Before I get into some development news and updates, let’s go over some stats:

• This site is over 2 years old. Time really flies sometimes. I remember when I bought this domain off a whim after I sold ForTheLose.org (now dead, sadly).
• This is the 100th post. Figuring that the site has been live for roughly 790 days (since the first post), I have a post-per-day ratio of 0.12. (LO!L!)
• As of this writing, there have been 566 comments, averaging 5.7 comments per post.
• 12,859 – the amount of spam comments blocked.
• 4 – the number of games released (not counting Defective, Trophiends, and the current work-in-progress untitled platformer, obviously).
• 105,947 – the number of views.
• 100 – the average number of views per day.

Pretty cool stuff, right?  Right.

Enough nonsense…

Alright, anyway, as for what I’ve been doing the past week or two.  Well, college started back up the other week.  As a result, I’ve really just been getting myself situated with my new schedule.  Any free time has been devoted to not doing anything related to game work.  It sucks, and I’ll be snapping out of it as time goes by.

However, that doesn’t mean I’m not doing anything.  In some rare occasions, I open up FlashDevelop and continue work on the basic core of the game – collision detection.

For this platformer, I will be mainly utilizing the separating axis theorem, something I’ve always wanted to implement myself for quite a while now.

Well, as of tonight (it’s night right now) I can happily say I have it pretty much nailed down, check it out here.

Through some sprites over them polygons and you got yourself an award-winning game right there.

Well, not exactly, but still.

Anyway, I just want to give a shout out to some great articles and explanations on the web that really helped me get this SAT thing nailed down.

1. 2D Polygon Collision
2. Separation of Axis Theorem for Collision Detection
3. Collision Detection and Response

Definitely wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without those three pages.  Great stuff.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  It’s 11PM – Battlefield 3 time.

Game Updates

Trophiends has gotten some promising reviews / stats from the few “First Impression” players over at FlashGameLicense.com, so I’m really happy about that.  I’ve learned of a few areas of the game that can be improved, so I plan on doing some work on that tonight and possibly 100% completing the game.  (All that’s left to do besides those minor tweaks is to build 5 bonus levels, of which I already have a few ideas.)

If I don’t finish up tonight however, it’s not a big deal, I’ll finish it up tomorrow.  I’ll still be on schedule because I don’t plan on uploading the game for sponsorship until Wednesday morning Sunday morning.  I’ll also begin promoting Defective and focusing on getting that sold on Wednesday Sunday / Monday as well, so expect two games of mine to be released nearly simultaneously, probably in February.

The Holidays…

So Christmas came and went.  It was a fun weekend with the family, and the gifts weren’t too shabby either.  If any of you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably be aware that I’ve been planning on building a computer for Christmas.  I spent the Christmas shopping season scouting on deals on all of the parts, and after receiving the monitor as a Christmas gift from my parents, I put the thing together on December 26th.

I ran into a few minor issues along the way, all of which only slowed me down. The first being that I plugged the monitor DVI cable into the wrong slot onto the PC when I first booted it up to see if it worked.  As a result, the computer turned on and looked to be working, but the monitor showed “No Signal.”  That was quickly resolved, however.

I then learned that I would need to buy a new copy of Windows 7, as I apparently can’t resuse the one I bought with a student discount back in 2009.

After installing Windows, I then realized I completely forgot about a wireless card.  Another two days of waiting while it shipped and the build was finally completed.  (Well, not completely.  I want to overclock the CPU but because a rear fan isn’t working I have to wait on that to arrive on Monday.)

Here are a few pictures of my battlestation.

And for those interested, here is the part list.

So yeah, as you can tell, I’m pretty excited.  I tried out Battlefield 3 and it runs super smooth at 1920 x 1080 at all High settings.  Even Ultra runs completely smooth (and looks amazing) except when there are a lot of explosions or something similar.

So that’s that.  I plan on getting to work on my next game project sometime this week.  I’ve been planning it for weeks now and can’t wait to see it take shape.  More news on that in the future, of course.

Alright, happy 2012!

Alright, I’m going to try to sum up my past 4 weeks in as little words as I can, mostly because I really feel like going to lay back down again.

On May 25th, I was lucky enough to go down to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City to have my back torn open and my spine slapped around a little.  Why?  Well, really-long-story-short, mainly due to chronic back pain due to the way my spine had grown and positioned itself.  The pain had started roughly 5 years ago and as a result sitting, standing, or walking for too long of a period really took a toll on me.

The surgery itself lasted about 7 to 8 hours and resulted in some spinal fusion and two metal rods being placed inside of me.  I was in the hospital from Wednesday (the 25th) to Monday afternoon (May 30th).  I proceeded to spend the next week practically glued to my bed, in a good amount of pain and discomfort.

Let’s fast-forward to today, now.  The back pain from the surgery is okay, nothing too bad.  I have a pretty long scar from the bottom of my neck down to my lower back which looks pretty damn awesome.  However, I’m still nowhere near being able to get back to my normal routine.

Sitting or standing is really rough, which is why I’m still spending the majority of my day lying down in my bed and not at the computer.  It’s not only because of the back pain, though.  A side effect of this surgery is that my stomach (and practically my whole digestive system) hates me.  I don’t want to go into detail, but lets just say I’m having loads of trouble evacuating, if you catch my drift.  That and I go about my days feeling bloated and all around miserable.

I think I’ll stop here, there’s not much more to say.  I’m looking forward to when I feel good enough to sit at my desk for longer than 20 minutes without having to then hobble over to my bed and lay down to recuperate, but who knows how long until then.  The doctor has told me that in 6 months I should be back to normal.  The next check-up appointment I have with him is in 2 months, where I’m sure he’ll prescribe some physical therapy for me.

I know you’re all jealous.  Sucks to be you.

PS – I actually have dabbled with Defective a bit, a little bit here and a little bit there.  I was able to create a basic particle system which looks really nice.  I’ve also done lots of planning on my notebook since I spend all day doing nothing.  I’m really excited about this game.

PPS – I plan on uploading Don’t Panic to NewGrounds tomorrow.  I’ve waited long enough for anyone to get back to me about adding Medals to the game, so screw it.  Get ready to vote 5!

Alright.  Two major pieces of information – one good news and one bad news.  Let’s start with the good news because WHY NOT.

Good News

Alright, so I know I’ve been babbling about this game for what seems like roughly five and a half years, but Don’t Panic will be released this week.

As it stands, the game is 99.99% complete, I just need a unique key code from the sponsor and once I put it in the game, it’s completed and ready for uploading.  Now don’t go ape shit if I’m wrong, but I would say look for the game on Monday or Tuesday.  Either way, I’ll of course make a post / tweet about it once it’s released.

I think I actually can tell you who the sponsor is at this point, but why spoil it?  (As if it’s something to spoil.)

Bad News

You know that other game that I’ve been babbling about, Hero Dude?  Well, I hate to say it, but I’m scrapping it.  (Yes, for the second time.)

I definitely have the story / basic gameplay idea – it’s solid and ready to go.  However, after all of this time working on the game, in hindsight, it’s just not what I was imagining.  It was definitely being gone about the wrong way.  I don’t know what to do from here other than just scrap the whole project and hope to resume it at some point.

I figured I’d upload what I had, which isn’t anything major.  But if you want, take a look.  Just click the window (to give it focus) and use the arrow keys to look around.

In the Meantime…

So yeah, that’s that.  What am I going to do in the meantime?  Well, I actually don’t know.

Probably just chill.

Eh, probably not.  I can’t do that.  I think I’m physically unable to.  If I’m not doing something I feel like a lazy pile of fecal matter.  So to remedy this, what I’ll probably end up doing is all or some of the following:

1. Work on a small animation idea I have.
2. Finally get around to learning how to make stuff in Blender.
3. Learn and play around with Java.  (Intend to eventually get as comfortable with it as I am with AS3.)
4. Develop a small game, nothing big, maybe a month-long project.

I just want to basically not have to worry about anything too much until the end of this semester of college (roughly May 20th).  Once that’s over, I have a few personal things to attend to and then I’ll be back in “action.”  At that point, I may take up Hero Dude again or maybe even something new.

Holy damn, that is one giant wall of text.  Let’s just end it with a picture.

Quick Note

I just wanted to make a quick note about the site design.  I slightly changed some things around a little, nothing too drastic.  Just a new header and background along with Twitter and Flickr widgets on the top of the page and the sidebar.  Decided to freshen the site up a little for 2011

Alright, that’s it.  Back to work for me…

Me at work.

PS – I scheduled a new post for tomorrow.  Something actually worthwhile to read, so don’t forget to check back.

You guy’s are looking good, how’s life been treating you?  Apparently, I still own this website – who would’ve figured?

I honestly cannot believe a month has passed since I last made a post here.  Time really has flew right by.

I don’t have to tell you that I never finished that Madness Animation for Madness Day, which was a few days ago.  I’m really bummed about it too, it definitely had potential.  Well, has, potential, I’m not deleting it or anything, I’d really like to finish it some day, preferably for next year’s Madness Day.

Anyway, college started up for me on August 30th, just a few days after my last post and ever since I’ve had little time to myself to work on personal projects.  Whenever I get free time I either (1) watch TV or (2) feel guilty for not working on something and thus procrastinate by watching TV.  Yeah… It’s an endless cycle.

I’m going to be working on changing that.  I’ve felt extremely shitty lately because of how unproductive I’ve been.  Time for a change.

Actually, for the past week I’ve actually been just playing around in Flash, working on getting certain algorithms to work so I can implement them in future games.

So that’s it for now.  It’s time to shift it into MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE!

It’s family vacation time.  Me and the rest of my family will be heading down to Wildwood, NJ for a 5 day vacation starting tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 4:30am.

Just figured I’d let you guys know so you will understand the unusual break in the relentless and consistent daily posts on this site.  (HAHAHAHAHAA!!1).

So yeah, that’s all from me.  See you guys next week!  Well, I’ll type some words and you’ll read them, we won’t necessarily see each other.

Pic related: It’s what will happen to me at the giant slide at Morey’s Piers, most likely.

ForTheLoss.org has a new design.  If you’re not seeing it, that must mean you’re a regular visitor, holy crap, thanks!  It also means you have to clear your cache.

It was a spur of the moment decision.  I wanted to give this site a definite “look” and develop some sort of brandable logo for it that I can put into my games.

• On Friday night I decided I would develop one more WordPress theme – one for this site.
• On Saturday I designed the whole layout in Photoshop.
• On Sunday I coded it.
• On Monday I WordPressified and launched it.

Fascinating, I know.

Also, I know this isn’t one of my best themes.  I really don’t care so Paul you can go suck a long one.

I wanted to give off a retro arcade pixel-y sort of look and I think I stayed kinda stayed true to that theme.  Again, whatever.  It’s not like this is a web design blog, am I right?  HA HA.

Quick Game Stuff

Well that’s it.  This is all I’ve doing for the past few days.  Tomorrow I’ll resume work on Hero Dude.

Also, regarding Weapons on Wheels, I accepted a bid on FlashGameLicense.com last night.  Once the sponsor and I exchange some words, I’ll finally be able to release that game.  Gonna be so cash.

PS – If you see any bugs in the theme, tell me.  I didn’t even bother testing it in other browsers or Operating Systems.  It’s not like I was going to release this theme for the public, so yeah.

But still, that’s a good thing, no?

Once it’s done the next thing on my list is to get a sponsor, then the game will be released.  How long that will take I couldn’t tell you.

Anyway, let’s get on to some news.

Yep, that was a big milestone in the process of making the game.  The levels each took at least an hour each to make.  In total there are 12, so, let’s see.  Hmm…  So it took at least 12 hours of work just to make the levels.  LOL MATH.

Making them was only half the battle too, once they were made (in Photoshop) I still had to “import” them into the game.  (Create the walls, the “dirt”, the checkpoints, etc, etc… in Flash.)  It really was a monotonous and long process.

New Site Design

In case you’re hard of seeing, I put up a new design on the site.  I was pretty happy when I found this theme.  Usually when I see a nice theme there’s usually a price tag on it.  The header and background image were all me though (NO WAY RALPH, REALLY?!).

PS-Ever since I updated the ShadowBox plugin for WordPress, the crap doesn’t work anymore, as is usually the case whenever you update a plugin, which is why I tend to never do it.  So excuse any bugs in viewing .SWF’s or images.

Flash CS5

I want it.  Same with Photoshop CS5.  I think they’re available for purchase as of 2 days ago, but you can’t actually get them for a month or so.  I think, could be wrong about this.  Either way, I want them both.  If I get a decent sponsorship for this game I’ll gladly invest the money into getting them (at the education discount, of course ).

Apple

Can suck a bag of dicks.

Steve Jobs

Can choke on a bag of dicks.

Why all the hate for Apple all of a sudden?  Because of this shit Jobs pulled just a day before the CS5 Suite became available saying that that they will not allow apps made with Flash CS5′s new Flash-to-iPhone export feature into their app store.

It’s one thing that they disallow apps made in Flash (or any other platform other than what Apple specifies), but to do it a day before Flash CS5 is ready for purchase, that’s just a real scumbag move.  The Flash-to-iPhone export feature was one of the most-hyped-about features in all of the Adobe CS5 Suite and Apple just basically shoved a giant middle finger right up Adobe’s ass.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say about all of that.  I’ll have an update once the game is completed.  Hopefully some time this weekend.

1) I am aware that the more common translation of the acronym “FTL” is for the loss rather than for the lose.  Personally, I always preferred for the lose*, hence why I named my other site ForTheLose.org.  When trying to come up with a name for my new site (this one), I decided to “keep it in the family” and go with ForTheLoss.org.  (It just so happens that the .org of both of these domain names were the only ones available at the time of purchase, cool right?)

2) I know I haven’t updated ForTheLose.org in a while (other than to tell you about my new site here) and quite frankly it’s because I’ve lost interest in WordPress and web design in general at the moment.  I probably feel this way because I’ve been doing it for too long now, I need a break.  It’s probably temporary, anyway, if history is any guide.  (You’ll get what I mean if you take a glance at the about page.)  I’ll never let that site completely die, so I expect to revive it one way or another in the future.

Yeah, yeah, so what’s ForTheLoss.org?

While ForTheLose.org is my site about WordPress and web design, ForTheLoss.org is my site about my Flash projects – whether it be updates on a new animation I’m working on or a few words about the latest developments on a new game I’m working on.  A few things to note:

1) I am currently working on a new game.  It’s my first real go at using Actionscript to make a game (nevermind the fact that it’s the first time I’ve ever touched Actionscript 3).  I’m not going to give any information about the game in this post other than that I’ve been working on it for 2 weeks now and it’s coming along nicely.  Updates to come soon.

2) The posts and posting schedule on this blog will be alot more laid back than they were on ForTheLose.org.  Don’t expect long, thorough posts about topics I had to research.  Instead, expect posts to contain screenshots, discussions, and updates about my projects with the occasional post about some general animation news or a link to a great Flash creation I’ve come across.

3) I will be making no promises to update this blog daily.  That doesn’t mean I’ll never post, though.  Again, I want this to be more fun than work for me.  Expect an average of 3 posts a week.  Some weeks they’ll be more, some may have less.

To you, the reader

What would you like to see on this blog?  Do you know of any other sites out there that are similar to this?  Any features you’ve seen out there that you’d like to see implemented here?  What did you eat for breakfast today?  Did it taste good?  I personally had a bagel.  It was pretty good.  Then, for lunch, I-…  Alright I’m done.

Anyway, here’s the beginning of what I hope to one day to be another successful blog!

Oh, and if you want to stay updated and help support the blog, go ahead and be one of the first to subscribe to the RSS feed.  Thanks.

* – Since FTW stands for “for the win”, it’s natural FTL stands for “for the lose”.  Win and lose are opposites, while the opposite of loss would be gain.  And since it’s “for the win” and not “for the gain”, FTL must stand for “for the lose”.  You just got learned.