Highsocietygames.com

Yeah it's been a long time again. After I pulled out of Flashkit, I even stopped using the damned AHK scripting language I said I was using. How terribly un-fucking-motivated I am! I have been playing with java a bit, but what's the point anymore, eh?

Liz and I are leaving in a short few hours to go camping for a week. We have been planning this for a long time and have put several hundred dollars into it. I'm so excited I can't stay in this chair for much longer! Leelanau State Park here we come!

So I'm tired. Ellie is asleep on my lap, I get to sleep in for class tomorrow, since I don't have to be there until noon. I still have my class from 1-4, but it's a breeze class, honestly. This speech class sucks ass though. This Thursday I have to do a speech on some bullshit Internet Security crap that I know nothing about, and it's going to be taped.

Man the shit I have to do to get my Bachelor's in Computer Science. I swear I better me making damn good money when this is all over.

Anyhow, getting late, and Ell needs to go outside.

So this post is way overdue. With graduation, school, job-hunting, and the damn dog, I haven't had anytime for Flash.

So yeah, here's the latest. I've just got my associates degree in Computer Science - Computer Programming. I kept right on plugging away at Delta, and after this semester I'll only have 6 more classes there!

As I said, I haven't had an opportunity to code some Flash AT ALL, but no regretably. I'm beginning to believe I've reached the end of my rope in the Flash department. It's not that I don't like Flash, it provided a lot of entertainment for me over the past 18 months, but my creativity level has practically deminished because of it. I've run like every idea I could have thought up through Flash, and I only blame myself for giving up and not finishing any of those projects, I don't know. I know I'll remain ghostly around the Flashkit forums, and I know that I'll periodically open it up to play around with a few ideas. Hell, I'll probably just open source a lot of ideas on Flashkit for the benefit of the community.

These days, what little time I have is split between homework, Ellie, Liz, and a new programming platform, AutoHotKey. It's basically a scripting language that sends commands to Windows like mouse clicks and key presses. You can do almost anything you want with it though! Personally I use it to make entries to this website and to back-up my dvd's with once click of a button. I am working on a game, but as AHK's original intention is not gaming, it's a bit tricky to code.

Well, time for Diablo 2 with Lizzy.

With less than 2 weeks before commencements, my brain is racing 1,000,000 (yes that's million) miles per hour, trying to wrap up the infinite homework on my desk and on my conscience for not getting started sooner. Oh but there's been better thigns to do with my time, like Liz and I's new baby girl, Ellie.

She's a 13 week old Miniature Daschund and one of the sweetest dogs I've ever been around. My heart pretty much melted when we drove the 100 or so miles to pick her up, so I paid cash there on the spot and we took her home. Here's a picture:

13 week old Ellie

But back on school, I don't see a way that I won't graduate, given my recent anxiety and fear that I might not make the cut in my CST 235 Systems Analysis & Design course, which is TERRIBLY FUN... So many projects and stuff just keep piling up, but from my vantage point now I think it's safe to say I'm standing at the top of the last downhill leg of this semester.

Either way, it's going to feel pretty good to go through commencements at Delta and have something to prove I've finally accomplished something with the last 5 years of my life...

I'm at my breaking point in school. I really want nothing more than to just curl up and be done with college, but I've still got SOOO far to go it's not funny. I think what I really need is a semester off, where I can just work and relax. I mean, I have been going to Delta now for 7 straight semesters, and they haven't exactly been easy loads.

Anyways, I have a game nearly completed; it's posted in the WIP section on the bottom of the left column. Sorry to say, but the interface is there, but gameplay is in another file because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. That, and I'm really excited to finish a game! It's only been F O R E V E R!

Oh right, and before I forget, after a extended series of delays and problems, Squize finally got the green light to put my check in the mail for reskinning those game(s) almost 6 months ago. I should be getting paid by the weekend.

Well, off to bed with me.

I did some housekeeping tonight on the site. I found a few errors in my games that needed attention, and few selectable text boxes, a few improperly embedded text formats, etc. The good thing though is that now the high score options in all of the games is back up and working again, so you can submit your scores to try to get on the leaderboard.

In other news, I'm supposed to write a paper for extra credit on something unethical in the IT field, and document the source. You can probably guess I'm writing my paper on Cadin's game being stolen by the Olympics. I think it will be pretty easy to fill two pages with content.

Also, I think I might try to redo the collision engine to use bitmaps for the graphics in Star Destroyer instead of vector movie clips. I have a big suspicion that it will increase the performance a ton, but that's a ways off, and there's plenty of other ideas in line before that.

I felt obligated to repost about this article (original article here) I saw over at FlashKit. One of my personal favorite games of Cadin's over at The Pencil Farm, Snow Day (though I sucked at it badly), was stole off his website.

Not cloned by example, the traffic on the site shows they downloaded the swf. From there they decompressed it, added their own elements, and reposted it as their own. [Edit: As of 3/10, the game was removed from their site.]

Yeah, it's late, I'm tired, and I've still got more homework to do. I best be on my way.

Lots to do, little time to do it. For one reason or another, Flash crashed again on me last night, setting me back another 3 hours (earlier in the week it did it for a loss of 2.5 hours). It's not like I don't save, I do. But the Flash IDE keeps corrupting the .fla when it does crash, meaning I have to start over. Luckily for me, I've been building classes all this week, so at the most I only lose 100 or so lines of simple code, but it's the principle that Flash SHOULD NOT BE CRASHING.

Also on the agenda is a crap ton of homework. I just forgot that the project my group is doing in my IT Ethics & Law was supposed to be properly formatted by me! Shit, and I had so much planned for Monday too (I already had to go to the bank, pay a few bills, and head up to Gerrad's to drop of the CD of Puppy). I suppose it's my own fault for procrastinating, but that's what Spring Break is for, right? Taking a break?

Oh yeah, and before I forget, my Assassin is the shit.

At level 25 she's nearing Act 4 with a 40% chance to cast Level 3 Frost Nova. Honest to god, rapid casting of any CTC enchantment is rediculous. Half the time when a group surrounds me I just sit there and heal for the hell of it. Also, she's sitting on 71% increased attack speed and 64% faster run/walk. Soon as I get to level 42 and equip duel Bartuc's Cut-Throat's, it'll be 101% faster attack rate. Joy.

Well, Spring back in underway and I can't slow down. After Liz stayed the weekend, I got busy on homework, but there's still tons to go. I recently fired up Diablo 2:LoD the other day and--big surprise--I'm hooked again. Between work, college, and Flash, I don't know how I'll find time to continue playing, I just know that I will.

Speaking of Flash, I'm about 75% done with a new game. It's a vertical scroller shmup with a few elements and twists thrown in there. I've got all the sprites and external resources I need, I just need to create the levels and finish the enemy engine and add in the sound. After that, should be able to just sit back and let the rest of Spring Break pass without worrying about much.

So for the past 72 hours I've been killing myself over the final revision to the site. I'm proud to say I did it, and yes it does revolve around php and CSS (I had to learn CSS!). Anyhow, I don't feel like this is one of those designs I'm going to get sick of, since I think it's simple but boasts a good look and feel. I think the last thing I need to do is create a highscore API for the whole site that wraps up the games, with a small 'Live Leaderboard' section in the right hand column, or just a link to the scoreboard section of the site.

Due to technical problems, I redid the site for the last time, and decided to do it on my own with PHP and CSS. If I don't put forth some effort in keeping up this site, I'll probably not renew my domain registration in September, 2008. I hope it doesn't come to that. Anyhow, please stick around for updates.

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