I will start this post off this week by saying that I am in no way religious, so if you were expecting prayers, there are none from me. That being said, as a Boston resident who lives 10 minutes from where the bombings took place today, I would like to extend my condolences to the families of the deceased, and my best wishes for recovery to all injured victims.

Hope all Boston NG'ers and any NG'er attending the Marathon have managed to stay safe today. For any wondering, my friends and I are safe.

This is indeed a very sobering experience being 10 minutes from such chaos, in fact, I was planning on going to watch today but luckily overslept.

Xaotik, out.

Hello All,

So my story to share with you all for these two weeks is of my newfound addiction. Seriously, I'm not joking when I say addiction. I have a good buddy who had never played Dishonored before, so I loaned him my copy, and in return, he loaned me Skyrim. I have never played this game before the 6 hours I just sunk getting lost in this magical RPG world. My character isn't even a double-digit level yet, and I can tell that this game clearly deserves all the accolades it received.

So yeah, that's about it. I don't expect to see the light of day for a few weeks, and I'm absolutely going to go ahead and purchase my own copy so I can play after this semester of school is over. Wish me the best friends, I'll try RPG rehab right after this next level up, or next week or something, promise...

Hey NG... I'm quite sad at this time... It's my last break from school until the semester is over and as I get home, I find out that my computer's hard drive model has been recalled due to defects.

I had to bring it in for service and will be without it for a few days. I was hoping to finally sit down and do some serious work on NG+, but it looks like it has to wait.

Hey NG,

I've come to the conclusion that the only way I get things done is to juggle multiple projects. My latest fascination and project is a new game about commerce during the 18th Century. I'm aiming to make this a game that can be played at any speed, accomplished by having a range of missions that play at varying speeds.

The HTML5 game I mentioned last post is still under way. That will probably be released after this project, as I'm still getting a feel for development in a new environment.

As for Newgrounds+, I'm trying to gather opinions on where I should take it next. I strongly believe at this point that the best course of action is to rewrite the script as a native browser extension to dispel the restrictions I've had to work under whilst developing it as a userscript.

As always, I'm open to any commentary you all have to offer on this. I'll conclude this post by leaving you with an early screen cap of the commerce game I mentioned.

[High Res Photo]

Hello Newgrounders

This post is about a new game I'll be working on for a stint, currently codenamed Project Apollo, until it has a real name. I'm taking a little bit of a break from development on NG+ to focus my efforts on Apollo, because it will be a new territory for Jaxh and myself, HTML5 Game Development. I've spent the entire day writing an in-house Javascript library to determine device specs and Flash Player compatibility, amongst other things. The Flash Player compatibility detector was a must, because a Flash-based "substrate" will be rolled out with this game, designed to link into the NG Flash API for Medals and Save Data, and the detector library will be used to ensure that the API is only accessed on desktop/laptop devices. Mobile devices able to access the HTML5 game engine will be limited to an "Arcade" mode, but it will still be pretty cool to have this game available on the go.

I don't currently have any screenshots available, but stay tuned for more info in the coming weeks, I hope to have this project up and running very, very soon.

- Xaotik

Hello all,

As the post title suggests, I am both a fan of South Park and I am going home. I'll be leaving later today from college for the first time in 3 months to see my family and friends from back home.

I also plan on getting some major work done on Newgrounds+ since I haven't had any solid chunks of uninterrupted time since arriving here in late August.

Also here is a mandatory Cartman given the post title:

Ever since moving into college 2 weeks ago, I haven't run out of clothes and needed to do laundry. That changed today, and I discovered something surprisingly nice. My university has a laundromat where you can actually text the washing machine you just started, and it will text you back when your clothes are done being washed.

Now I know that the age of technology that we're in might not make this as exciting as it would have been about a decade ago, but I still find it really convenient and cool.

So tell me Newgrounds, what are some pleasantly surprising conveniences you've found just doing everyday stuff?

First off, to all mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day.

Secondly, to all single moms of only one child, ages 21-30, Hey baby, come here often?
(lol)

Third, remember back in March, I mentioned a new member of the ShadeStorm Productions team? You remember, right? No? Ok then, well allow me to introduce HaiBai, he's a nice guy and all, been a friend of mine for many years, but he's a bit slow to get things done. Anyway, he'll be the newest face at ShadeStorm, specializing in desktop and server-side development, but also a bit of an amateur photographer and some funny ideas for a video project (which will hopefully be launched using the NG video player, if Tom watches/likes the preview we intend to pitch before Robot Day).

Fourth, I've contracted a summer cold or flu, or some sort of coughing, sneezing, sore throat thing. It sucks... 'nuff said. Three days into it and I'm feeling better now, so it's over for this little P.O.S. virus, because I don't fall ill again as I'm starting to recover.

Anyway, feel free to comment if you're reading this.

Hey fellow NG'ers,

This post is almost definitely just a celebratory post. I wanted to submit something this year, but alas, I cannot. I ran out of time to work on projects because of a conference I've been preparing for.

So once again, Happy Pico Day.

- X

Hey NG,

Haven't been around much lately, busy with work and stuff. I wanted to use this post to talk about a very happy day for me though, after years of really wanting an iPhone (I collect tech stuff, and the iPhone was near the top of my list), I finally timed things perfectly, that my device upgrade date fell right around my birthday, and I used all the gift money to buy the 64GB iPhone 4S.

I love this phone.

Pic: