Well Newgrounds, it's been a while since I've had reason to make a posting here. There have been a lot of things going on with me personally, but this isn't quite the place for that. I am writing video game articles though which are on Yahoo! voices under the name "Great Video Game Ideas Not Used", GVGINU for short. I've been writing the articles for about 2 years now, and I know I linked to some of them before in my previous post (the first 6 in the series). I'm actually up to 27 articles as of this moment published.

I'm looking for people who would be willing to help me get my website going as I've already started it. I actually made a couple youtube videos to ask for help, one was made with Xtranormal, and the other I made a video using my android tablet (which is a generic tablet). I know some people won't like the robotic voice in the Xtranormal video, which is why I made the other one. Though I will say my voice sounds funny in it for some reason, but oh well, I'll just have to get better equipment to record with.

I'll link to everything below. I'm hoping that whoever sees this might be interested. Just check otu the stuff below, as I will make sure you know what each link is.

Xtranormal Youtube Ad

Live Video Ad

GVGINU Website <------- This is rather ugly at the moment.

Articles (Podcasts Coming Soon) <---Same site, just the articles.

Twitter Page

You can also find my emails for GVGINU on the contacts page of the website. Again, I'm hopeful that something good will come of this as I'm trying to build GVGINU into a known brand. It doesn't have to be the biggest thing in the world, but it would be nice to be noticed.

Also, I had a few things to say about Adam Orth's tweets.

I've been quite busy since my last entry here. I've finally made the push to really get into game design and development. I'm still very new to this however, being that I only started doing this about two weeks ago. I'm currently working on a scrolling shooter game, which is meant to be fun, but challenging. The longer you play, the more challenge the game brings.

I've been reading and watching so many tutorials, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job so far. The current name of the game is "1945: Endless Skyfight" and at this moment, the third beta is available online. I had plenty of kinks to work out of some of the enemies, and the planes. The fourth beta will be a huge improvement on the third. If I knew flash coding, then I'd just upload it here, but I'm not that good just yet, hopefully though, it won't take me too much longer. I've got plans for a few game ideas I have, and I know that I'm going to need artists, spriters, and coders in the future, but for now, I want to do most of the work alone.

If anyone plays beta 3, let me know what you think so I can inform you of beta 4 when I upload it.

I've also been writing articles dealing with the game industry more directly. I'll link them here for if anyone feels like reading them.

Article 1

Article 2

Article 3

Article 4

Article 5

Article 6

Like I've said before, I've got plenty of different projects that I'm working on all at once, I won't go to list how many, but the list is extensive. However, I've completed two of my projects. They were sprite recolors, one of Knuckles, the other of Zero.

My Knuckles recolor is called....Brass the Echidna. Let me give you a run down on Brass's personality. He's very well thought out, and cool headed. though at times, his over thinking can cause him to hesitate during critical moments. But he has great instincts which are likely to save his butt. He has all of the skills and powers that Knuckles has.

Now as for the Zero recolor, his name is....Heat. I actually had the idea for Heat a long, long time ago. I started working on him like two years ago, but I was using a program to recolor Zero that I probably shouldn't have been using, and it was taking me forever, but I switched to a different program, so it's not soooooo bad. I'm not giving back ground on Heat yet because I'm writing a fanfic that will involve him in the Mega Man X series, which will explain his personality, his powers, and his abilities.

But for the sprites, you can go to http://bloodpantha.deviantart.com/ That's my deviantart page, and the characters are on it. Thanks to whomever has read this, and I hope you have a great day, I'm happy.

Well, this year hit like a brick for my creativity. I got bad news followed by bad news. But it's all good. The stuff that hindered me only helped me in the long run.

With working on Bloodstorm, I figured out exactly why nobody wanted to read much into my story, that first chapter had some issues. I've only found minor ones in the chapters that followed, but the first chapter was enough to derail the whole thing. I'm still not done editing it by a long shot, but I'm making major progress on it.

With my music, I've been informed of the prior program I was using not being allowed. Which hit me pretty hard because I didn't know it was wrong. But on the other hand, it helped jump me to moving to FL Studio much faster, which is a positive because I'm having fun using it and developing tracks. None are finished yet, but they are coming along nicely. I also just got my new mic, so I'm estatic about being able to use it, though I still need a pop filter, but I'll probably just make one rather than buy one. Either way, vocals will soon be able to be done.

I'm gearing myself up for a good year this year. I've held myself back for too long, allowing myself to wait on other people to get me jump started, but since it's not going to happen that way, I'm going to just do it. I'll never know how far I can go if I don't try, and keep trying. Brick wall or not, I'm continuing on the same path I currently have my mind set on.

Well, yesterday I learned that I was using a program that wasn't considered to be worthy on Newgrounds. I've been using this tool to get the basics of music production, and also to make some decent sounding tracks. But FairSquare clued me in on what I was doing, after a bit of brief conversation. Now I'm wondering if I have to take the tracks down. I wasn't intentionally breaking any rules, and I made sure I read the FAQ before I started submitting anything. So, I thought there was nothing wrong.

It sucks to find out that you've made a mistake that is so crucial like that, and to only find that out after you've done a small mass of work. I wouldn't be terribly upset if I had to take the stuff down, well everything except for Jazz Swagger, that track was made in 2008 with the help of a studio producer, before I started trying to do anything myself. Still, I like the songs, but if they truly don't abide by the guidelines, then I'd rather not be the one screwing things up for everyone else.

The good thing is, I've learned all that I can with that software, and was preparing to move on to something else. FL Studio, here I come. Nothing has come back to me yet about the tracks though, so I'm not certain if I have to take them down, if they'll just be taken down, or if they might be allowed to remain. I was figuring when it asked if I'm 100% the original creator, that yes, I was. I put the songs together, I named them. I doubt fully that they've been heard anywhere else before by anyone else, so I thought that my songs were truly valid.

I don't want to ruin or invalidate any part of Newgrounds in any way, this place is on of my many online homes. I'd rather be fully in the right and recognized for doing things right, than being the guy that fudged it all up. In the eyes of fairness, if my stuff has to come down, then I want to be the one to take it down. I'd rather remove it willingly than to have it forcefully stripped away. So I sit at the mercy of the Gods of Newgrounds.

Bad thing is, I probably would have figured this out a while ago had I used the forums before November. Though I've done a search, and I haven't found anything that tells you which programs not to use. That would be just as useful to have as something telling which are the best to use, this would save people who do check the forums first from running in to the same problem. Maybe it should also be linked in the FAQ too, for those who may not think to check the forums like myself.

This is a good way to block out certain attempts:

But there should also be something in there about using programs with material that isn't copyrighted, that just has pieces you place together to create songs, the very basic production programs. If that isn't considered to be the authors original work, then there should be something said about it. The person making that claim could be thinking the same way that I was, I put it together, it's not copyrighted, then it is my own original work correct? In this case, that's wrong, at least that's what I was informed of. There is a very vague line that can easily be crossed without intention to do so. I'm not saying that everyone that does it is doing so out of the earnest thought and respect for the site that what they are doing is right. I just want to make it clear, there are probably lots of users who make that mistake and just don't know it.

I wish I knew ahead of time so that I wouldn't have put anything up other than Jazz Swagger, or at least I would have switched programs immediately rather than posting up so many songs using it. I'm probably going to do some research on the subject and just put up a thread on the subject, just to see if I could maybe help other users like myself that just don't think about it.

I really feel as if I've betrayed the Newgrounders who have favored my submissions as well as myself as an audio artist here. I didn't do it on purpose, but either way, it's not something that I would have wanted. It's better to be looked at as a true artist than to unknowingly be a fraud. So I'm going to take my new knowledge and put it to good use, and submit songs that are completely original to me. Live, Learn, Grow, and Move On.

Man have I learned a lot in the last couple of days. I'm not the writing dynamo that I once thought I was. Not something that's going to keep me down, but it has shown me that maybe I should go back and look at some of the older work I have done, and correct it. Not that there are huge changes that need to be made, but just to make it so that it's more friendly for the audience across the world. I got so used to getting compliments on my writing ability and the creativity of my writing, that when I got my little plane shot down, I forgot to eject, and crash landed right into my own pride. It's not that my idea wasn't good, but it wasn't executed in a away that most people (worldwide) would catch on to it. I can't change everything in my story, as that would defeat the purpose, but I can make it easier for those who may not know certain terms, to understand them.

I think however, that I made an inside joke in the art forum unintentionally. I'll have to see how far it goes, and what happens with it, but if you start hearing people say "Go Somewhere" in any flash animations anytime soon, I caused it. LOL Anyway, maybe I was being too big of a baby, I took things personally that I should have just looked at from the outside, luckily for me I don't take long to understand the viewpoints of others. Even if my story doesn't have the greatest of names, that doesn't mean that it can't be one of the greatest stories. Anyone who commented on my post in the art forum, oh be sure to know, I'll be back, way better than the first. See I'm not the type to let something negative stop me, it may slow me down a bit, but it doesn't stop me.

So, I will be making changes, fixing things, but I won't be discouraged or run away. What's the point in living if you give up everytime you hear something you don't want to hear. For me, I think I needed it, one, to take me down a level, and two, to recognize my own errors. I will say this however, not a lot of the people who commented deal with the type of people I used to deal with on a daily basis. In writing a story, you can't make every character speak the same way, or act the same way. Just as in real life, people have speech glitches, not everyone cares to properly use every word of any language, which seemed to be the thing people most pointed out. If you are basing a character off of another person, then the character should share the same attitudes and speech patterns as said person. Even if not, maybe you just want to make a character seem very ignorant or blatantly stupid, would you really make them speak in a complete proper tone? Look up some of James Patterson's work, especially anything dealing with Alexander Cross, and you'll definitely get where I'm coming from. Good day to all those who read this, and thank you for allowing me to muse.

I've been having trouble focusing on my projects lately. I guess that's because I'm so wound up with all of this Christmas stuff, and my birthday, I just haven't really thought everything out. Now my stories and my music are starting to fall behind, but not so much that it's really hurting me I guess. Being apart of the Vampire Survival Story Thread is helping keep my creativity in motion. I've got to get back to work on finding myself artists to help me make my comic. I wish I had the ability to draw myself, I would have already made it and posted it online. Good thing is that I still have my concept/background artist, though I haven't really communicated with him to see if he would actually still be able to do it. Even if he can't, there are other projects that I could probably use his help with later on. Merry Christmas to everyone, I hope you get lots of presents on my B-Day. Enjoy!

I'm starting a Reach based Football League, it will be similar to Rooster Teeth's Grifball, but so much more. It's really small right now, and I have to approve everyone, but I'm pretty much approving everyone, it's just to help me better keep track of how many people are in the group. Anyone that's interested in joining, here is the link. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Re ach_Football/

I really need members, once I get it going, I swear, this will be EPIC!!!!

I'm actually pretty happy with myself with these last two tracks I made, they make up for the shame I suffered with my botched vocals. it's okay though, I'll fix those soon as I get a new mic, and a pop filter. Life is going to be good. I just need to keep my focus, and work as hard as I can. My story is really developing well, though sometimes I do get stuck. Other than that, everything is great.

I'm really nervous about what comments I'll get for the two sets of lyrics I just posted not that long ago. "Questions Part 1" and "Questions Part 2" are both songs that I wrote, though the former was actually written maybe 4 or 5 years ago, and the latter was made out of my trying to revamp the first one a year ago. Either way, lyrically, I know they're both good, but performance wise, I'm not all that experienced at solo, especially not without music, so I'm not confident in how good they sound. I just hope that I can get over this fear, so I can start performing better. I'm probably going to redo the songs anyway, but I need this test run to see what people think, and to get feedback on how I can improve my rapping. Let's just hope it works out well.

Edit: 10/4/10 - Well, after having thought it out, I'm going to get a new mic, and then I'll redo my recordings, and repost them, but for now, they don't need to be up, I'm just hurting people's ears. lol