Looks like my current game projects are on a permanent hiatus for the foreseeable future. I opened up an advertising design company earlier this year, and it has been sucking up way too much of my time.

To those of you who were anticipating the next game, it'll probably be another three to five years before I get a chance to finish it. I apologize for the bad news.

On a brighter note, the wheels are still turning, and I run through game mechanics and fun concepts every night before I go to sleep, so if I ever get this company to run itself, I'll be able to hit the ground running with some epically ridiculous shit.

Let the consternation proceed. I know I deserve it.

(EDIT: And yes, I know Duke Nukem Forever beat me to launch. Who would have thought that was possible...)

Sad news:
There will not be a Drunken Masters sequel, and there will not be a We Are Legend sequel. Unless someone wants to port it to Wii, in which case I lied and I'm ready to start tomorrow.

But, in better news, I'm working on what may be the dumbest idea ever, a game so beautiful that I'm pretty much guaranteed to lose money and time and personal relationships because of it. But you're going to love it so much that you'll name your firstborn children after me.

You might actually hate it, if you don't know how to have fun (or if you use a trackball and can't keep up with the retardedly unnecessary mouse-flailing action). Screens soon. Just thought, once again, that you guys wanted to fuckin know.

After months and months of procrastination and all the other bullshit that comes along with committing to a new game, I can't resist anymore. I'm going to wrap up pre-production on my next game this year, and hopefully will have something ready for NG by early summer, 2009.

Just thought you guys wanted to fuckin know.

Every game in the top 5 deserved its place- they were all stylish, professional, and fun as hell. I played each of those games and totally dug them. I didn't really get the Mastermind game at first, though- then I actually watched the Mastermind movies, and then it all made sense.

That said, Luis, BoMToons, and Coaly, the artists behind Castle Crashing The Beard, have decided to pass their monthly prize for that game down to me for Drunken Masters.

Seriously.

That's just about the most amazingly bad ass thing anyone has ever done, and I'm so stoked about it, I can barely type. I can't thank them enough for this- it's seriously awesome.

If you liked Drunken Masters, I guarantee that you'll enjoy all the games that made it into the monthly top five. Pillage the Village, CCTB, and Boxhead are my personal favorites, but that's just because I'm not into puzzle games. Shift has a brilliant game mechanic, and Mastermind, well... if you can play the game without laughing out loud, then you've got no soul.

Thanks again to BoM, Luis, and Coaly- and thanks to everyone that's played Drunken Masters!

So the new version of Drunken Masters is up today, and most of the bugs that you guys found have been fixed. Some of them affected the gameplay- it's harder to keep a bottle balanced for like 30 seconds than it was before, and promotions happen once every 2 or 3 shifts now, instead of every shift.

I also noticed the score dropped a bit today, and I'm not too freaked out about it (many of the other top-scoring submissions that it was submitted with have gone down quite a bit, too). So the question is, what do you guys think of this version? Is it better, worse, or did you not even notice bugs in the original?

Again, I want to thank all of you guys for being so supportive of the game- I seriously spent so much time play testing it that I didn't even think it was fun anymore, and when my friends playtested and told me that it was fun, I thought they were just telling me what I wanted to hear. It's really great to know that you guys like it.

Last thoughts: what do you guys think about an NG edition (for Pico Day, maybe?) featuring some of the NG characters as customers? Would that be worth a separate submission, or would it be a waste of time?

Thanks again!

Thanks for all the Drunken Masters feedback- I never expected such an overwhelming response! Naturally, a game this large is going to have a few issues that slip through the cracks. I've got about 15 items to track down and fix, ranging from the VS. mode bug to the misspelling of "Oakland" on Stunna's Character Description. I'll be updating within the week. In the meantime, don't let it stop you from playing. 95% of players won't experience any bugs at all- those that do, I apologize and I'll get right on them.

You can track the progress of the next version at www.availds.com!

-Dan

Drunken Masters was finally approved for release, and it just passed judgment. God damn, I feel like I just railed 10 lines of blow.

Whether you've been keeping track or not, the production was fuckin intimidating: 6 months of work, 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. 2500 symbols, too many lines of code to count. And I managed to squeeze that bitch into 7mb. I'm pretty impressed with myself.

If you haven't played it yet and you've got some serious time to kill (it's fuckin huge), go check it out.

If you have played it, and you're one of the people that helped bump that score up past 4.20, you really made all those long nights of coding worthwhile. Seriously, this game took a lot out of me, financially, emotionally, and physically. It's so fuckin nice to have it out on its own and doing well.

Hope you guys have as much fun playing it as I did making it. If you REALLY like it, hit www.availds.com for more good Drunken Masters stuff.

So what's next? For the time being, I'll be cleaning up the Deluxe edition of the game so I can squeeze a little more rent money out of this baby before I put the source files away. Then I'm thinking about a new game... with dragons in it. OoOoOoOo. That's all I'm gonna say for now, but it'll be an action/shoot-em-up kind of deal. Probably. I'd like to keep pushing the envelope, so hopefully it'll be another good one.

Either way, it's gotta be a little smaller than this. I almost went to prison for this game. I'll write up the whole story for the website, but it's a pretty good one.

Here's some Drunken Masters trivia for you:

Drunken Masters is complete. Finally. As soon as I get a sponsor to short-change me for the ridiculous amount of work that went into this bastard, I'll upload it to NG for all you degenerates. Thanks for all the support, Newgrounds.

Good news and bad news...
The good news is that I got a job making Flash banner ads and I'm gonna be pulling in some pretty decent cash over the next few months. This will allow me to take even more time refining the game and making it extra sexy.

The bad news is, I can't work on the game full-time anymore- maybe 4-5 hours a week, instead of 40-50. So... the release is pushed back indefinitely, but I think it'll be ready by the new year.

We will see...

If you were expecting a new game to drop today, I am proud of you- you're keeping better track of things than I am. I'm still putting in work, 8-12 hours a day (except Labor Day weekend, I got shitfaced and floated down the Sacramento river a few times). Everything's looking and playing better than ever, but the release date is now 9/31. That's the last time it's being pushed back. Seriously. I drew up a design schedule, and that's what it looks like, anyway. So this is officially the longest project I've ever put together, and I know you guys are gonna dig it.