It's still Pico Day in my neck of the woods. Just wanted to wish everyone the best on this momentous occasion.

God bless us everyone.

Ok, using the term "viral" makes me feel like a buzzword-happy MBA student, but I can't think of anything better to describe the purpose of latest game I submitted to the portal:

Vanquish Those Viruses

Now, before I go on, I know it's a Dr. Mario clone, but it's a darn good one and the first Dr. Mario clone I've seen in flash.

My involvement in the game was actually pretty limited, I directed my WW art team and a programmer at Woogi World coded it. Originally it was crafted for inclusion in the Woogi World "Nutrition Buiilding" so had some things about it that didn't make it very friendly for distribution on the web, so I took the .fla and tweaked some things like adding a preloader and a pause button and some keyboard controls for navigation.

Its main purpose is to drive traffic to Woogi World by being stolen and spread around the Internet. We've started to see a small trickle since its release and the flow is steadily increasing. I'm of the opinion that a more original game would probably do a lot more for us and I have one that I was more heavily involved in (concept, art, and level design) called "Wooglings." I'm prepping it to release sometime soon. It's similar to my game "Moroni's March" but with some interface tweaks that I wish I had thought of for Moroni's March.

Hopefully that one will make a bit more of a splash on the Web and get the word out about Woogi World.

In other Woogi World news, we just completed the first phase of our PETS. We call pets in WW "Xoogies." There's a pic of the Xoogi store launch party below. Also, Chase from Tomorrow's Nobody and 2 other artists have joined the WW art team to design Woogi Clothing and Furniture! Right now WW is a bustling and up-coming online community, but we really need to get lots of kids to join up so we can keep going strong.

So, how do you think we can get a flood of kid traffic to Woogi World?

Get pumped, pico day fast approaches:

Mostly just testing the video embed, but this thing really scares me.

UPDATE: New WW game here - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
435173

Here is a long transcript of a game idea I pitched to my buddy Matt, it would have been the greatest game the Internet had ever seen, but there's a reason I didn't go very far with it. Tell me what you think:

me: it's a game kinda like mega man, but only with bosses.

matt: I love it!

me: so you have a set of bosses u have to beat to unveil the ultimate boss

matt: and you get to take the beaten bosses powers?

me: and you get to fight them in whatever order - and get a power from each - then you can assign those powers to certain keys - so you "equip" the powers - so you can have like 2 or three ready at hand at all times. Anyway, the characters would all be 80's icons like:

hulk hogan
the teenage mutant ninja turtles
lionel from thundercats
darth vader
mr T
the ghostbusters and slimer
karate kid
marty mcfly and doc
robocop
captain N
He-Man
Opimus Prime
Teen Wolf

Each one gives you a unique power to equip once you defeat him. But here's the funny part:
you play as ALF!

...

so what do you think?

matt: HA!

me: any additional ideas?

matt: who's captain N? the full house girls? kimmy gibbler or the olsen twins or the small wonder. I think you already got all the cool icons lined up for the game...Maxx Headrom !!

me: maxx headroom is a great idea, maybe he'll be the mastermind behind it all. Captain N is the guy who got sucked into his nintendo while playing mike tyson's punch out and had a controller belt buckle and a zapper in nintendo land and his letterman jacket had a big N on it.

matt: hmm I don't remember him

me: he could press start on his controller and freeze time - he fought mother brain, and the eggplant wizard, and had sidekicks: megaman, kid icarus, and simon belmont.

I played a boss-only game at the nickelcade the other night and it was really fun.

matt: it sounds like a cool game, and playing it in different orders would add replay ability.

I recently teamed up with Rog from I-MOCKERY to produce my most epic game to date. This was so intense I had to focus entirely on the programming and let Rog handle the art. Play it here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
432991

Coaly, the man behind Tom's bearded boss face, claims to be the master of our new game. He's a lot better at it than I am. So here's a video of him dominating "The Beard."

I heard it has magic powers and takes him out crime-fighting while he sleeps.

What do you think it can do?

EDIT
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In case you missed it: click here

I started reading "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White about 3 years ago because it was mentioned at the end of one of the X-men movies (the first I think). Then I got distracted and bored, but I recently picked it back up and finished it off.

For those that don't know, it's one of the definitive tellings of the King Arthur saga. It includes accounts about his life as the child "Wart" which many would recognize from Disney's "The Sword in the Stone." And goes on through quests for the Holy Grail and Lancelot's affair with Arthur's wife Guenevere.

What I expected was a fun tale of fantasy and intrigue, but, surprisingly the main thrust of the book focused on different methods of government and how to avoid war, or use war to accomplish good (themes obviously related to the X-men comics and movies).

Much of it satired the notion of old-world chivalry because of the obvious hypocrisy of knights being obsessed with rules and politeness and then going off to murder people for sport.

From Arthur's tutelage under Merlyn, he's given the chance to see the world through the eyes of various creatures including ants, geese, and fish and to analyze how they govern themselves. He comes up with the theory that "Might does not always equal Right" ie: just because you can do something, and you're strong enough to get away with it, it doesn't mean your course of action is "correct." He then struggles for the rest of the book to find a way to effectively and pragmatically implement this idealistic philosophy in his "real" world of medieval England.

He starts off by trying to focus the frivolous energy of all the MIGHTy questing knights toward good causes, recruiting them to his round table and basically giving them a purpose other than pointless self-assigned "quests." Instead he sends them on quests that serve a higher purpose, righting the wrongs and injustices so prevalent in his country. In his words, he tries to "Use might FOR right."

Eventually this philosophy (and others he tries) have short-lived success, but don't bring about his desired results in the long-run, and the book ends off exploring what the root causes might be for war...whether it be the idea of possessions (maybe if everyone had all things in common war would go away), or territory lines, or what have you.

Overall, it was good food for thought, especially since we, in the U.S. have been confronted with the election of a new leader for our government. It was a good reminder that high ideals are not always easy to put into practice, nor should they be abandoned for pragmaticism, but good leaders are in constant struggle with both aspects of their responsibilities: to move toward "RIGHT" in a way that actually pays off in practice.

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EDIT:
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I just found this interview with Brian Singer, creator of the X-men movies where he's asked about the use of this book in the films:

T.H. White's Arthurian book, The Once and Future King, comes up a couple of times in the movie: Magneto is seen reading it, and Professor X quotes from it to his students.

Singer: There's a number of reasons. One, I definitely think that's a story of evolution. The Once and Future King is someone who goes through their young life believing they are one kind of person, and then is forced to discover that maturity comes with a price of evolution and destiny. ... And they factor into a lot of our characters. Yes, Magneto believing that he is the once and future king. Or perhaps the evolution of Jean Grey, someone who's discovering that their future may be very different from their present. And also, I look for ways to bind Xavier and Magneto. The fact that there are chess sets, you'll notice, in both studies. The fact that the relationship with Cerebro: [Magneto] helped [Xavier] build it. And betrayal and love of these two men, who must have at one time had a strong relationship. They read the same books. They believed in the same things. But one went astray, and the other is desperately trying to hold the course and inspire faith in his team.

Every once in a while, an idea really pans out well.

For Woogi World some co-workers and I were sitting around brainstorming ideas for our 1st "MMO within an MMO" game. The idea we came up with is called "Sharks in the Water."

You may have played this game as a kid on the playground, the rules go as follows. The game starts with 1 shark, and all the other players are fish. The shark can "tag" any of the other players to convert them to his side and be a shark also...so the game starts with one, and eventually ends up with a herd of sharks chasing a small group of spry fish.

We decided to merge this idea with "freeze tag" where tagged players can be "un-tagged" by people who are not "it."

We then transferred this idea into flash, so the game mechanics go like this:

1. Click with your mouse to move.
2. Press space bar to release a "radius" attack.
3. If you're a shark, any fish within the radius begin a long animated metamorphosis into a shark.
4. During the metamorphosis, any other fish can "save" a fish in transition.
5. If the fish goes through the whole anim without being saved, he turns into the shark and goes on the offensive.
6. Sharks and fish have a bar that has to recharge between radius attacks before they can strike again.
7. Points for sharks are awarded for successfully "tagging" a fish, more points for converting a fish to a shark.
8. Points for fish are awarded for saving other fish, and also based on how long you survive the game without being transformed to a shark. The last surviving fish "wins" and receives a bonus.

We then added in the RPG element with different "levels" of both fish and sharks, each with a corresponding accrued point value. The way these levels are displayed is through "hats" that the woogies wear during the game. Basically, it looks like a fish or a shark is eating the woogi's head. You have to see it to appreciate it.

So the woogies in Woogi World can hop into a SITW game (up to 50 kids in 1 game), or host a SITW game as they're doing the other activities in the main Woogi World game and have this whole new MMO within the main MMO.

The cool part, for me, is to actually play the game and have FUN. Lots of times, ideas like these don't end up as fun in reality as they seemed on paper, but this one lived up to my expectations and even surprised me with how engaging it turned out.