MFGG Monthly News - September 2008

Months go by too quickly, and I keep leaving it to the last minute before I write one of these things and as such I have nothing to put in this introductory paragraph.

-----------

IN THE MONTH THAT WAS SEPTEMBER 2008

- SQUIRREL BECAME A MAN. A manly man. A STRAIGHT manly man. But apparently women want something else too! >:( Oh and outside of my CCC birthday countdown thing and hoards of presents from MFGGers which I'm still stunned by, three skins were added. Fun times. Ashura had a birthday too as did others. But everyone has birthdays except unborn fetuses and even then they get attention for being unborn fetuses. Skins are nice. Not only do they keep your internal organs warm and protected (though again, can't always say that for unborn fetuses), they give MFGG a nice facelift. Most important skin would be the new default, by Techokami, because it's the new default.

- Quicky/pdk killed the IRC. Because it was him hosting it and he doesn't seem to come by here anymore. 'tis understandable and I thank him for the years of IRC service and shizzle. However, a new MFGG IRC has arisen in its place, also created by that loveable rascal Techokami, and one that I've actually become semi-active on. And I also gave it a crappy logo which you probably won't see outside of this forum but hey

There's a sticky but you probably ignored it unless you're an IRC fan.

Now dispite the fact it's one of the more popular chatrooms on BadnikNET now (though hidden from the rest), it's inactive! And that turns people off. Now it's never going to be as active as #retro which scores an average of 60 users at one time, but that's because we've got a CCC and they don't. Anyway Squirrel's top tips for effective IRC discussion

-Saying "hello" when you actually log in instead of sitting there silent
-Idling until discussion happens

It's also got goonbot. Goonbot who currently doesn't really do anything, but that's apparently set to change. But yeah, pop in, even if you end up having XChat or mIRC hanging about in the background not doing much.

and uh

- ShyGuy Grey's doubling up as a General Chat mod as well as a General Friendliness mod, because the GF doesn't need that much modding now it's gone casual. This move equals less garbage in the GC, garbage being a practise that has become popular since I kicked some of you out of the CCC. Cleanup seems to be working for the most part.

- MegaMan 9 released. Someone probably said something stupid to describe it like "old skool cool". I have yet to play it, partly because having never heard of MegaMan until registering here, I'm not overly motivated to. But I probably will end up purchasing it eventually. But what do you care.

- Second in the world at the paralympic games. Great Britian fell only behind China, a country that doesn't even allow disabled people to be born apparently. Explain that. But who cares anyway - we came second in the whole world. Namibia's got nothing on us (though you're still cool).

- There was a Large Hadron Collider and I think they found the Higgs boson thus linking three of the four fundemental forces of the universe together. Last target's gravity. Interesting times for Physisists.

- Fangame Discussion's getting flipped. "Flipped?" you ask in a quizzical fashion. "Why aye", responds the squirrel, his meanacing red eyes staring into your soul, your inner being vaporised by the madness that has been posted before you.

"Flipped" does almost exactly what it says on the tin. The "Released" and "WIP" subforums are to be combined due to lack of activity in the former, and swapped with the current fangame discussion, so all that "related to fangames but not actually fangames" talk will go into a sub-forum, and any fangame WIP or releases will be visible in the main FD board. The "parent" board (FD) and the "child" boards (Released/WIP) are becoming "child" and "parent" boards respectively. CFP is not effected (contribute to that btw).

This is a plan created by Guinea, your fangame discussion moderator. Why is this change set to occur? Because the fangames themselves aren't getting as much attention as they probably should be, hidden in a sub-forum, whereas team building and questions are getting too much. It'll almost be like old times. The "released" games are being combined with the "WIP" games for two reasons; a) because lots of WIP games become released games, and b) the "released" sub-forum has only gained 34 topics in 9 months or so.

- aaaand, that's about it because it's September and school's back or university's starting and as such I haven't had time to work on anything MFGG related so not much has changed. So despite me saying a month ago that September is the best month... as far as MFGG related stuff goes, probably isn't. But whatyagonnado.

- HOWEVER, it's NCFC next month. This is VITALLY important and I will continue to make a big deal over it, even if it somehow doesn't live up to expectations. MAKE MFGG PROUD. I'll be ****ing over Mario fangames released on those days and stuff. It might make me look a bit strange, might be hard work with 70 confirmed booths, but it's a chance to prove to the world that MFGG isn't just some crazy site full of silly billies with limited brain capacity. It's a fangaming site with the power to beat all the other fangaming sites (possibly bar SFGHQ because they're very much in the third dimention now) COMBINED. By "world" I mean ShadowMan. ShadowMan is the world. Half the world is in shadow, most of the world is populated by man. Though this does come with downers such as only being impressed at night (OR UPPERS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN).

-----------
now for post beefing up time with
GAME OF THE MONTH™: SEPTEMBER 2008

September's Game of the Month™ is:
JumpGuy, by MechaBowser
as recommended by MegaTailzChao

Having been to ban city MechaBowser has returned and already submitted a rather fetching young game. It involves jumping shyguys and 60FPS. Two things that should happen more often.

JumpGuy's made using MechaBowser's MechaSource engine, which promises to be a nice game creation tool and already seems to have a fanbase. And it's certainly capable of making something cool, as shown here. JumpGuy follows a shyguy on a pogo stick who... jumps, and seems to go on an adventure to find a plot. Any game where you're thrown out of pits because they're "not yours" is good enough for me.

Unfortunately I suck at this game so I can't write a decent review, but aside from its abnormally large screen resolution I'd say it's looking very promising. This is also why there's only one screenshot this time. Anyway give it a whirl.

-----------
and a side of healthy vegetables with
Review Drive #12
Can you believe we've done 11 review drives? That's like, one more than ten! Last review drive bumped Wario and the Magic Map up to a rather funky 9.2. Thanks to ShadowLuigi64, Giga Gamer, nicki999, the real wart, Luigi-Tron 3000, Lockout, Ninji Fan and MFGG's in-house staffer Pucifur.

BUT WHAT OF THE NEW DRIVE
Mario Colours, by RetroX
why it's the beginning of the month and we're stocked up on petrol, diesel, electricity, human waste - whatever your power source be and we're ready to get going. Mario Colours is a car involving Mario and colours. Get it involved with good reviews too. Perhaps it could become car of the year. I'm de-railing my own news posts quite a lot today. I have also purposefully put in a "u" for obvious reasons.

-----------
Other things to think about:

- My squirrelplan to improve the Wiki. I'm thinking along the lines of text-based programming language tutorials, because they can't be hosted on the main site efficiently. Sleep on it, and give me your views (or start writing now). Syntax highlighting possibly coming soon.


and this month's ramblings draws to a close

Just for clarification - fangame discussion has been "flipped". A lot sooner than I expected too.

Awesome.

I like this arrangement of the FGD a lot better, actually.

I still don't like the idea of that game being game of the month.
It's just a short freaking demo. :\
If it was longer I could see it being a GotM. But not as it is.

Honestly, I've seen better.

EDIT: Not to say the game wasn't fun, I obviously accepted it.
It's just not GotM caliber yet IMO.

This post has been edited by Parakarry on Sep 30 2008, 04:22 PM

Yeah, somewhat I've expected that only a full game can become game of the month...
BUUUUT it was definitely an original game with some fun elements which is rare.

It might be a kind of welcome-back present for MechaBowser who was banned for (apparantly) wrong reasons.

So congratulations, I guess.

you forgot to mention 3 new skins are up

I effing love reading these squirrel, they always manage to make me laugh :D

Although why oh why do you always have to include a reference to the CCC that always angers me >:[

So basically people in the CCC get away with more **** than we do fffff

oh well; great read, it was rather entertaining! I might even do a review for the review drive.

And oh **** ncfc is coming up **** I need to get off my ass.

Exciting month.

I wonder if Sky Guy Gone AWOL will make October GOtM...

And I'm looking forward to my first NCFC! Wish I could whip something up for it...

This post has been edited by Black Boo on Oct 3 2008, 09:28 PM

Oh sweet my game is posted by someone else than me
Thanks for the review :D