The timing couldn't have been any better; just as I was struggling to figure out why some new Google ad code wasn't loading up properly from our ad server (it works now), Bob approached my desk with a box from Google. I opened the box and observed a little leather pouch (like something you would carry business cards in), so my first impression was, "Oh cute, they gave me a little leather pouch... That's a step above just sending a card." But there was more...

Inside the leather pouch was something the size of a credit card, but the thickness of a piece of cardboard. A note read, "Ultra thin 2.0 USB flash memory drive with 2GB of storage." Sure enough, a piece at the end of the card flips out as a USB plug! I've never seen one so thin before. I took a picture but I can't find the USB cable for my camera to put the pics on my computer... If only my camera had a jack to plug this card into.

The box also had a traditional holiday card containing a gift card for DonorsChoose.org, where one can choose individual school projects to donate money too! This is MUCH cooler than those "we've made a donation on your behalf" gifts, where you don't know for sure if they really DID make the donation. I loaded up the site, found a school in Philly that was trying to upgrade their computers, and donated the money myself. I was surprised to find I had $100 on the gift card!

In case anyone wonders what a Google holiday card says, I figured I might as well include that too:

"Thank you for your partnership with Google this year. To show our appreciation, Google would like to support a public school classroom of your choosing through DonorsChoose.org.

DonorsChoose.org is a non-profit organization where you can choose a classroom project to bring to life - a reading corner, a field trip, a computer lab, or whatever most inspires you.

When you redeem the enclosed gift code, you will give books, art supplies, technology, or other resources to students in low-income communities.

Thank you for taking the time to help us give back."

Those Google folks have a lot of class.

I just updated Wasted Sky to Flash 6 to test out some AS1 ad code. The original version was made in Flash 4, back when Flash had laggy keyboard input, hence the mouse controls.

After converting to Flash 6, the game stopped advancing past the com screen discussion (right before the astroid belt). It's at this point where the game does a loop to make sure there are no more enemies on the screen. The old Flash 4 code was converted to read:

if (Number(/enemy2_a/:go) == Number(false)) {

I changed it to:

if (!/enemy2_a/:go) {

and that fixed everything. My next observation was THIS GAME IS FUCKING HARD. It was a lot easier back when I had just created all the boss patterns and knew them by heart. I decided to double the player health, which makes the game a lot easier, but still pretty rough in spots. Hopefully now more people will play it all the way to the end.

The sad thing is, I never finished level 3 - which featured insane burning city parallax that scrolled with added vertical parallax as you moved up and down on the screen.

I decided to leave in the broken high score submission form, just to remind myself that we need to get back on track with the high score system we scrapped years ago. It was never fully hacker proof back then, but we're ready to give it another go one of these days.

Wasted Sky is a fun little reminder of how ahead of its time NG was back in the day... It was the late 90s and we had an intense side scroller shooter in Flash (the first, to my knowledge), with ship designs by the community and a web-based high score table.

Can everyone beat it now?

Game development is full of all sorts of little roadblocks that make life hell. Some things I enjoy figuring out, but others I would rather not think about at all. Such as save data and on-line multi-player.

In Castle Crashers, we have four selectable characters. As you play the game, you level up and distribute skill points to upgrade your character. This led to our first question: Are the saved character stats attributed to your specific knight (for instance, the blue knight), or for you as a player (your Xbox360 account)? If the stats were based on your Xbox360 Live account, you would be able to play as any character and always have the same stats. You could beat the game as the blue knight, then play as the orange knight and be just as powerful as you had become in your previous session.

This seemed lame, because it removes the incentive of re-playing the game as different characters. Assuming we have unlockable characters, it would be equally lame for them to be fully powered up when you unlock them. So it seems logical that every character in the game should have his own unique level stats, which are saved independently, under your Xbox360 account. So when I log in as "Newgrounds" and play as the blue knight, his stats are unique from when I play as the orange knight.

Now here's where the first problem arises. Say you join a match of on-line multi-player. The players join up BEFORE they select their characters, to preserve that arcade feel of everyone going to the player select screen together. Lets say you have spent all your time advancing the blue knight, but as soon as you start an on-line game, someone else chooses the blue knight. You are now stuck with choosing a character you haven't developed. Either that, or we allow multiple players to play as the same color, but that would be chaos.

An alternative would be to let players choose their character in advance, then match-make based on that - but it would limit the pool of player matches and be annoying for other reasons I don't feel like getting into. We don't want to go that route. The positive side is, it encourages players to build up all their characters and spend more time playing on-line to do so.

So now we have four players who have joined up and entered the game. Player one has unlocked everything up to the last level, but player two has never played before and hasn't unlocked anything. This is a hotly debated topic. Do we allow a new player to jump straight to the end and have the entire game spoiled, or do we force the seasoned players to replay through the game from start to finish, to humor the new guy? Will a new player even be able to survive in the later levels? That's a matter of just how wide the gap becomes between a new player and a fully developed character - something that is still wide open to adjustment.

I had been leaning towards not allowing new players to skip ahead with seasoned players. My thought was, seasoned players would enjoy replaying through earlier levels, whereas the experience of the game would be cheapened if new players skipped ahead. However, Mike just sent me this article from Game Developer magazine. I am already in agreement with much of it, such as, "Games are not for game designers and their ivory-tower ideals - games are for players."

The article eventually tackles the issue of multi-player saves, where it explains, "Even if the friend is new to the game, they're still allowed to join someone who's playing the last level, because Gears of War is trying to be as convenient to the player as possible." This statement alone makes me shudder at the thought of NOT being convenient to the player. If it's good enough for Gears, it's good enough for Castle Crashers. So here is what we are looking at:

1) Under your Xbox360 user profile, you have independent stats for every playable character in the game. These stats include character attributes, unlocked levels, weapons and items.

OPEN TO DEBATE: Should unlocked levels be global to your Xbox360 user profile? So for example, if you beat the game with the blue knight, can you start the game as an undeveloped orange knight and still have all the levels unlocked? Ditto for weapons... Can your orange knight use the weapons acquired by your blue knight? Currently, you can't. I kinda think weapons should be shared between all players under your Xbox360 Live account, so you can get more joy from unlocking them. Maybe the same for special items.

2) When accompanied by other players, both local and on Live Arcade, any levels unlocked by any of the players are available to all the players. The same goes for weapons and special items, as the players equip these items in communal spaces.

NOTE: In a multi-player game, where a local friend is logged in as a GUEST, your friend can play as your blue knight while you play as your orange knight. In which case your orange knight CAN play your previously unlocked levels and CAN use your previously unlocked weapons. But only because your other knight is in the game with you.

Writing it all down has actually made these issues feel more simple and obvious, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of some of the crap we have to deal with. Don't even get me started on how bosses, enemies and in-game cinemas need to handle four players instead of one.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Man, I thought -I- was a huge Neo Geo geek, but tonight I stumbled across something so geeky, even I felt uncomfortable looking at it. I was searching for pics of the bulldog SNK used in some Neo Geo promo materials (to share with Jose) when I stumbled across this: Neo Geo Bits & Goofs.

It's the sort of shit that only a diehard Neo fan could ejoy, and even then... It's a bit creepy.

The site is cool, though. It is the only place I found with scans of old Neo Geo ads as well as strange projects, such as creating a home cartridge and packaging for a game that had only been released for the arcade MVS system.

I feel so pedestrian.

When we got set up at the office two years ago, I brought all my old video game systems out of storage so they could have another run. One of the games I was most excited to play was Overhauled Man 3, a PC Engine (TurboGrafx in US) CD game I had imported from Japan back in 1992.

OHM3 always had a special place in my heart because it had this fun non-stop feel to it. It wasn't the greatest game ever made, but you could tell they were trying to give you lots of eye candy and variety so nothing ever felt dull. You had an attack (sword) button and a jump button, and holding down your attack button let you fire off a sparkling fireball, which you could then (barely) control if you pressed down the button and held it again after releasing. This let you stear the fireball into enemies in the air, or even loop around completely... There was something fun and unique about it.

This was also a year before Gunstar Heroes, one of the most inspirational games of my life. Both had similar graphical styles, although GH was better designed and had a lot more explosions.

Still, I consider OHM3 to be one of those games that inspired the games I make today. I was excited to play it again... But alas, my CD reader no longer worked.

This past week, I downloaded (and had to register - wtf) an emulator called Magic Engine. So far I haven't been able to get any rom files from old CD games to load, but I CAN put my old CDs in the CD drive and load them up just like my PC was a TurboGrafx! I am finally able to play OHM3 again, and the emulation seems perfect. The load times are a lot better now, too! It's starting to show its age, but I still love it.

We've been playing a lot of oldschool arcade games lately - looking for those bits of 2D inspiration. Since I'm working on Castle Crashers, I really enjoy studying oldschool brawlers. I'm an especially big fan of that forgotten period in the 90s, where the arcade games were too good for the SNES and Genesis, but not up to the 3D standards (or RAM limitations) of the Playstation and Nintendo 64 that would follow. Stuff like The Punisher, Battletoads (arcade version) and Violent Storm.

I like oddities, such as the Spiderman brawler where the camera zooms out and switches to a platformer mid-level. I feel like no other brawlers really did that. I've been tinkering with a level in Castle Crashers that becomes a shooter mid-level. It feels totally natural and intuitive, IMO. I've always liked games that changed up genres and introduced variety, but I never liked it when I felt like I was playing a different game from one level to the next. You gotta keep it natural - let the players feel like they've been controlling the same character the whole time. It has to be a seamless transition. I'm hoping I nail it.

We're starting to catalogue the really obscure brawlers and shooters we've been discovering. More on that later.

On a totally random note, the Battletoads arcade game has to be the only game where you can grab enemies by the balls and punch them repeatedly. It's pretty awesome. If you give yourself a delay between punches, it releases the grab move and you can start it up again immediately without the enemy countering you. This allows you to do an infinite ball punch at your liesure, although the enemy doesn't seem to take damage until you finish the combo, so you can punch them in the balls like 100 times and they will still be alive afterwards.

Note: The ball grab is a context sensitive grab move that is specific to one enemy type in the game.

I never bothered to see what the on-line response to Castle Crashers was since Comic-Con and PAX (frantically trying to FINISH it ever since), but I did a blog search tonight and found some cool video footage of the vs mode. Check it out!

It's also cool to see that the figurines we sold at Comic-Con and PAX fetched $183.50 on Ebay! You should be able to scroll down to see it all even though the bidding has ended. There are more cool pictures of the figures on Destructoid.

I don't want to show anything more from the game until it's released, but there is a lot of craziness on the way. I get a kick out of forums where people are talking about Castle Crashers and wondering why it's taking so long... Completely oblivious that I'm also juggling NG. Everything gets done eventually, it just takes longer than I'd like it to.

We are still reintroducing old features that never made it into the site re-launch in July, but we're ALMOST all caught up, which means finally moving on to the NEW FEATURES that we've had planned since like 2003 and before. It's all this epic epic vision but like everything else it takes longer than planned to get there.

I still haven't put together pages about Comic-Con and PAX this past summer...

There is a post with a link to a picture of a guy who looks kinda like me, although not really... He just has shaggy hair. Someone once sent me a newspaper clipping of a kid who REALLY looked like me, it was kinda freakish... I think I still have it somewhere but it would be packed away with college stuff. Like if I had actually met this guy and hung out with him, people might have thought we were twin brothers.

So I was thinking, it would be really cool to have a website for people to find their doppelgangers. Basically, everyone who signs up for the site can submit ONE picture, and it has to be very neutral, like a passport photo. The system them combs through all the other pictures and uses some visual algorithm to match you up with your doppelgangers on the site.

Additionally, you can fill out your general info - height, weight, hair, skin - and can search for people in your same range, to discover matches on your own. Users can submit doppelgangers to your page and vote on who is the closest. You can also befriend your doppelgangers and organize meetups.

Today is like CHRISTMAS when it comes to new games being released... I got in bright and early and then spent my entire morning playing Portal: The Flash Version... Right now I'm on level 38. SO CLOSE! It's getting really painful, though. I liked the AngryFaic cameo a few levels earlier. :)

I've also been enjoying HOST (4 player on-line vs!), Unreal Flash 2007 and Spot the Difference! BTW, we got two "spot the difference" games in the same week and they are both very different from eachother and both very good. The other one is 5 Differences and you should play that too!

Also, two days ago marked the return of Zeebarf, with his new game The Visitor! Zeebarf and I made Disorderly back in 2001, so it's cool to see him back after having his own TV series in Canada for the past few years!

I recommend setting aside some time and playing ALL these great games... They are all worthy of your time. And check out Forgotten Rites, too. I hope all these great games make more people realize the potential for the Flash gaming scene.

We thought it would be fun to go with a pink theme for Breast Cancer awareness month to help raise awareness. Now the debate is whether or not to fill the front page with BOOB FLASH, but I guess we shouldn't get carried away.

Halloween theme will be next...

So there's an interesting opportunity here in Glenside! The Newgrounds office happens to be near the Glenside commercial district on Easton road, an area that was designated many years ago as a destination for in-town shopping but hasn't ended up that way. Yeah, there are two good bars and a pizza shop on the main strip, but there are also multiple thrift stores, an exterminator and a place that sells motorized wheelchairs. While I don't want to downplay the contributions of any local businesses, as a resident of Glenside I would like to see this area thrive as it was intended to.

The big news is that two store fronts have recently become available, one having been an eyeglass shop and the other a thrift store. The eyeglass shop has already been occupied by a florist, who has done a great job at making it feel like a ritzy neighborhood flower shop. This sort of thing gives me hope for the rest of the street. Word has it, a dollar store has expressed interest in the remaining space. That sounds rather... blah.

The space is available for $1,100 per month and that includes heat. So the question is... Should Newgrounds open a store? We have a growing pool of merchandise, with more on the way, not to mention all the potential merchandise we COULD stock from our friends here on the web. It would be a totally unique store, unlike anything in the world, that directly represents all the cool stuff we're doing here on the web. It's hard to say how much interest we could generate from local foot traffic, but I like to think a Newgrounds store would be "hip" enough to push the Glenside commercial district towards a tipping point, where other new businesses give the location a shot. The flower shop gave me hope, so maybe we can help give hope to the next person.

Still, $1,100 a month isn't chump change (although it's much cheaper than I expected a store front to be). We would hopefully make it back in sales, but the location could totally flop. The real thing holding me back is the staffing issue. Would the NG staff take turns staffing the store, or would we hire someone new to staff it? Would sales be enough to warrant the additional salary? Whoever staffs the store could double as an administrator, essentially working for the website when no customers are visiting. Still, I've gotten pretty militant with the budget lately (for the sake of minimizing ads), so I don't want to be frivolous.

Benefits of having a store:

1) Gives us the opportunity to connect directly with fans (and potential fans), creating a sort of year-round Comic-Con here in Glenside.

2) Forces us to have a greater focus on what merchandise we are producing and what kind of feedback it is getting from the people who come and see it.

3) Creates a public meeting space for NG fans to visit and possibly test upcoming stuff before it goes public. I thought the office would be the place for that, but we realized that we come here to WORK and don't actually want people stopping in at random and hanging over our work spaces.

4) Expands the prestige of Newgrounds by giving us a more tangible presence in the world.

5) Benefits the Glenside commercial district (in my opinion) and hopefully attracts other new businesses.

Downsides to having a store:

1) We're already a small team that is spread too thin. This is just more work and more distractions.

2) It could end up being a money pit that no one shops at...

a) Rent - $13,200 per year.

b) Insurance - roughly $500 per year.

c) Staff - assume we're open six days, 48 hours per week, at $8-9 per hour... Add in payroll taxes and NG's health plan... Looking at over $25,000 per year.

d) Utilities - will it have internet? We would need a phone line for credit card processing. Heat is included, but still need electric... Could add up to $5k or more per year.

d) Repairs - we might need to fix stuff, but wouldn't own the space.

We're looking at roughly $50k per year to run a store, and that's being conservative. If the store is open 312 days of the year and we marked up every item by $10, we would need to sell 5,000 items per year, or 16 items per day. You can see why boutique shops charge so much!

It's fun to dream, though.