Might as well post this now, even if it isn't officially August just yet. Also main site needs an upadate so
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It's hot. Well, "hotter". There's nothing on TV and half the board's on holiday, BUT I'M STILL HERE TO GIVE YOU MFGG'S MONTHLY UPDATES. AND CAPS LOCK.
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IN THE MONTH THAT WAS JULY 2008-
The Nintendo Community Fangame Convention (NCFC) was opened. For the blind and/or stupid MFGG's a big player in that. The BIGGEST player in that in fact. Whereas the main event will occur October-ish, fangames need to register booths and whatnot, and of course there needs to be time to prepare. More info in
this topic. Highly recommend that as many people register booths as possible. ShadowMan and Yoshiman may have completely lost hope in MFGG but I want to prove them wrong by bombarding them with quality Mario fangames. Metroid: Fan Mission? moar liek "Metroid: Fan games are fewer in number to MFGG's and are of worse quality Mission"! Kidding, of course. But yeah, make MFGG proud.
- Speaking of proud MFGG celebrated its 7th anniversary! That's a pretty big milestone. But you probably already know about that.
- The "Community Fan Game Project test run to prove their worth to the almighty Squirrel" finished and so starts the REAL Community Fan Game Project. You can find the fruit of their loins at the back end of
this topic. As far as breakout clones go, it's pretty nifty. SUCCESS THROUGH THE POWER OF TEAMWORK etc. etc. But the real challenge begins now. I promised a forum (or sub-forum) if they could get a decent Mario engine done. Why not go help them?
- Brawl discussion forum was removed. I said it would happen, and it did. Not really much more to discuss about it anyway.
- E3 happened. It was relitively dull but it did have Animal Crossing and Regginators. However it also had Cammie Dunaway and her low polygon dog, and very poor musicans. And of course, plenty of brown and bloom.
- This didn't actually happen in July but it's worth noting that mid-August is the
Sonic Ameteur Games Expo, SAGE. You know, the one that's been around 8 years. We're not directly related because that's based around Sonic the Hedgehog, obviously (though nowadays it does allow pretty much anything), but it's still fangame based and us and SFGHQ go way back. Only posting this now because some people may want to participate in that as well as NCFC, and therefore will have to sign up. And sign-ups are in a few days. So yeah. It also has a number of special guests for Q&A sessions which is quite impressive.
- Techokami was hired as a new Quality Control peep on the main site, effectively replacing Press Start who left. He's already done a great job, and thanks for all your work too PS. Once you attractive site groupies are finished with me and PK, he's all yours. Techo's also filling in for RII for a tiny bit while he's off relaxing somewhere. So in this very brief period, any techincal faults should probably be reported to him.
- A second staffer is to be hired soon following the results of
THE TEST that was issued week and a bit ago. Feel free to prove your worth too. Deadline's August 11th. Just fyi. Groupies probably won't have you straight away because you're last on the list and they'll be understandably tired.
Tired from the intense chess matches that of course the MFGG staff often have with its groupies. It's how we get our sick kicks. Getting the bishop to knock pawns off the board. Yeah.
- MFGG banned some kids. 9 kids in fact. They're currently making a lounge album, called "Pinapple Goose". It's some clever artistic title that's so clever that even I don't get it. It's planned to retail at £19.95 at selected retailers. We're taking 5% of the profit for hooking them up together. Not entirely sure why it takes 9 band members to perform a lounge album, but hey.
But screw all that news. You're probably wondering "Hey BS? Can you make another crappy graph that we can either gaze at in awe or shoot down because it doesn't represent our own beliefs?!?!"
and I say

how's a funktastic over exaggerated status graph do you?!
and you're like
"whoa mang that's totally
SEXCELLENT
but shouldn't we be groovin' on
up due to the positive growth rate?"
and I'm like
"shut up
disco duck"
But seriously I'm just beefing up this news post because I've nothing better to do. Though it could be argued that it hasn't been that long since I came into office and the CCC isn't perfected yet, it's BETTER than before. I'm pleased, but I'm not nearly satisfied.
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GAME OF THE MONTH™: JULY 2008Now to see which game has been picked as July's game of the month. The suspense is killing me!
July's Game of the Month™ is:
Super Mario Stardust, by Avias recommended by Black Squirrel

About this time last year I thought to myself, "if we ever had a Game of the <time period>, I'd pick this". Now we do. So I picked it.
Not much else can be said about Super Mario Stardust that hasn't been featured in the 15 positive reviews it's gained over the last 13 months. That's because Super Mario Stardust is a quality fangame. I even said so back in the day. Yet I've always somehow felt it was kinda under-rated. I mean here's a game where 95% of it was made from scratch. How many other Mario fangames have done this? Not that many. How many fangames have done this and produced something amazing? Even fewer. Alright basically I'm just hoping for a second MFGG TV coverage so that people across the world can see Black Squirrel post updates. I'm that sad.
Stardust is your average Mario platformer. It's a bit short, but that doesn't make it any less good. The mushroom kingdom's residents have been turned into blocks and it's up to Mario to save the day.

The game's a mixture of Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 2 gameplay, and is pulled off quite nicely. It's become a common trend now to have this but this is still the first to have completely original graphics for everything. And it's the first to allow the "feather" and "fireflower" abilities to combine into one. The results are quite good indeed.
Gameplay's a tiny bit stiff and as I said at the time, for a game that's only 8 levels long you'd think Avi could have afforded to put some more music in, but it doesn't ruin the experience and it's still a highly recommended download. But you all should have downloaded it already!
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Review Drive #10Review Drive #9 was rather successful. 9 reviews, thanks to
Myuu,
Draco Icebane,
the real wart,
Hyper Kirby Fan,
RetroX,
jak,
King Razz,
Giga Gamer and myself. 9 seems to be a lucky number this month. But will the next go as smoothly? Time to find out with Review Drive #10 featuring:
Super Mario World: Zombie Edition, by armymenis12Because the only way you can really defeat zombies is with keyboards.
Proof.
Give it some love. I'd like to think that one day all MFGG games have enough quality reviews so that I don't have to "DRIVE" you guys and gals. Also have to consider the cost of fuel - it's very expensive!
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and that's it for now. Now go outside and enjoy summer, winter or whatever season you're currently in.
Other things to think about
- ?