glass and like whatever
about 2 years ago

So yeah, if you didn't already see, I added some breakable glass into the level editor last week. I updated it with some changes just now though. Flailing bodies were having trouble smashing through anything other than very thin glass, so you can now set the strength of the glass. If you want to avoid the player getting stabbed, you can shut that off. Smaller sized glass will now also break into interactive pieces. Shards will only kill you if they are over a certain mass.

That is all I have to say about glass.

I will most likely make a character now, but I'd really like to try implementing fire. I think it could look way fancy. That will probably come afterwards.

This week I've been preparing to move into my new office/studio space away from my goddamn bedroom. I get to move in tomorrow, and I'll be building some computers and setting up some desks. I am way happy about this. Working from home forces me to be in a non productive limbo, where I cannot differentiate between work and recreational time. This way I will have a place I go to specifically for work, on a real schedule... and I'm sure it will lead to me being more productive. Then I can go home and do pointless things without feeling guilty.

I'll also be hiring my friend Jason to help with the game. He's another flash programmer, who also happens to be pretty decent at replicating the Happy Wheels art style.

Once we're settled maybe I can even get an intern. Anyone in the NYC/Brooklyn area (older than 20 please) looking for an internship? Someone with an art or programming background would be great. I'd pay for lunch and travel. If you're in school you could possibly get credits. You would be cultivated into a true champion and could possibly learn something from two strange 30 year olds?

errrrrrg
about 2 years ago

So I have to delay working on any new content for the game so I can deal with exciting security issues. Since adding in the import level xml functionality, people have developed methods to go about stealing levels. People had figured out how to do it before, but it seems to be common knowledge now. Tools have even been developed to assist in this sort of thing. Thanks a lot, shitheads (those of you in particular).

Is there a point to stealing other peoples' work? Is it somehow rewarding to have a decently rated level that you had no part in making yourself? It's not like you are earning money. All you are doing is harming the community you're trying to participate in, as well as preventing me (the only person working on the game) from adding new content. If you don't partake in this sort of thing (hopefully the majority of you), I love you.

On a happier note, traffic has gone up again to how it was in December due to performance fixes. I actually thought and expected the game to be in decline since then, but this past weekend the site had the most visitors ever. There is still a bit more to be done, as the site was occasionally struggling. This was great news for me though, and I am a bit more confident that Happy Wheels will stay popular for quite some time. Thanks so much to everyone for participating (even those of you ruining everything to some degree).

Additionally:

- Please stop making Justin Bieber levels. I understand that nobody likes him; please stop introducing him into my life.

- Was the movie Saw really that popular?

- I'm still waiting to hear back about T-shirts.

- I ate tortilla chips for lunch

yay
about 2 years ago

After a week of hell, some good changes have been made to the backend of the site. The level browser should be much faster, and hopefully the site won't die during peak hours. We'll see today if it runs well (fridays are busiest). If so, I should be able to work on the game again and not the goddamn database. Still, there are more optimizations to be made. In any case, the site has been having problems for more than a month... so if it works out I will be quite happy.

Apparently the addition of npcs or the harpoon gun caused a replay glitch. So I have to fix that next... it might ruin some previous replays. Sorry about that.

After that... everyone seems to like driving through glass, so I will make a legitimate breakable glass shape. I should have more breakable items. That should be fast. I'd also like to eventually make a terrain tool, which would be really helpful. However, the outrage for new characters is reaching obnoxious levels, so I will work on those instead.

I made a shirt design for the game here. Colors had to be limited to 6. I already asked on the facebook page, but what shirt would you choose? The overwhelming favorite there was the first one. I personally like the 5th. I imagine some of you very macho men will not tolerate the use of pink on your clothing. If all works out well, a shirt will go on sale on Newgrounds soon.

tiny update
about 2 years ago

Due to the site performing less than wonderfully, sometimes saving levels in the editor will fail. I added in an option to copy your current editor level data as text, which you can paste to a text file, or email, or whatever from the save menu. Be sure to do this before attempting to save a level, so your work isn't potentially lost. You can also import the level into the editor by pasting the data into the load menu.

In unrelated news... the facebook page that began in December now has nearly 100,000 likes. If likes are somehow a measurement of goodness, then I guess that is kind of cool. Much more importantly, Happy Wheels and the Happy Wheels Demo combined have been played more than 50,000,000 times. I had no idea until checking some stats yesterday. That is a retardedly large number. Why am I still working by myself out of my depressing bedroom?

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the larger update in the previous news post.

yup
about 2 years ago

I am still aware of my site sucking. During peak hours of the day, it struggles. I know what the problems are and I've been trying to work with multiple database people to fix them for the past month. Some changes have been made, but apparently it's not been enough. If I had tons of experience with mysql, I'd attempt to fix things myself. However, I am currently just a flash guy (and also just one person). I'd like to get this fixed even sooner than those of you threatening my life, as my site's performance is directly tied to my ad revenue.

In any case, I have been working on the game. There was an update on Friday. I'd have mentioned it then... but Friday tends to be the busiest day, and I didn't want my site mushed. You can now add people into the level editor. They are more complicated than regular objects, so 20 people mashed in a pile will bog the game down. Try to use them kind of sparingly, maybe. I'm surprised nobody has made a roller coaster full of passengers yet.

This is a zip file containing a flash file for the non-player characters. There's a readme in there with some basic instructions for creating your own. It would be great if some of you could make some characters I could put in the game... but I'm not getting my hopes up after the results of me asking for voice sound effects. Prove me wrong and email me some good stuff (totaljerkface at gmail). I will most likely be adding myself as a destructible character soon, so if you're upset with site performance you'll be able to maul me in a creative method of your choosing.

I've also doubled the shape limit (300 to 600). It didn't screw things up as badly as I thought it would. You can now see how many shapes you have left as you're building a level.