, to using a layer with seperate buttons inside. This will let me delete/add buttons a hell of a lot easier(since I plan to add more later). I also deactivated the Message Board button for now.

And yeah I know, I'm slacking off about putting up the Artwork link. I just need to dig out all the stuff worth putting up, create thumbnails, create a page, make it look half-decent, upload it all, etc etc, blah blah. I was thinking about the extra bandwidth viewing all those full-size images would take up. It probably wouldn't be all that much, but I might stick the full images on another server. Plus I'd rather not use too much of my disk space on this server.

Anyone have any experience with MIDI hardware? I was trying to make a pc to pc midi "crossover" cable, so I could play stuff on one machine, and record it on another. I don't have anymore joystick connectors though, so I was having to stick wires into the holes on the gameport, which was certainly a pain in my skinny ass. When I realized I would never get them into the other computer because of where it's sitting, I gave up, since I don't even know if it would work. From what I read though, you cross pins 12 and 15, and connect pin 5. Maybe I'll try again sometime when I'm not ready to throw both computers violently through a window.
posted at 2:19 AM

Oh and just for those who noticed... yes, the flash ad at the top is new. I thought the fading in and out was kind of dumb, and also threw in the Electris part while I was at it.
posted at 5:47 PM

Before you start panicking and think you've lost it... yes, all the old news is gone. I've switched to using an actual blog instead of editing my page everytime. This way I just type crap and punch the "Publish" button, and my job is done. Being lazy is fun! Anyways, you can still get to the old news page from the link above. But why would you wanna see that?

Not much else to report on regarding the game. I haven't worked on it as much as I should have, but there isn't a lot left to add, so there's no rush. I'll get it out by Sept. 1st, one way or another. I'm starting to get that programmer's itch... where one project is mostly complete, and I'm wanting to jump into another one. But I'll resist the temptations, and work on my current project until I'm 100% satisfied with it. Which means even after the initial release, count on some updates as I do my usual nitpicking and fix little things nobody would ever notice. I may add new features over time as well. And don't worry, anyone who buys it get free upgrades till the end of time. You'll also get notified by email when a new version comes out if you so choose.

My clipboard is already starting to fill up with pages and plans for my next project, though... Trust me, it's gonna be fun. I'll leak some info on it soon.

Also... I thought I would mention again that the Message Boards still don't work at the moment. I'm currently looking for another one that's worth using other than Tripod. So for the time being, just email me or something. I'll let you know when I have the new board up. I think I found one, it's only a matter of editing a bunch of settings to make it work.

I watched Lord of the Rings the other day. And again last night. It definately helps to watch that movie a second time. Not because it's just a good movie in general, but because there's some things that I didn't catch the first time through. I turned on closed captioning the second time, which helped me understand some of the stuff they said, especially when they were mumbling around. I also used headphones the second time, which helped. The first time I just used surround sound, which is definately fun during the action scenes. Not necessarily fun for other people living in the house though. ;)

posted at 3:28 PM