April 24, 2001 Mike WarHeads SE has gone gold!! Head on over to the download section and check it out. We really think WarHeads is one of the most unique games ever made, and now everyone will finally get a chance to enjoy it. We are also proud to announce that there will be another Bugatron level pack released in May, the working title is the "Mantis Pack". Z-Ball is scheduled for release in early June, but you know how that can go. April 12, 2001 Mike Retro64.com has always been hosted on a "shared" environment. That means it was on the same pc as many other sites at the hosting facility. But with WarHeads SE coming, I needed an extremely stable and reliable system to keep track of the WarHeads servers. So today we ordered a dedicated cobalt rack server running LINUX, and it will be up and running soon. I don't expect any downtime while I move retro64.com over, but there is that possibility. Also, WarHeads SE soon, I promise! April 4, 2001 Mike Lots of news! As you may have read in the forums, I set aside Z-Ball to go full steam on the new WarHeads, tentatively called, "WarHeads SE". I am very pleased with the progress and a release is coming soon! If you liked the old WarHeads, look out, because this one keeps the same gameplay, but improves the user interface, graphics, and especially the Internet play. It also runs on Windows 2000. Bugatron is now at 1.04, and is a must-have for all the level pack owners- because it fixes the high score issues- and you can't kill that big boing ball with atoms anymore in "Follow the Bouncing Ball" :-) March 8, 2001 Mike Two items of news this time. I have updated Bugatron to version 1.03. Bugatron would crash on systems that don't support 800x600 with 16 bit color. It mainly happened on older 3D cards that won't run Bugatron well anyway: but hey, it was hurting my rating on download.com because people would give it a thumbs down if it crashed! Also, you can't wrecking-ball kill the giant boing ball in the level pack "Follow the Bouncing Ball" level. There were some high score issues, also fixed. Now for the more exciting news. Progress is happening very rapidly on Z-Ball, a 3D breakout game that uses the Bugatron engine. I will post screenshots when it looks a little better :-) February 13, 2001 Mike I have updated Bugatron to version 1.02. Fixes include a different set of high scores for each level pack The scoring on the fans level is also fixed. January 1, 2001 Mike I have updated Bugatron to version 1.01. It now saves your video mode selection and I also added a difficulty selection to the main menu. The game isn't so impossible now! Download it now! December 8, 2000 Mike Bugatron Freeware is available for download! December 7, 2000 Mike Bugatron has gone Gold!! I am testing the freeware version and Level Pack 1 right now, all looks good!! As soon as the DigiBuy account is set up, Bugatron will be ready to download and play! Level Count: 48! November 28, 2000 Mike Getting closer! In addition to 8 more levels, I added the pack logic, as well as directx 7.0 checking, and a bunch of other fixes. I also did thorough memory leak checking and other things to make sure it's stable. Been testing it ALOT; won't be long now! Level Count: 36 November 17, 2000 Mike Two more days, four more levels! My target is to at least have 48 by launch. Then I have to decide which 16 to put in the freeware version- and that's going to be hard. There are so many levels I would like to include to demonstrate how unique each one is, but with only 16 slots, some will just not make it in. On the other hand, this is a good problem because the level packs are going to be every bit as good as the freeware levels- and more difficult too. I think I would be done by now if I didn't spend so much time playing the game instead of making it :-) But that is also a good thing, because if the game is fun for me, it will probably be fun to you as well. I still have to code the high score screen, and I am thinking about keeping track of all time high scores on the net, giving the user the option to upload their scores if they want. The only other code not written (excluding bug fixes) is the logic to handle additional level packs- and that is simple stuff to work out. Level Count: 28 November 15, 2000 Mike The day when Bugatron gets released is creeping closer and closer! The most recent set of levels are my favorite 4 so far. Hopefully, the levels will continue to improve. I am thinking 16 levels for the freeware version, and a "level pack" with 48 (the original 16, plus 32 new ones) for somewhere between 10$ and 15$ I just have to come up with ideas for 24 more new levels, eek! The thing above all else that I think makes Bugatron unique is that each level has it's own little characteristics- I want to keep that through every level I make for it. Shane Monroe was kind enough to put together an mpeg video of Bugatron being played; it's over in the "products" section. While a 320x240 video can't capture the true gaming experience, I think it still gives you a pretty good idea what Bugatron is going to be like. Level Count: 24 November 7, 2000 Mike Now that I have a website up, I guess I better start posting some news updates ;-) Development of Bugatron is going nice and smooth. I was really having some issues with the tedious nature of the XML level files, so I made some nice changes to allow any alien to base itself off of a previous alien and only make changes to what has actually changed. This has helped ALOT, I can now focus on making fun levels instead of cut-and-paste! Level Count: 20