I've been super busy, so I apologize for a lack of posting here... lots to report on, but I'm gonna make you read the boring stuff before I get to the real reason you're here:

I'm still teaching Game Development, Graphic Design, and AP Art at a local high school full time (though I'm just finishing up Spring Break). Check out this game one of my students made, it's a pretty fresh take on the word search genre!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/703243

My Advanced Game Dev class has been working on MULTIPLAYER games! I had to teach them a bit of PHP and HTML/CSS (which was rough for them, but I think it's good to ask them to do "hard" things). I plan to take some videos of us playing their games during the upcoming week, I'll post that here!

To make the students' experience a LITTLE easier, I coded a PHP<--->Web Database<--->Flash multiplayer API called P.R.A.M.S. (Pasto's Radical Asynchronous Multiplayer System). To test it out I added multiplayer functionality to my old Jeopardy! game. To make a long story short, the previous J! game, when you got to Final J! required me to use a bunch of slips of paper and pencils to submit wagers and responses (because wagers and responses are private from the other players unlike the rest of the game). With the new system, the players can use their phones/tablets to log into my website (using an access code generated by the main Flash game) and then submit their wagers and responses. Additionally, I'm now keeping a record of all the games' data and using that to keep a running online high score board! Woo!

Both of my house's toilets started leaking at the same time, so I ended up learning how to rebuild toilets via YouTube... it was frustrating, but ultimately rewarding!

We celebrated Pi Day on March 14th (though that's not the REAL Pi Day) in my Game Dev classes while we studied Trigonometry for 2D games!

Did I mention I have the Abobo Cabinet set up in my classroom? This is what my lunch time looks like:

My students also found a thrift store painting and set up a SHRINE in my classroom:

I got one of those SWEET Newgrounds Pins!

I'm also the "PR Coordinator" for my school, and got this GIANT banner made to hang on the outside of the school... it's ridiculously LARGE:

My AP Art students have been making some RAD stuff:

I've also been making art with the Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro, trying to keep up with my students (this is how I unwind at night):

I'm trying to improve my ability to draw/paint human faces, especially to capture "likenesses" which I feel I'm weak with... so I've been doing a series of portraits from Star Trek The Next Generation... :-P

These are posted in the order I painted them.

The Data one came out so bad, I had to re-do it to feel better about myself (first and second attempts shown).

Everyone says my Wesley Crusher turned out looking like that gun protest kid... David Hogg...

Only Picard left to do! I feel like I'm getting settled into a good technique and process for these, overall it's been a frustrating and helpful exercise!

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Here's the good stuff!

I teamed back up with @Luis to re-make Castle Crashing the Beard for its 10-year anniversary! 

We missed the actual anniversary date deadline, but it's a "spare time" thing and we're making it in GameMaker so it's taking A LOT longer than an equivalent game made in Flash. We don't know what we'll do with it when it's done but, as with the original, it's a tribute to games and people we love, so hopefully we'll figure out how to publish it, at least, on the web for everyone to play.

Here are some animated GIFs to get you HYPED! (Everything is WIP and likely to change a lot):

If you want to stay up to date on day-to-day progress, follow me on Twitter and Instagram (which I update pretty regularly):

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pestoforce

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pestoforce/

Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment!