News Archive April 2006

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April 2, 2006 - Looking for a Poll

The new look is here. I still have to finish the books section of the site, but that should be up by next week (possibly done in time for thursday's release [especially if that release is an article]). The big change to this overhaul is the fact that the pages are being done in php. The php is being used right now to handle the navigation (menus) and advertising but in the future may be used for other features I have planned. In fact, this new look is just the first phase of my overhaul plans. Other changes will slowly be introduced as they are finished. This leads to the poll. I was originally going to replace the table game entry with classic Chuck A Luck, but have decided that I will hold off on open sourcing volume 2 of the Ultimate Retro Project until the first volume has been fully open sourced. There are other table games that can be open sourced, but instead, I will add to the poll a toy program I wrote when I was learning php. It is called php dice.

April 6, 2006 - Holy Vote, Batman

I am really running late today. Today's update was a rather large one as I finished updating the book section of the site and added the winning entry of this week's poll. I have also fixed a few problems that I have found. The only problems fixed were ones that I found myself, which either means that nobody is finding any problems or that they are not reporting them when they do find them. I am slowly going to go through the site and fix any problems that I find, but if you do find any problems, please email me so I know about them and can add them to my to do list. The voting was rather slim this week. The winner being the walkthrough for the second set of levels in the Mr. Holeman game. I find this result extremely weird as Mr. Holeman was one of the games that had problems with it (they should be fixed now).

Vote Choice	% of Vote	Adjusted %
Mr. Holeman Set 2 Walkthrough [11% adjustment]	36	47
PHP Dice [No adjustment]	27	27
Classic Tanks for the Memory [20% adjustment]	18	38
Making One of those Weeks Chapter 3 [7% adjustment]	18	25

April 9, 2006 - Solar Poll

As this thursday is the first full moon after the vernal equinox I already have plans for what this week's game is going to be. Date specific and sponsored games (currently none, but we are not against having someone sponsor a specific game or episode) have a priority over the voted for games. For that reason, I need to have a different type of poll this week. As I am in a kind of twisted sort of mood today, I will have a potentially site altering poll this week. As many of you know, I would love to update this site daily, but every time I try to make such a transition, something always comes up to prevent it. This week's question then is should I make another attempt at going daily?

April 13, 2006 - Easter

The weekly poll will continue until saturday if you haven't voted yet. Considering the site changing nature of this week's question, I highly recommend voting if you want your opinion heard. With that said, I should probably announce today's game. Partly for easter (though the game can still be enjoyed by those who don't celebrate that particular holiday) and partly because this update is on the thirteenth, I have decided that this week's game would be about evil eggs. The game is called by the title of Evil Eggs, even though technically speaking the good eggs do outnumber the evil ones.

April 16, 2006 - The majority is always sane?

Fans of Larry Niven will be familiar with today's caption. It is from an alien race, which is probably a good thing as the results of last week's poll clearly are not sane. 70% of the responses were for making the site daily! When I posted the poll, expecting it to come back with the sane result of stay weekly, I decided that I would stick by whatever the result would be, so I am going to be updating the site daily. To have daily updates means that the amount released every day will be smaller but because there are seven updates in a week, I will be able to cover six visitor selected releases every week (Sunday's are reserved for my own choice, though in the near future that will be adding features to the site). Each week day will have a game series, book section, or a combination of the two assigned to it. Once that series is completed, a new series for that day will be voted for. Right now there are no series assigned to the days, so every day this week (starting monday) there will be a vote for what will be posted in that slot. Each poll will only last 24 hours with the results announced the following day. Future polls will last a week unless there is more than one poll in that week.

Monday April 17, 2006 - I

Very observant visitors will actually notice that this is actually being posted a day earlier. At least it is in the Pacific Time Zone, which is where I am. A good portion of the world is already monday, so it only makes sense to post the site in the evening of the previous day. I tend to post in the evening anyway, so the only change is the date I use. Going daily may be very interesting, especially since right now I don't even know what the schedule is going to be like. You will notice that the voting is using the same weighted system as before, except I have expanded the scope of the entries to be blocks of a series. The results of this poll will be announced tomorrow when the second poll will be posted.

Tuesday April 18, 2006 - II

The number of votes was small but was the perfect number of votes to make calculating percentages easy. The winning entry was the one I expected to win, so my predictions of poll results are at least occasionally accurate. Monday's will be the day for Day 3 and Making of Day 1 of One of those Weeks. The story replacement will be Making Coffee Quest part 1.Now lets see what will appear on tuesdays.

Vote Choice	% of Vote	Adjusted %
One of those Weeks Day 3 and Making of Day 1 [11% adjustment]	50	61
Tanks for the Memory OSR [24% adjustment]	20	44
PHP Dice [7% adjustment]	20	27
Darts [no adjustment]	10	10

Wednesday April 19, 2006 - III

Again the poll results are low, but I suppose this is due to the fact that the polling is taking place over only 24 hours instead of over four days or a week. I never expected a newly announced article to actually win a slot but that is the case. I guess the Coffee Quest fans out there are trying to tell me something. Yes, the Tuesday entry is going to be the first part of my Making of Coffee Quest eBook. This means that I no longer have any Story related releases near ready so the replacement entry will be part two of the Java Game Development eBook.

Vote Choice	% of Vote	Adjusted %
Making Coffee Quest part 1 [no adjustment]	67	67
Darts [3% adjustment]	22	25
PHP Dice [11% adjustment]	11	22
Tanks for the Memory OSR [28% adjustment]	0	28

Thursday April 20, 2006 - IV

The number of votes continues to decline, but I only need one vote so I am not too worried. Just to make sure every one knows, each day is a separate vote, which means that you can vote every day this week! It was a close vote (actually a tie) with the adjustment determining the winner. Sorry Dart's fans, but the Tanks for the Memory people get their wish. While I would love for the replacement game to be Tanks for the Memory RT, that game is still in development and is not close enough to complete to be listed. In it's place will be the Queen's Challenge game.

Vote Choice	% of Vote	Adjusted %
Tanks for the Memory OSR [31% adjustment]	33	64
Darts [10% adjustment]	33	43
PHP Dice [16% adjustment]	17	33
Java Game Development part 2 [No adjustment]	17	17

Friday April 21, 2006 - V

The number of votes is still low, but at least it is no longer declining. There are only two more one day votes left (there will be a vote on sunday, but it will be a week long vote probably regarding Coffee Quest). An interesting spread of votes, with all the votes being for games. The winner of thursday's slot is Darts. Today will be the last game vote, as tomorrow's vote will be for something a bit different.. The replacement for Darts is the remainder of the Holeman Strategy guide.

Vote Choice	% of Vote	Adjusted %
Darts [17% adjustment]	50	67
Queen's Challenge [No Adjustment]	33	33
PHP Dice [21% adjustment]	17	38
Java Game Development part 2 [3% adjustment]	0	3

Saturday April 22, 2006 - VI

The final game was the relatively new entry Queen's Challenge. I am hoping that the people who voted for the game actually know what I am referring to and won't be disappointed when it is released next week. Now for the final daily poll. I want to do something different for saturdays but haven't quite decided what so I will give you four options for what should be done on saturdays.

Vote Choice	% of Vote	Adjusted %
Queen's Challenge [7% Adjustment]	55	62
Mr. Holeman Strategy Guide [No Adjustment]	18	18
Java Game Development part 2 [6% adjustment]	18	24
PHP Dice [21% adjustment]	9	35

Sunday April 23, 2006 - VII

This is the seventh day in a row that we have had a poll, though today's poll will span an entire week. As there was such an obvious interest in Coffee Quest, I am going to let you decide which direction I should take Coffee Quest 5. As for the poll yesterday, well it was unanimous so if you voted you know the results and if you didn't vote, you will find out Saturday . Finally, the site enhancement this week is an updated coming soon page, but much more significant changes will eventually show up.

Monday April 24, 2006 - 3

I had a bit of a dilemma regarding how much of the chapter to release. I figure as the chapter is small, I would release the entire chapter, but with larger chapters I will break them down into multiple parts. As all the chapters of the Making of One of those Weeks eBook are short, when I do release a chapter it will almost always be the entire chapter. That being said, I probably should officially point out that today's release is the third chapter of Making of One of those Weeks.

Tuesday April 25, 2006 - Poor me a cup

I upgraded my memory today and now have enough memory to actually use my three dimensional modeling software without it running like a dog. True three dimensional games will eventually be appearing on the site, though when will depend on a lot of factors, many of which are not in my control. Coffee Quest may look 3D, but it technically is not. The Making of Coffee Quest book will explain exactly how it works but before I can delve into the workings of the first Coffee Quest , it is best to start with an introduction to the book. That is what I am releasing today!

Wednesday April 26, 2006 - Has anyone seen my tank?

While it is true that video cards have a lot to do with the speed of three dimensional graphics, if you do not have enough memory to run the software, it will still run slow. In fact, I have noticed that the machine that I upgraded actually runs a bit better overall. I suppose that 384 megs is just not enough memory to properly run Windows XP. While we are on the topic of Memory, I should probably point out that today's release is the Open Source release of Classic Tanks for the Memory .

Thursday April 27, 2006 - 1001 pointed AIs

As the visitors who follow what is going on with this site already know, today I am releasing an episode of Darts. Darts has already gone through two previous releases where the 301 and the 501 game modes were released. For today's release, we introduce the 1001 mode. More important (at least in my opinion), the computer opponent has been re-written. Previously, the opponent was entirely pre-determined. Now, there is some randomness with the computer opponent and the opponent can even make throwing mistakes. So give the new 1001 mode of Darts with new AI a try.

Friday April 28, 2006 - Eight is enough

I am not sure why this game won a spot so quick. Still, it did win so it is appearing today. As it is a single game, next week will be a vote for a new series. Now that I am releasing stuff daily, I can put a bit more of an emphasis on my articles and on open sourcing all the games on this site. But that is next week. Today we have a chess challenge. While I am not much of a chess player, I found this puzzle to be very interesting and hope that my visitors will at least try this challenge. This game is called the Queen's Challenge.

Saturday April 29, 2006 - Playing outside

Last saturday was a poll to decide what should be done on saturday's. The results of the vote were unanimous. Every saturday I am going to have third party content. Of course, I am not going to post the content on this site, but I will add a permanent link to the content in my under-utilized link page. This fills out my link section, while giving you links to games and game related items that I think my visitors will find interesting (at least if they haven't already discovered them). If you have any suggestions for any really good free or open source games please feel free to email those suggestions to me. This week's entry is interesting as it is a Java port of the Quake 2 engine. If you know anyone who claims Java is slow, send them to this link.. http://www.bytonic.de/html/jake2.html. This is a Java application and uses OpenGL so you will need a video card that supports OpenGL to play it.

Sunday April 30, 2006 - Old News

I am posting this early as I have plans tonight. Today's update is the return of the News Archive (only back to 2004) which is probably a very minor thing to most visitors. Still, it sounded like an easy enough task but proved to take much longer than I thought. As such I am running late so will hold of posting the poll results until tomorrow. There is no poll today but will be one later in the week for the replacement of the Queen' Challenge now that the series (is a single episode a series?) is done..

Billy D. Spelchan
President, Blazing Games Inc.