Honestly, I feel really bad about this horrendous lack of posts. After blatantly ignoring my own warning about the danger of gaps, it’s only fair that I offer a completely truthful explanation. You deserve nothing less for sticking around. It’s a long story, but what actually happened was this…

I was munching on a very tasty slice of cake whilst playing one of the last Assemblee games in order to piece together TAR part 16 when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flicker of movement. Glancing in that direction I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Assuming it was just the shadow of a flying pig, I resumed my keyboard wrestling match, but before I’d even had chance to type another word, POW! Something rugby-tackled me off my chair and barged me face-first into a pile of extremely uncomfortable cushions.

Choking and spluttering crumbs of cake everywhere, I was otherwise uninjured, and despite being momentarily stunned, it took mere nanoseconds for my secret ninja agent training to recover my senses. Rolling out of the accursed cushion pile and plucking a feather off my monocle to avoid scratches, I locked gazes with my assailant – a Greater-Speckled Commodore Marmot!

As it glowered at me from its triumphant new perch on my chair, I shuddered inwardly at the creature’s mesmeric dappled coat of over 9000 shades of brown; here at last I knew I’d met my match. Having secured the advantage it now seemed content to simply hold its ground. Feeling the malice of its contemptuous sneer upon me, I cautiously got to my feet. The tension built intensely. Beads of sweat spontaneously appeared on my brow. Seeing no other option, I prepared to unleash my most lethal nerdrage attack at the interloper. It might have been the last thing I ever did, but I had to try…

Just as my muscles tensed to pounce, the marmot’s mouth seemed to actually curl into a mocking smile. It looked up at the ceiling and made a kind of pumping gesture with its right fist. Stupidly, I looked up. The last thing I saw was the infuriatingly apathetic expression of a drop bear hurtling towards me.

As the Matrix-like conclusion of its descent knocked me into slow-motion unconsciousness, I cursed the treachery of the cake I had been eating just a handful of moments before. If its luscious tastiness hadn’t distracted me I might not have been ambushed so easily. As an almost comforting darkness beckoned, I heard a chesty, rasping voice. Perhaps my fading perception was playing tricks with me, but I think it said: “Job’s done, boss. The guy ain’t gonna say 6nine is a load of bollards ever again.”

So, as I sit here absently rubbing my head, the thought occurs to me that this amateur journalism racket sure is a dangerous thing. Aside from the plain fact I’ve never written about street furniture on this blog, if the truths I publish here antagonise the forces of indie evil so easily, it is my duty to stand up to them and to protect others from their tyranny! Y’hear me, JMickle?! You and your crazy retro marmots and drop bears DON’T SCARE ME!!

*dives into the now rather dusty pile of cushions and hides*

Here is a handy illustration of gapspace that you may wish to carry with you in order to safeguard your day-to-day activity.

Meanwhile, normal posting (if anything here can be categorised as such) will resume shortly…

Unfortunately, the many constructive things I could have blogged about today seemed to fly out of my head as I actually sat down to write something. Instead, have this pointless YouTube video of some random Minecraft multiplayer action involving water, spirals and water. And spirals. Oh, did I mention it has watery spirals in it?…

…Yeah, I’ll just be going now. Tomorrow will be more informative, I promise

I just can’t even begin to think how something like this is made. Clever stuff.

Presenting the first (and possibly the last) screenshot of: EightyForty, an oldschool DOS-ish screen prototyper! Boring, nerdy and geeky, yes? Hell no! This is the cutting edge, I tell ya…

This came as a direct result of finding out how to do single-buffered graphics in BlitzMax, which isn’t as clearly documented as it should be. As it happens, such a graphics system isn’t really utilised fully in this particular app – but for a future Blitz Roguelike engine it certainly would be I must shout a big “thank you!” to Mauft for suggesting the breakthrough that got it up and running.

In other news, work is edging forward on a super-secret collaborative project that I can’t say anything about. Yet. If and when there’s anything juicy to tell you (that my good coding partner is happy for me to let slip!), you’ll almost surely be among the first to know

It does mean that I’ve put Dalyn’s Quill on the backburner for a short while, but I’ll be getting back to it soon. I was also on the verge of releasing another on-the-fly Socoder Weekly Workshop entry called Greenway’s Gauntlet… I’ll leave it as a prototype for now but I do want to upload the wonderfully hackish code when time permits.

Meh, now I’ve mentioned it, take a look at this screenshot illustrating its full rubbishness (not recommended for people who dislike the colour green):

Ohnoes! It's full of green!!

Guess when I put it up, I could shove Pick ‘n’ Mix online too, which was another really quick and dirty project I did for Socoder a while back. So much to do, yet so little time!

I love it! It’s even got authentic-looking wear and tear. Very professional indeed, and best of all it’s completely safe. Oh, and your cake is just through that doorway over there…

There’s some more pictures over on the original Shacknews post.

To make the project slightly less geeky, the capsule will also contain some of “humanity’s greatest achievements”. NCSoft are inviting everyone to put their thoughts forward on what to include, so if you want to get involved with the discussion, take a trip to the Operation Immortality homepage and start having your say.

I’m not quite sure what to think about this… it’s certainly a unique idea but somehow it smacks of “gimmick” to me