So, Nintendo relaunched their Smash Bros. website. I was kind of unimpressed by the gameplay overview and stage they introduced. Sure, there is a slightly tweaked graphic interface and some touched up graphics, but nothing I wasn't expecting.

Then I saw the list of musicians.

It's absolutely epic.

Some highlights (epic wins in all caps):

Masaaki Iwasaki (Mother 3 (Earthbound 2))
AKIHIRO HONDA (Metal Gear Solid Series)
Jun Fukuda (Killer 7)
KAZUMI TOTAKA (Animal Crossing Series) (Hell yes)
Hajime Wakai (Star Fox Series)
KENJI YAMAMOTO (Metroid composer) (OMFG Ridiculous)
KOJI KONDO (Composer of everything ever) (Holy crap)
Masato Kouda (Devil May Cry)
Shogo Sakai (Original composer of themes from SSB:M)
Tomoko Sasaki (NiGHTS) (epic)
YASUNORI MITSUDA (Chrono Trigger) (Ohhhhhh baby)
Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts series) (Booyah)
YUSA TSUJIYOKO (Fire Emblem) (You know you want this)

This makes me so happy.

So, an OCR mixer entered into a contest on www.broadjam.com in which one indie music artist's song would be put into the next DDR game.

He made it.

He won $1000 and a bunch of other prizes.

You can download the whole album for free at OCR. Just search for
'In the Dark' on the forums.

The name of the song is 'Until Forever'.

Pretty sweet, huh? I might have to buy the game out of internet loyalty.

Progress is being made on the game. Terrence has whipped up some nice WIP tracks for me. I will be doing code and music. I've got another friend as main artist and also doing music. (I guess I've got a lot of musician friends.)

Once the artwork gets going then things will really kick into high gear.

With the website redesign I'll make a new section devoted to the progress of the game.

If you have any talents and would like to contribute, please contact me.

EDIT: It has recently come to my attention that an XNA-specific version of the engine I am using is coming out sometime in May. As such, I will not continue coding until the new version comes out because I'm afraid the transition may break some code. But the XNA version has some features that are very nice, so it will be worth the wait. Progress on art and music will continue since the new version uses the same file formats.

Defcon just came out for Mac.

Terrence, this is your cue.

Anyway, if you haven't played this chilling, fantastic game yet, get Steam (if you are one of the poor souls who doesn't already have it) and download the demo. You won't be disappointed.

Microsoft just came out with their 1.0 version of XNA Game Studio. This version lets you export executables without sending source code.
It also lets you sync your computer with your Xbox 360 to test your game.

You know what that means?

1. This has pushed me over the fence. I'm buying a 360. Because not only are Mass Effect and Too Human coming out, I can now program games and put them onto a 360. That's too freakin' cool. I've wanted DoA 4 and Guitar Hero for a while now, anyway.

2. I can post executables of my game progress without giving out source code. Finally I can post my work without the risk of it being stolen.

That said, I have been re-inspired to work on my game and some basic progress on the engine has been made.

Also, Sumotori. This game is only 81k, but somehow contains a robust physics engine and 3D graphics. Leave it to indie programmers. Basically you play as a drunk sumo wrestler. The game features physics-based animation. It's pretty tight.

Peace out.

PS: This just in. A Guilty Gear game is coming out for Wii. In other words...

FUCK YEAH