I gotta be honest, it's not me but I just thought I might share my NG goodness I have at home, here in this so called big slice of heaven. Anyway, I like putting NG stickers on my stuff that I use daily. One NG logo being on my spaceship looking personal computer, second one, naturally, being on my fridge coupled with an Alien Hominid sticker. Then there's an Angry Faic on my Xbox360 which magically protects it. I'm using the same Xbox for 2 years now without any RROD's. Am I the only one? Hope I haven't jinxed it now.

Anyway, I can't go anywhere without my apartment keys so naturally there's an Angry Faic hanging from those, being angry at them if they get lost which happen once but they came back. When going to sleep, there's always one certain someone waiting for me when I'm not having sex with some random girl I find outside.

I got loads of tshirts which I mostly wear when I go out at nights. They are very stylish and they don't scream: "Hey, look at me, I have a tshirt of some website written all over it.". Then there's also a red Castle Crasher being fancy on my table.

I have lots more stickers to spend. I usually give some to other people and I think of other ways on how to use them. I'm thinking of putting the little small tank logo on the back of my phone but that didn't work so well with my last one when I had to sell it so I had trouble scratching the sticker off the phone. Those stickers are TOUGH.

Well, after going through this article, I ... might ... be exaggerating a bit. It's a website after all. But then again, it's my second home which I visit almost every day for 7 years now. It gave me everything I have now. Without it, I wouldn't had experienced some of the best moments in my life, it helped me through the toughest parts of my life and I met some of the best people on it. Indirectly, but it's still the foundation of everything. More on that some other time.

...and it's finally not an exclusive so I can post it online. Everything made by me and my partner in one week. From setting up a studio, lightning, directing, animating, compositing, keying.

It's been a blast working on this and we got loads more offers so besides flash game development, I'll just keep on working with music videos and short movies because it rules (too). Video work has always been a hobby of mine but I'm slowly going pro.

You won't understand shit what the song is about because it's in Slovenian but it's just a simple summer hit song without any deep messages. Enjoy.

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A couple of pics from making of.

I just have to inform you about this gem I found a couple of days ago called Gymnast. Never have I thought a gymnast simulation could be this fun.

Gymnast is a physics-based acrobatic game with 100% analog controls. The game makes use of a modern gamepad, using the analog thumbsticks to give 1-to-1 control over the joints on a gymnast character.

You'll need a wireless receiver for your Xbox360 controller to properly play the game but since the game is freeware, those 20$ seem like a bargain. Plus, you'll be able to play all other PC/Flash games using Joy2Key unless the game normally supports the Xbox360 controller which almost all new games do. But then again, the game is coming to XBLA so you'll be able to play it on your Xbox whenever that comes out.
Or then again, you can just use any joypad with two analog sticks.

There's also a community website with user created levels and replays but for some reason it's not as populated as I want it to be. The game is still fresh so I guess it needs time.

For your own sake, check out the game at once. :)

I'm loving them. I really am a fan of them and I can't get enough of them. They never succeed in being bad. Only good.

Aquaria is actually the first game I bought and it's really a gem among games. So beautiful that all those debates if games can be art go down into the drain because YES, games can be art.
Tower of Goo is a game that's coming out for the PC and Wii. It's not out yet but I'm currently beta testing it and damn, the concept is so very addicting.
Audiosurf lets you "ride" your music. I preordered this on Steam and it's coming out tomorrow. This is actually a game which I bought without seeing any videos. Just a description and a couple of screenshots. I tried the beta after that and after the 3 song limit passed I gotta say I got hooked up to it. The game is as big as your music collection is. Incredible.

Flash games can still amaze me. You HAVE to check out Bow Street Runner.

Also, can't wait for XGen Studios' new game for the WiiWare. In fact, I can't wait for WiiWare to come out ALREADY(!!!).

Go independent gaming!

I got Luis's phone number back in July because I came to USA for Comic-Con and we planned on meeting but I'm back in USA again and I have a new phone number which he didn't know about. The idea was simply to call him and pretend that I'm some freaky fan. Guest appearance by Jmtb02.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Yf8xh Uau8

I feel like writing a poem as I see all this smoke in Irvine.

Fire all around me.
Can't breathe.
Can't see.
1st degree burn.
2nd degree burn.
3rd degree burn.
I am dead.
W00t.

I always wanted to play Guitar Hero but I never could because I had no console. So I found an alternative! I actually bought the console and I own Guitar Hero 2 but that aside, I think it's fair to share some hints and tips on how to make it work on a PC that doesn't need to be powerful at all!

First of all, there's this game, a Guitar Hero clone for a pc, it's free, open source, and doesn't look bad at all. It's called Frets on Fire and it comes with a couple of excellent songs to play with for a start. How do you play Guitar Hero with a keyboard?! It's actually pretty awesome. You either need a longer cable or a wireless keyboard, so anyway, you just take it in your hand like a guitar and put your first set of fingers on keys from F1 to F5 and the strum finger of the opposite arm on the Enter button. Obviously this won't work with laptops. The best way for me to explain is to simply show a picture.

It plays really well and it's all free! But let's get to more advanced stuff. Keyboard is fun but guitar is even more fun. For 60 bucks, you can buy the X-Plorer Guitar which is actually for 360's Guitar Hero 2 but the good thing here is that the guitar is easily attached to a Windows computer via USB and the guitar is recognized as a normal controller. You enter the game, setup the keys and you're ready for some Guitar Hero fun on a PC.

Yes, the bad thing about Frets on Fire is that it comes with only a couple of songs but the good news is that there are hundreds(!) more songs online (if you search well) even from GH1, GH2, GH2 80's made for Frets on Fire since it has a built in song editor. God bless the PC community. If you have a friend who owns copies of GH's, you can extract the songs from there and have them compatible with Frets on Fire with an application. Google it.

Well, I think I'm done. I gave you enough info but if you need more, you can easily search for more. All in all, you get all Guitar Heroes on a PC for 60$. And not even that if you're happy with a keyboard. Enjoy and have fun. Or should I say...rock on! -_-'

ps. This article would be better if GH3 isn't actually coming out for a PC and a Mac.

My trip to USA and Tom Fulp's question: "So what's Slovenia like?" were the inspiration for this article. So if you're interested in learning a bit of geography or reading an experience of someone's trip from an unknown country to a big country go ahead and take a read.

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Going to USA, more particulary Comic Con and meeting all the people is an awesome experience, especially if you're about six thousand miles away from it. What's not awesome is when you're coming from a small country with the population of 2 million people no one knows about called Slovenia.

It's ok not to know. Everybody learns someday, but it gets funny when you encounter a person who gets smart by saying: "I was there...Russia and those countries.". Russia? Russia doesn't have absolutely anything to do with Slovenia nor it's remotely close to it. Some person went to extremes by asking if we have television or internet. Sure, classic television, broadband television, HD tv's of all sizes, you name it. DSL's from as low as 256/256 kbit/s to VDSL's from 60/25mbps and FTTH to 1/1Gbps. No packages, only flat rate. So cheap it's almost free.

Slovenia was part of a more known country called Yugoslavia but it all fell apart in 1991 when a Balkan war occured and now all the countries which formed Yugoslavia became independent. It was a bloobath for 5 years here until the peace was signed by the leaders of Yugoslavia. 140000+ dead, many more still missing and over million people left homeless. I was old enough to still remember all the alarms and bombings while I was still living in Croatia which is a neighbour country of Slovenia. It was an only 10 day war in Slovenia with a minor number of casualties (15+-) and no architectural damage whatsoever. There was this person at Comic Con who was in Slovenia before the war so I was asked if Slovenia recovered from it and how damaged it was which was funny since there was almost no war or damage in Slovenia at all.

History and drama aside, Slovenia is a tourist country with lots and lots of green colors, mountains, castles and wild rivers. Although it's full of nature stuff, there are also a couple of bigger cities as well as some smaller ones. Recently, it has been accepted to European Union which is funny since some people from European countries such as France still don't know about Slovenia.

Lately, the capital city of Slovenia - Ljubljana (don't even try to pronounce it) is full of tourists from all over the world (also USA). The reactions are always very positive and some of the people don't even want to go back. The best thing is that it's got everything you need in a really small package. Meaning, you can literally go for a coffee on the coast and go back to the other part of the country in just a couple of hours. So all in all, you can see the coast, mountains, castles and cities in just 24 hours or less. I never tried it but I believe so. And, that's only if you're driving all the time. It would take you a couple of days to actually see and feel everything which is still a really small amount for a country as big as USA. I really love USA's visuals and I plan on visiting every bigger attraction but it's so damn hard since you have to use the plane for everything.

I'm not gonna go into details anymore since you have Wikipedia and Google for all the info but if someone decides to come visit the country be sure to notify me.

There's this guy who asked me what's it like there in Scandinavia. I'll leave this blatant question which is wrong in oh so many ways for you to uncover using the internetz and do your homework at the same time. If they don't teach you geography in school, you should do it yourself because knowing about the world is not a bad thing at all.

Huge props to k2xL who actually knew the capital city of Slovenia.

So, as of now, Stranded 2 became a top priority game in production. And as of now, it's looking like the best friggin game ever. It looks like it, yes, but what about gameplay? We'll still see about singleplayer but right now we're trying to make the best online hardcore multiplayer experience to date. It looks and works really well so far but it keeps getting better. Check out the trailer if you still haven't seen it yet. The material in the trailer is pretty early so don't even think about ... thinking this is final.

<3 Luis.

So this was one of the most exciting months in my life. After being on NG for 7 years I got to meet everyone involved and many more people from flash industry not related to Newgrounds. Let's see...

Kongregate.com staff, Mochi Media staff, Newgrounds staff, I-Mockery staff, Armor Games staff, Cyanide & Happiness staff, The Behemoth staff, creator of Line Rider Bostjan Cadez, DrNero; Fancy Pants Adventures, Afro-Ninja; Territory War, Luis; do I even need to say, k2xl; Boomshine, John Perazza; Erik the Juiceman, rtil; Flash Comedy Extravaganza, Krinkels; Madness series, Gel; Wink, The Swain: Blockhead series, uhhh the list goes on. As for celebs, Saylar from Heroes (whichever his name is), Kevin Bacon, Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson and others. As you can see, it was a really wild month when it came to meeting people.

I was living with DrNero in San Francisco for a week where we got to see a lot of stuff and showed off Nuclear Eagle on a Wii to a bunch of people including a Wiiware staff member who liked the game. We also went to San Diego by the coast with a car and stopped by the Armor Games office where we slept for the night and played Guitar Hero 2 with two guitars. That was awesome. Each night at San Diego, well, two nights, we were out with many flash people from Newgrounds, drank a lot of beer and had fun with each other in many nasty ways. All verbally. Overally, everyone was amazingly nice and fun.

I was trying to avoid NG's Jeff because I gave him a bad review for 300 Queers and we got into a minor PM fight but we ended up having a great conversation at some random mexican bar. I drove 410 miles the next day and now I'm preparing for a 20 hour flight back home. I may be as far as in Eastern Europe but I ain't missing another Comic Con.

I also learned that my accent isn't as nearly perfect as I thought. It actually isn't nearly as good. Bummer. Practice makes perfect. God, my flight is leaving in 7 hours and I haven't went to sleep yet. Well, see you.

ps. I hate blogging. Seriously. But since everyone wrote about their Comic Con experience I went on to share mine.

-l