Forbidden Moonfruit

As of this month, Moonfruit have stopped free accounts from being a thing. Which means that the final glimmer of pre-2009 NAL (short of delving into The Internet Archive at least) is now done and dusted - my website from between 2006 and 2008 was with Moonfruit, was free, and had been dormant and available since 2008.

I still have access to the website for now, it's just not live unless I pay them. I'm not paying them.But here are some joyful, memorable quotes of a version of me perhaps less mature or perhaps just immature on a different plane.

"Some stuff about me...
I like PS3.
I don't mind Wii.
I don't like Xbox 360."

Aah, a more innocent time when I couldn't just buy all three of the bastards and laugh maniacally like the responsible, financially sensible adult I am now. Also a time before Yahtzee Croshaw, be it accidentally or purposefully, infected the world with "PC Master Race", a group of people that somehow managed to out-sad excessive console fanboys.

I only disliked Xbox 360 at the time because my friend spent the year and a half between his getting his 360 and me getting my PS3 not shutting the fuck up about it. It's a fine console now I have one, although it's probably still my least favourite thanks to how badly it ages - mine is an original unit, and having the 20GB hard drive, the antiquated component cables for HD and the addon to enable Wi-Fi is irritating. Wii gets away with its stupid foibles because most of its content was unique to it. And MadWorld rocked.

"I hate using text speak.
I hate seeing wronged punctuation."

#teenagegrammarnazi

"I think Bill Gates is a moron.
I think the same of Richard Branson.
I think Kate Moss is hideous."

#teenageedgelord

"My favourite actor is Jack Black.
My least favourite is Andie MacDowell."

Fair play on Jack Black, might not put him in first any more but I do still enjoy me a silly comedy film. No idea on the latter choice, I've never seen a film with her in. I think she might have been overexposed in adverts at the time, so that might have been it. Not sure who I'd pick now. Probably Jim Carrey for favourite and Adam Sandler for least.

"I am 50% English and 50% Scottish.
I created the alias of NAL when I was six.
I like amusing facts."

Fair play, unlikely to change.

"I hate console fangirlism."

A smidge hypocritical given the statement at the top. Dumbass self.

"I like cutesy platforming games.
I'm not a fan of violent games (excluding Grand Theft Auto and Elder Scrolls games)."

The former's still very much true (and 2008 me would have been disappointed by the landscape of that genre for like six solid years), but because of that bracketed disappointment, the latter changed. MadWorld, Mad Max, Fallout 4, Mortal Kombat X and many more have been games since 2008 I've fallen in love with, all of which are pretty damn violent. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

"I'm a flange fan."

#teenagerandom

"The shortest time taken to make a game is 24 minutes, with Floccinaucinihilipilification.
The longest is Gamanstake: started in February 2006, ended in July 2006. (it wasn't constant working though...)"

Both beaten since - 10*2 took me 20 minutes, and Innoquous 5 was on and off for three years.

"The game getting the best public reception is r!!!dicule.
The game getting the worst is The Boy in the Plastic Bubble."

I'm struggling to imagine this world. The Boy in the Plastic Bubble was shit, but it was better than r!!!dicule. And in 2008, r!!!dicule was easily surpassed by games I made after it - Elemence AuX and Rockit for two. Maybe I wrote this the day after r!!!dicule came out and never updated it - then I can pretend all this embarrassing crap was 9 years ago, not just 8!

"The only games ever to have had real inspiration for their creation are Up Shint Creek and Blokkeid (which later became Elemence)."

Yep nope! Ne Touchez Pas was inspired by Flywrench by Messhof, Innoquous by every GM game before it that had done gravity flipping gimmicks but all in really gammy, nasty ways, ExecutioNAL and TimeStop were PARODIES... the list continues!

"I have also won the following things:- a brick game, £50, a yoyo, £1,000, £500, a £10 gift voucher. Furthermore, in a game of hoopla at a féte once, I won every prize on display in ONE GO."

Sudden recall of that last one! Can still remember the pissed off look on the vendor's face when I essentially shut their stall down in one go. Hoopla champion!

"Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny is an absolutely fab film, and you must watch it."

My opinion on the above hasn't even remotely changed. LONG-ASS FUCKIN' TIME AGO IN A TOWN CALLED KICKAPOO, THERE LIVED A HUMBLE FAMILY RELIGIOUS THR... whelp now I have to watch it again

"The worst three films I have EVER seen are:
3rd worst: Kung Pow
2nd worst: Dude! Where's My Car?
WORST!!!: Picking Up The Pieces"

Sadly no longer true. I've now seen Movie 43 and inAPPropriate Comedy.

But now we're into the top 10s!

"THE TOP 10 SONGS OF MINE OF CURRENT
1. Dario G - Sunchyme
2. Toto - Africa
3. Royksopp - Remind Me
4. Groove Armada - At The River
5. Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
6. Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
7. Moby - Porcelain
8. Fischerspooner - Never Win
9. Lo Fidelity Allstars - LoFi's In Ibiza
10. Frankie Fame - See Through You"

Not a vast amount of changes, and an adequate amount of appreciation for the stunning Grand Theft Auto III original soundtrack too. I now cite my absolute favourite tune as Röyksopp - Eple (if that means nothing to you, listen to it - you'll probably recognise it) because it's the rare track I find it physically impossible to get sick of. So I'd definitely swap Remind Me for Eple on that list. Fischerspooner remains a firm favourite, but I'd pick Emerge now. And I'd swap a few of the tracks for other ones - Black Velvet, Lo-Fi's In Ibiza, Africa, See Through You and Flagpole Sitta would be out and some stuff like His Majesty King Raam, Me And You, Unfinished Sympathy, Atlas and Eve of the War would be in.

"My Top Ten Current Favourite Films
1. Sin City
2. The Warriors
3. Pleasantville
4. Phonebooth
5. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
6. The Green Mile
7. Road Trip
8. The Truman Show
9. Robots
10. Hot Fuzz"

Not many changes here either! Pleasantville's jumped to #1, Phonebooth wouldn't be on the top 10 and Robots DEFINITELY wouldn't be on the top 10 (what I ever saw in that film, I don't know - it's watchable, but nothing compared to a half-decent Pixar flick). I'd also probably demote The Green Mile, and shuffle Road Trip down - it would still be in my top 10 but probably only just. I'd then let Fight Club, 21 Jump Street, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, WALL-E, Inside Out, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, Pulp Fiction, Scott Pilgrim vs The World and The World's End duke it out for the remaining spaces (The World's End perhaps knocking Hot Fuzz off the list).

"The Blackadder Order Of Brilliancy (best to worst)
1. Series 3
2. Series 4
3. Blackadder's Christmas Carol
4. Series 2
5. Back & Forth
6. The Cavalier Years
7. Series 1"

Even something I wouldn't expect to have an opinion on, I still have! Series 2 should be above Christmas Carol, and Series 1 should be above The Cavalier Years and Back & Forth.

"My Top 10 Ever Albums
1. Moby: Play
2. Keane: Hopes And Fears
3. Scissor Sisters: Scissor Sisters
4. Groove Armada: Vertigo
5. Moby: 18
6. Kaiser Chiefs: Yours Truly, Angry Mob
7. Fatboy Slim: Palookaville
8. MIKA: Life In Cartoon Motion
9. Dido: Life For Rent
10. Fischerspooner: Odyssey"

Yeah, this is all wrong now. A vague mockup of my list now would be:
1. Röyksopp: Melody AM
2. Massive Attack: Mezzanine
3. Röyksopp: The Inevitable End
4. Lemon Jelly: lemonjelly.ky
5. Fischerspooner: #1
6. Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds
7. The Fratellis: Costello Music
8. Battles: Mirrored
9. Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells
10. Nero: Welcome Reality

Anyway, it's about high time I allow that era of my past to disappear now. Bless it, it was so silly, but it was fun to reminisce....BUT YEA THERE WAS A BLACK SHEEP, AND HE KNEW JUST WHAT TO DOHIS NAME WAS YOUNG JB AND HE REFUSED TO STEP IN LINEA VISION HE DID SEE OF FUCKING ROCKING ALL THE TIMEHE WROTE A TASTY JAM AND ALL THE PLANETS DID ALIGN...dah dah dahhhhhh

NAL's Double Cross Sequence

I Googled it. Nobody else has made this sequence up before. So it's mine. I'm naming it after me. You heard it here first.

I call it NAL's Double Cross Sequence, and it goes like follows:

5, 21, 45, 105, 405, 525, 945, 945, 2205... (as far as I've calculated).

And the description I've given this sequence is as follows:

For each term t[n], t[n] is the lowest number of squares that can be arranged into n different cross shapes with rotational symmetry of order 4.

Or in mathematical terms:

For each term t[n], t[n] is the lowest solution to n=w²+4(w*h), where w and h are positive integers, which can be expressed with n different pairs of w and h values.

Or in image terms:

21crosses.png

That's a graphic representation of t[2], or 21. You can arrange 21 squares into two different cross (or plus) patterns which have branches of equal thickness and length. For the formula w²+4(w*h), the thin, large cross has a width of 1 and a height of 5 (counting only squares used beyond the central "square"), and for the stubby chubby one, a width of 3 and a length of 1.1²+4(1*5) = 1+4(5) = 1+20 = 213²+4(3*1) = 9+4(3) = 9+12 = 21

I've taken to calling 21 the first Double Cross number for that reason. 33 is the second one (1,8 and 3,2). The lowest even Double Cross number is 60 (2,7 and 6,1).

The first Triple Cross number is 45 (1,5; 3,3; 5,1) and the first Quadruple Cross number is 105 (1,26; 3,10; 5,6; 7,2). The first Cross number outright is 5, which is simply a width of 1 and a length of 1.

The one choice I made in defining the actual sequence was that the chosen number could contain MORE than n sets of widths and lengths. This is why 945 is both term 7 and 8 in the sequence - it can be written in 8 different ways, but there are no smaller numbers that can be written in exactly 7 different ways - 2025 is the smallest case.

What purpose does this serve? None that I can tell. Hooray for casual mathematics! But it's neat how the sequence works - that the differences between terms can fluctuate, even being 0 in some cases. And how it's (I would assume) totally possible for a term to be even, but they tend to be odd every time. Even the divisibility by 5, and even 105 - I'm not mathsy enough to explain it, but I like it.

If you want to play around with it further, here is a copy of the Excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the first nine terms of NAL's Double Cross Sequence. Sheet1 contains the raw values for pairs w,l, and Sheet2 contains the quantities of appearances of given numbers. You'll need to expand Sheet1 in both directions to get accurate readings in an expanded Sheet2, but it's all formulaed up!

Why GameMaker is going downhill

lol jk GameMaker is fucking great

Matt Parker's "Share the Power" Puzzle

In response to Matt Parker's "Share the Power" puzzle video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5-pgBnGyzw

The problem is as follows: Sort integers 0 through 31 into two sets of 16 numbers so that each pile, when totalled, results in the same value. Not just for the base numbers, though. They also have to result in the same total if you power every number by 2, 3, and 4. (Watch the video, because Matt Parker's entertaining!)I like mathematics. So I watched this video, and decided I was going to solve it the best way possible: by making a program that randomly checks answers to the problem until it finds the correct solution. Because nothing I do makes sense.

Here is my program. It's made in GameMaker 7, because retro. Here's the entire code, found in one object:

Create event:

//Initialise a list holding values 0 through 31
global.Checklist=ds_list_create();
for(i=0; i<=31; i+=1) ds_list_add(global.Checklist,i);

//Initialise five "report" lists:
//0 = the string of numbers being tested on a given iteration;
//1-4 = the true or false status of the total of n to that power
for(i=0; i<=4; i+=1) {global.Testlist[i]=ds_list_create(); Found[i]=0;}
Iteration=0;

//Turns true if an answer is found
Ended=false;

Step event:

//Stop testing if we found the answer
if( Ended ) exit;

repeat( 200 ){Iteration+=1;

//Clears the top value of the reports when there's over 10 of them
if( ds_list_size(global.Testlist[1])>=10 ){for(j=0; j<=4; j+=1)

//Shuffle the values so we're trying a new one
ds_list_shuffle(global.Checklist);

//Report the actual values from group 1 that we're checking
var str; str="";for(i=0; i<=30; i+=2){str+=string(ds_list_find_value(global.Checklist,i));if( i<30 ) str+=", ";}ds_list_add(global.Testlist[0],str);

//Check the totals for each of n^1 to n^4
p[0]=true; p[1]=true; p[2]=true; p[3]=true; p[4]=true;

for(j=1; j<=4; j+=1) {var pile1; pile1=0; var pile2; pile2=0;for(i=0; i<=30; i+=2)if( pile1!=pile2 ) p[j]=false;

var str;str="FALSE";
if( p[j] ) {str="TRUE"; Found[j]+=1}ds_list_add(global.Testlist[j],str);}

//Terminate the checking next step if we've found the answer

if( p[1]==true && p[2]==true && p[3]==true && p[4]==true )

Draw event:

draw_set_font(font0);
draw_set_halign(fa_left);
draw_set_valign(fa_top);
draw_set_color(c_black);

//Draw the results
for(i=0; i<ds_list_size(global.Testlist[0]); i+=1){draw_text(20,10+(i*50),ds_list_find_value(global.Testlist[0],i));for(j=1; j<=4; j+=1)

draw_text(20+(120),10+(11*50) ,"Iteration")draw_text(20+(120),10+(11*50)+20,string(Iteration))

for(j=1; j<=4; j+=1)
{draw_text(20+((j-1)*120),10+(12*50) ,"n^"+string(j)+" Found")
draw_text(20+((j-1)*120),10+(12*50)+20,string(Found[j]))}

Untitled-25.fw.png

 And that's it! 200 times per step (should be 12,000 per second but it lags because it's compiled with an old GameMaker) it shuffles the numbers into two piles, checks each of n^1 through n^4, and if all four return true for a single set of numbers, bam! Winner!

Well, it would have been if I hadn't, impatiently waiting for my program to spit out the answer in mere minutes, I hadn't googled 32 factorial. If there is only one ordering of the numbers that results in a pass in all four categories and my program was doing one check per second, turns out I'd be sitting here for a few quadrillion millennia  waiting for my mythical answer.

So I altered the code a bit to up the count to 5,000 60 times per second (which is laggy, but y'know...), with it dropping that number if the FPS is too low (which it is).

And as I sit here writing this, the new program is on iteration 5,500,000. It has found a total of 83,000 combinations that work for n^1, but only 8 for n^4. And of course, none that work for all four.Optimisation time!

First, I made the code early-out if any of the tests fail. I then reversed the testing order, so n^4 goes first - since n^4 fails significantly more often, it means less redundant code is run.

And then I realised there was another nice optimisation I'd entirely ignored.If each of the two half-piles of numbers have to total the same, then the total of BOTH piles would be twice that. And since all of the numbers in both piles are set, I could work out this total! So I chucked Excel open and found that:

0^1 through 31^1 = 496;
0^2 through 31^2 = 10416;
0^3 through 31^3 = 246016;
0^4 through 31^4 = 6197520.

So for a valid solution, I only have to check one of the two piles for half of the above values (248, 5208, 123008, 3098760).

By now, the new program is checking over 100 iterations in the time it takes the original to check 1. I was figuring this might be my special way of solving a problem - turns out the profoundly lazy way is also the ridiculously lengthy way!

While it's running, I decide to rewatch the video just in case something lurches out at me. It's at this point I see this:In both of Matt's previous examples, for each eight numbers, the first, fourth, sixth and seventh go into pile one; the other four go into pile two.

Please don't let it be this easy.

I repeated the pattern... n^1 passed, n^2 passed... but n^3 and n^4 were slightly off.That was doing: unnuunnu (assuming in the screen caps above, the upper is "un" and the lower is "unnu"). uunnnnuu made n^3 pass as well, but n^4 still failed.

A real mathematician, at this point, would probably be laughing in my face. I should probably be working this out for real.

But then I found unnunuun.

And all the numbers aligned.

So Matt Parker, if you happen to be reading this,

Set 1: 0, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30
Set 2: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 31.

I didn't see the pattern you laid out in plain sight. And as a result, I made a piece of software. A piece of software that is both ridiculous and redundant. A piece of software that has gone through 47 million iterations checking random groups of numbers for a solution, and has yet to find a group that satisfies n^4 and n^3, let alone n^2 and n^1.Thank you.And damn you.

ADDENDUM!

I'm still looking at this trying to work out what's going on. I did notice one thing though:

unnunuun

The Us are in positions 0, 3, 5 and 6, and the Ns are in positions 1, 2, 4 and 7, in the final "pattern".

This is exactly the same as the alignment of numbers in the sets themselves. Which is pretty... FRACTAL

Maybe for 0-127 and n^1 to n^6, the answer is unnunuun, where every U is itself an unnunuun and every N is an nuununnu?

My brain hurts.

How to Make a Clickbait Blog Post About How to Market Your Indie Game

So you've decided to write a post about how to market your indie game. It might be on your own website, or on a gaming website that accepts guest articles and has a far-from-rigorous quality control. Great, the world needs so many more of these articles! Here's a how to.

Step 1: Make a game of dubious quality

Let's face it, the reason you're writing your marketing article is that you think that writing an article on how to market your indie game is an efficient and effective form of marketing your indie game. And you might be right! If you can bullshit enough tactics into it and really hammer home some arbitrary percentages on the ratio of developing to marketing you should be aiming for (and how going for 1% less than that is indie suicide), it's bound to get you at least 10 yesses on your game's Greenlight page. Or if your game is already through Greenlight, maybe someone will buy it once!

Step 2: Oh, but while you're at it, you should be tweeting pictures, GIFs, and videos of it

Lead by example! And then your pictures, GIFs and videos can get another round of attention when you cite/embed them into your article! You should also have an IndieDB page for both yourself/your company and your game, and keep churning out long and picture-heavy news articles about the development of your game on it - IndieDB will frontpage news articles only if they are informative and actually fucking interesting.

Step 3: Also, social media

USE TWITTERLOTSAnd, like, make sure you've got a growing follower list on it.And then do that for all the other popular social shit that everyone's got nowadays. Instachat, Snapgram, Facespace, Pinterflickr, everything. Even if you just use the wonderfully free and freely wonderful IFTTT to carbon copy your content from one social network to all the other ones, that's better than not having a presence on them at all.

So there's two ways you can go about improving your follower count. Well, three, but if you do #3 and just go and buy them, none of your followers are going to actually have any interest in your content (making them useless) and anyone that looks through your followers on Twitter are going to see that you're the sort of dick that goes around giving shady companies money because you're self-conscious about the low size of certain numbers pertaining to you.

Numero uno: "I'd rather take my time than be a knob". Pump out those GIFs of your game! Make them good! So good, that your 10 followers retweet it! And then two of those 10 followers' followers become YOUR followers! Rinse, and repeat. Basically, make content engaging. How do you make content engaging? Yeah, GIFs are great - they're that halfway point between screenshots (everyone will see it but it's static) and videos (it's interesting but only 10% of people might watch it), whereby it's a pared-down video of your game but people will still see it.

By the way, to make gifs, a lot of bastards swear by GifCam, a program that directly and easily records footage to a GIF, but I find it's a bit buggy - the footage it captured of Innoquous 5 was corrupt and the filesizes were astronomical even for short GIFs. The longer method is essentially to capture a video of it then use something like GfyCat to convert it to a gif.

Numero twono: "I'd rather be a knob than take my time". If you actually care about your Twitter timeline, start by making a list of people you currently follow. The tweets in that list are your new timeline, get used to it! Now, create a free account on Crowdfire and use it to help you start culling people you're following that are inactive, or the people you followed at the earliest time that aren't following you back. Meanwhile in Keyword Follow, search for #gamedev or #indiedev and start whacking that Follow button on people, particularly those with more following than followers.

While you'll receive less engagement (in general) from followers generated with this method than you would people following you because they saw and enjoyed your tweeted content, they will still be actual, active Twitter users that have at least some interest in indie games (because they were using #gamedev or #indiedev).

One thing to note: Crowdfire's free accounts impose a limit of 25 people you can freshly follow and 100 people you can unfollow using them per day. It's worth actually sticking to this, I've never run into problems but Twitter isn't keen on you literally just following people with their potential follow-back in mind, and then unfollowing them when you don't receive it. So unless you hit Twitter's variable limit on number of people you can follow at once (starts at 2,000, increases the more followers you have), don't unfollow people you followed with this method.

Oh, and one other thing. Crowdfire also has an option to automatically DM new followers. I'd recommend avoiding it, it's spammy and horrid. But yeah, use it daily to follow 25 fresh faces and grow your audience!

Step 4: Also, when the game is complete and tested but not out yet, start pumping out your own marketing

You need to actually follow someone else's shitty blogpost on how to market your indie game to market your indie game before you can make your own shitty blogpost on how to market your indie game. To market your indie game, you'll basically want to:

1. Set a launch day for your game. Work out when the game will be done, then add some time after it for extra QA. And then add some more time after that, because it's going to go wrong in some surprising way. And then add some more time if that launch day clashes with a big release from some other indie or even a big AAA game. You'll clash with something, better it's a game your own game utterly outclasses

2. Write a press release with an informative but attention grabbing title, and a few paragraphs of copy text explaining your game with both accuracy and attractiveness

3. Link to a place where the game can be downloaded DRM-free for free, on every available platform

4. Embed a couple screenshots. Good ones

5. Link to the best trailer you or your friendly neighbourhood motion artist can produce that you've upload to YouTube, even if it's Unlisted for now

6. On your website, get an extended presskit with a lovely .zip file containing all the copy text, screenshots, gifs etc of the game. Make them interesting as well as representative of your game. Make it clear they're freely usable. Just use Rami Ismail's presskit() for fuck's sake

7. Link to that in the release as well

8. Don't have a website? Make one, you prick

9. Link to your website in the press release as well

10. Okay, now email that bastard out. Lots. And lots.

So email it to who? Here's a comprehensive list of YouTubers, possibly the best way in 2015 to generate your press. Also, basically, do everything else on PixelProspector's marketing page.

"But NAL," you exclaim with whimsical delight, "that page is just full of everything I was going to include in my blog post on how to market your indie game, along with other things I had entirely forgotten about or wasn't going to bother doing because it felt redundant and my game's so fucking good who cares - the first gullible bugger to buy it is going to cry their eyes out in the first 5 seconds of playing and immediately do all my marketing for me!"

Well, yes! Blog posts about how to market your indie game are all essentially just that PixelProspector article, with some vague, wandering mentions, as well as stealthy links of advertisement, of their own game, as well as "how they got on" written like it was the sort of thing your school made you do in essay form after two weeks of work experience.

And for fuck's sake, don't just email press people - social media it up! Make sure that your tweets and posts are still engaging, nobody wants to see the same link to the same game in their timeline 100 times - and with one gentle smack of the Unfollow button, they don't have to. Keep booting out new screenshots, GIFs, and even the occasional video, and attach a unique one to each mention of your game. That way, even if someone's seeing it for the Nth time, they're still seeing fresh content along with it.

Step 5: Upload it to all the stores

Is it done? Sweet. Upload it to all the stores you're targeting with plenty of time remaining. Where possible, go through the buying/downloading process while the game is still private and make sure you didn't fluff the upload. Cool, that step was relatively easy, unless you're like me with a 425MB game on your hands and an internet connection that rivals dialup for shittitude.

ALTHOUGH, if something does go wrong, there's a silver lining to this thundersnow cloud - your game might suffer a loss of sales, but it makes for some great content to blab about in the mandatory "Mistakes I Made" section of your blog post about how to market your indie game!

By the way, if a store allows HTML tags (or similar) in the description, for god's sake doll it up - pictures as headers for each section. And if you're doing your game's itch.io page, customise it!

Step 6: Now release the bastard

Hey look, release day! Assuming you've reached it smoothly (and if not, why not, you gimboid), all the stores it's on should unlock its content! Great! MOAR TWEETS. Again, if shit goes wrong here - your game doesn't work on any Nvidia cards because you've been a tit and only tested it on AMD ones - you've got content for your blog post about how to market your indie game.

Step 7: Give it a few months

Keep tweeting new content. Retweet, or tweet to, YouTube videos and articles that cover your game. meanwhile, start on your new game. You'll need to reference this in your blog post about how to market your indie game.

There are things you can do post-release to help market your game as well. Give away free one-time use codes to the game. Turn it into a game - stick a ? in place of one of the code's letters/numbers - this also serves the purpose of stopping code-grabbing reseller bots from registering it in place of an actual interested person. If your game includes a level editor, do a little competition on who can make the best level. Or competitions for first person to complete the game, or best score, or quickest completion of a particular level. Make it so that people tweet their entries, so their followers see it and possibly get interested in the game and shit!I mean, you could even pull the age-old crap where you give something to a random person that follows you and retweets a specific competition tweet during a set amount of time!

Just remember everything you're doing, it's crucial that you tell other people to do that exact same thing in your blog post about how to market your indie game. So maybe write it all down for the ultimate in blog postage.While this is happening, prepare a load of graphs. They don't really have to be relevant to much, but then in your blog post about how to market your indie game, you can point at all the anomalies and speculate aimlessly about what caused those bits of your graph to not be in the right place. You can also take your mandatory Sales by Week graph with its inevitable downward trend, and point that out, as if nobody ever realised that games become less popular as time progresses.

Step 8: Fuck me, it's time for your blog post about how to market your indie game

You've got your game that performed below expectations probably, because very few games perform above them. You've got your three months of wisdom. You've got graphs, GIFs, and gumpf. Time to do your article.

Go back to PixelProspector's marketing page. Like every other bastard on the planet that's written a blog post about how to market their indie games, basically paraphrase it. But for each thing that that page recommends, slot in how you went about that thing for your game, with examples embedded and sources linked.

There are extra things you'll need to do for your article. For starters, make up a good figure for the aforementioned ratio of developing to marketing you should be aiming for. Don't go for 50/50, everyone goes for 50/50. Do like 57% marketing, 43% developing or some breakthrough shit. Really blow some fledgeling indie minds as to how goddamn important marketing is. Keep using the word marketing, even long after you've written the entire article and are now attending your grandmother's marketing. Chisel marketing into her tombstone. And fuck it, the two percentages don't even need to add up to 100. Make them add up to 107%, that way you can tell people that it's the extra 7% that makes a game successful. That way, your readers think they've just opened Pandora's Box and found it to be full of fivers.

Another one you absolutely must do, as has also been mentioned, is your Mistakes section. Come up with some mistakes you made, because you were an inexperienced dildo when you started but now you're the fucking indie second coming of Christ. These mistakes should be silly oversights - "whoops, forgot to make a game lol!" isn't going to suffice here. Show how you learnt from those mistakes. If you didn't make any mistakes, your mistake was thinking that a 56,277th article on how to market your indie game was a productive use of your time. It is only a productive use of your time if you made a more successful game than anyone who has ever previously written about how to market your indie game.

But here's the most important thing you need for your article on how to market your indie game. You need a hook. A hook, unique to your article and your article alone. A singular piece of advice that the entire article revolves around. Don't make it "you need to make the game for yourself", that's bullshit. Maybe "you make the game for your mother". Or "you only program after you've downed a bottle of Jack Daniels". Or "every 20 minutes, you take a small break to writhe around on your floor naked pretending you're a wriggly worm". Something.

Personally, I went for "make it seem like the article on how to market your indie game is taking the piss out of itself".

PIXELPROSPECTOR'S MARKETING GUIDE

PS4 Review - One Weekend In

I've now had my PlayStation 4 for one weekend (it came out on Friday two days ago). For anyone considering it, here's a concise review of both the system and the games I've played so far.

What I Like:

Games look and play excellently. I've yet to witness any slowdown in games yet, even in something like Assassin's Creed IV if I ascend a high building and look across an entire city. Most games run at 1080p and are either a solid 60fps or a solid 30fps.

The controller is the best I've ever laid hands on. Button placement is great, it fits my hands perfectly, the triggers are better than both the DualShock 3's (by far) and the Xbox 360 controller's (marginally), the rumble is meaty, and the motion sensing is accurate. You can use the latter to point at the on-screen keyboard, which surprisingly is faster than D-pad selection. I would have mourned the loss of the Start and Select buttons, but Start is now Options and is functionally identical, and any game that used Select as "open map" (the only reason I used select for) I've tried so far has simply moved that to pushing on the touchpad. The touchpad is also responsive, if barely used in anything I've played yet.

Out of the box, it's the most "complete" system I've used to date. Without spending any extra money after the base system, you can access three pretty good free-to-play games, as well as 14 days' worth of both Resogun and Contrast. If you get a camera you can also play Playroom.Update/install times are far quicker than PlayStation 3. You only need to wait around a minute for a game to install enough of itself that you can begin playing it, and then it will complete the rest in the background while you play the game. I have yet to experience a point where I have to wait for further installation while playing a game.

The launch lineup is strong. See below for individual game mini-reviews. And there are a bunch of great games set for the near future, including inFamous Second Son and Watch Dogs.

The console design is nice. It's simple enough to not be tacky, but quirky enough that it's not just another box.

What I Don't Like:

The lack of backward compatibility. For full PlayStation playing, my TV now has a PlayStation 2, 3 and 4 all plugged in at once, along with a plethora of different controllers for each one. And of course, my PS4 library is much smaller than others at present.Install sizes. While much faster (see above), games now eat up the entire game size. I'm assuming this is to alleviate what would be gigantic loading times, given the extra detail of the games, but at 8 games installed, its 500GB harddrive is nearly half full already!

Everything about the USB slots. There's two of them. The controller takes up one, Skylanders portal takes up another... and that's your lot. They're also recessed into the console's recessed design, which isn't a problem yet but a lot of USB devices have thicker, greedier designs which would not fit in the recess.

The price of games. This isn't too big a problem, PlayStation Plus is ace and there's always simply waiting for them to come down in price. But £54.99 for a standard boxed game is about a tenner too much for most games. And the non-deal prices on PSN are even worse.

The home UI feels like a step down from PS3's XMB. It's usable, but it's just not laid out quite as well. And the voice controls feel very incomplete - I'm sure they were an afterthought after the big deal made about Xbox One's voice controls.

Game Mini-Reviews:

Killzone: Shadow Fall

It's alright. Fantastic graphics, but I'm not big on FPSes, especially "realistic" ones (I prefer arcade Unreal Tournament-ish FPSes personally), so it's a little dull. Let's go with 7/10.

Skylanders: Swap Force

Sexy, excellent game. It's colourful and appealing. The figurine adverts are back in full force, but it's solid, great fun in two-player, and my 7 or so Skylanders figurines from the previous games work in it as well, so there's little need to buy further ones.

Resogun

Just as good as Super Stardust HD before it. Cracking music, responsive controls, addictive, and shiny as all hell.

Contrast

Flatmate Dan played this one, I watched. But it looked like an artsy game with very little in the gameplay department, so meh.

Need for Speed Rivals

Best NfS I've played, and the first racing game I genuinely am enjoying since Burnout Paradise. Again, looks nice, although perhaps not quite as gorgeous as I might have wanted, but it feels ace.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

The best game I've tried so far, am a good several hours into it. It's got the looks, the gameplay, it's immersive and addictive, it's bloody brilliant and highly recommended, even if you're not getting a PS4 or Xbox One just yet.

DC Universe Online

It's alright for being completely free! Worth a look even if you delete it an hour later.

I also have Knack and have downloaded the other two F2P games, War Thunder and Warframe, but haven't touched em yet so can't comment.

Conclusion:

I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with PS4 so far, and have no regrets buying it day one. Would I recommend it? If you're into the same stuff as me, yes. It's not a 100% must-have device right now, and I can't tell you if it's better or worse than Xbox One. It appeals to me more, but it's really down to your personal taste.

Three YoYo Years

My mind is blown. As of today, I have been employed by YoYo Games as a junior developer for three years. The time has flown - it genuinely doesn't feel that long ago I was creating and releasing stuff like Remaddening independently. Yet, when I look back at it, the amount that has happened has been astonishing. This will be a little bit biography, a little bit reminiscing.

I still remember, clear as day, my visit to Dundee in May 2010 to meet with the YoYo folk - at the time, Sandy Duncan, Mike Dailly and Russell Kay. The location of the original YoYo HQ hadn't been finalised, I'd never set foot in Scotland before (despite my nationality being 50% Scottish)... it was a great experience. We had breakfast in Costa, lunch in The Pancake Place and dinner in Dil'Se. Me and my dad stayed in Holiday Inn and had a further lunch in a Bangladeshi restaurant that sadly no longer exists.

Roll forward a month and a half, and on July 5th 2010 I did my first official YoYo Games work - porting greenTech+ to PSP. The first week of work I had to work from home due to accommodation issues, but the following Monday I had a room on Bank Street ready, so on Sunday 11th July we spent eight hours travelling and stayed in a bar slash hotel in Perth for the night.

I remember this place clear as day too. Dogs roamed around inside the pub. I remember looking out of our room's window, seeing my parents' car full of all my belongings and coming to the sudden realisation that fuck, my life was now going to be massively different. And perhaps most memorable to me, I remember watching the World Cup final on the shitty CRT television in our room. Holland got their asses kicked that day. Infact, this is another thing that makes time seem so much shorter - that the next World Cup is only a year off, so the one I saw that day was three years ago!

So the day after, I began in-office work at the original YoYo HQ, an office above the I.C. Cave in the University of Abertay. Four of us were the entire in-office workforce for a few months - me, Mike, Russell, and Kirsty - with Sandy flying over every week or two. Soon after Realtime Worlds went bust (in August 2010), the workforce grew with an artist, Geoff; a producer, Stuart; and a web developer, Lee, all within the space of a few weeks.

Our first game, a port of Chad Chisholm's "Skydiver Mach II", was released in October. Shortly after came Maddening, a quasi-sequel to my self published series madnessMADNESSmadness/Remaddening (Maddening was released exactly one year to the day after madnessMADNESSmadness, purely by coincidence). In 2010 we released several ports of existing games under the original YYG business model, including Teka Teki and Sync Simple. We also released an original solitaire game, Simply Solitaire, coded from scratch by me and then fixed laboriously by Mike (at the time I was still very poor at programming, achieving what I needed but doing it messily and without much optimisation).

2010 was also the year in which I met Mark Overmars, the original GameMaker creator, and Jesse Venbrux of Karoshi fame, who stayed for a month to create games in-house including an upgraded port of They Need To Be Fed and a new Karoshi game, Mr Karoshi.

2010 Christmas party: A burger in the student café opposite University of Abertay

Throughout 2011, the growth began. Several new people joined. Multiple more games were released. New teams emerged, with Jack Oatley and Darrell Flood, the two people I still live with in "YoYo House", spending a year creating YoYo Games' first social game outing "Grave Maker". The office, once four of us in a pretty empty room, began to fill out. The year began with the release of GameMaker 8.1, and ended with the release of GameMaker HTML5. I still remember having to pull 11 straight days of work with overtime to help get the new manual (now the old new manual) for the latter ready for its release, but a posh celebratory meal in Playhouse made it all worth it!

I also met Kjell t'Hoen towards the end of this year - great guy who I would've kept forever had it been up to me, but sadly he was only here for six weeks!

2011 Christmas party: Posh dinner in Duke's Corner

2012 was when the growth properly began, though the big first change was outside the office. Me, Darrell, Jack, and then also Mark and Piotr moved house! From Bank Street, a small (but adequate) five-room compact cheap flat share where the stairwell leading up to it was frequently home to heroin addicts with no bowel control, we moved to a beautiful house on Adelaide Place with big rooms, a fantastic kitchen, a massive living area, and most importantly a specific room containing a full size snooker table and dartboard!

2012 also saw the release of GameMaker: Studio, the tool allowing anyone to publish their games cross-platform. We celebrated with a good old fashioned burger and beer in Ketchup.

Other games were released this year, including probably my personal favourite game I've worked on yet, "BASE Jumper".

2012 Christmas party: Posh dinner, long part-ay and large amounts of free champagne in Queen's Hotel

And then began this year, 2013! The big story so far was the office move at the end of May. By the move, YoYo Games was on around 25 members of in-office staff, almost a 700% increase from when I started, and with more people still outside of it. We filled the University of Abertay office, which was adequate.

And now we are in the top floor of River Court, an air-purified monster office with ping-pong and foosball tables, stunning views in all directions, a balcony, a massively expensive coffee machine and a drinks fridge (along with the rest of a gorgeous kitchen)... everything about it is breathtaking.

So the three years feel like they've gone quick as a flash, but when I compare then to now, it's been a stunning change:

ACCOMMODATION

2010: Small room in a compact flat with a stairwell commonly housing junkie turds and a window view overlooking a graveyard
2013: Large house, big rooms, a garden, a dedicated games room with full size snooker table

WORK HQ

2010: Converted segment of an IT area of a university, makeshift kitchen area, no plumbing - just a "slop bucket", view featured a car park
2013: Massive modern office, ultra-expensive kitchen area, ping-pong, foosball, air purifying, beach huts, Chupa Chups carousel, 360 degree view of Dundee featuring miles of River Tay and thousands of square feet of views of Dundee, and a balcony if the fact 90% of the walls are windows isn't enough

IN-OFFICE WORKFORCE

2010: Two core tech, one game developer, one customer support (count: 4)
2013: Around 8 core tech, three game dev teams of artist + programmer, three producers, QA teams, customer support teams and more (count: around 25, with space, and plans, for many more)

GAMEMAKER

2010: Standard 8.0, play games on Windows
2013: Studio 1.1 + 1.2 Beta, play games on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, HTML5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, with a plethora of options for them all and more

LOGO

2010: Gradiented Ambex Heavy Oblique wordmark
2013: Recognisable modern "YO/YO" ambigram logo

MY CODING

2010: Shit
2013: Not so shit

It's been a hell of a ride, and a ride I want to keep on riding! Looking back at all the differences of the company in such a tiny timespan is awe inspiring. May YoYo Games live forever!

Game of the Years

For some reason, every time I've finished the last couple of games I've bought, my end thought was "This is good, but it won't take Portal 2's place as my Game of the Year". I've never, ever thought about what my personal game of any particular year would be. But this got me thinking what they would be for each of the last few years (ie the PlayStation 3 era, the one I know).

Here are my listings so far for 2007-2013.

2007
1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
2. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
3. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction

2008
1. Grand Theft Auto IV
2. LittleBigPlanet
3. Burnout Paradise

2009
1. Brutal Legend
2. Skate 2
3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

2010
1. Skate 3
2. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City
3. Dead Rising 2

2011
1. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
2. Portal 2
3. LA Noire

2012
1. Sleeping Dogs
2. Batman: Arkham City Armoured Edition
3. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

Here's some explanations now.

2007 was easily the weakest year of gaming PlayStation 3 had. Along with the price, the console was initially ripped apart for it. It did have some goodness though. Brilliant exclusives Uncharted, like a better version of Tomb Raider, and Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, strong sequel to the PS2 series (and the first "proper" R&C game for four years), were followed by ports of other successful games like Elder Scrolls IV and Tony Hawk's Project 8 (which missed the top three despite how much I played it - it was pre-Skate so I'd not moved series at that point). There were other exclusives I enjoyed as well; MotorStorm, the game I got along with the PS3 on its launch, was good fun but mainly just a filler for the space between Burnout Revenge and Burnout Paradise, and Resistance: Fall of Man, a decent enough FPS and perhaps one of the last FPSes I've cared enough about to do that with.

Following 2007 was 2008, which was really, really strong in releases. It kills me to put Burnout Paradise as third favourite since I loved it so much, but it unfortunately was released in the same year as the near-perfect Grand Theft Auto IV, and the vastly-community-expanded sandbox-lover's-wet-dream LittleBigPlanet. Had it been released in 2009 it would have been first place. GTAIV tops the list with absolute ease; one of the best game storylines I've ever witnessed (if anyone ever made a Grand Theft Auto TV show I would not remotely complain if they just shoved some real actors into GTAIV's cutscenes and filled the gameplay bits with filler content), along with the best-crafted gaming city I know. Seriously, San Andreas may have been bigger and Vice City glitzier, but IV's rendition of Liberty City is a beautiful, memorable, fun-to-explore take on New York. With a great physics engine that means you can now push people down flights of stairs or trip them up over kerbs, a shooting/covering system I only wish could be transplanted into the PS2-era GTA trilogy (I can't enjoy them as much now I know what IV had), and two expansion packs that only upped its excellence (see 2010) GTAIV has won a permanent place in my heart.

2009 was okay at best. Brutal Legend was a stunning game, if not quite as interesting as Double Fine's earlier outing Psychonauts. The only big detractors for me of Brutal Legend were the strategy segments. I cannot stand strategy games, so despite it being difficult I spent most of them in the action style (you can stay omniscient and manage your troops and/or hop down as Eddie Riggs and take them on yourself). Skate 2 ate a ton of my free time, just wandering around the universe. The walking, while present (in Skate you could only skate), was dodgy, and because the entire level was on a hill I always seemed to end up at the bottom of it. But it was an excellent time sink. And Uncharted 2 was pretty fun. I'd have put it higher but, while I find the games very fun, there are others I prefer and that hold the memories better for me. With Uncharted, I play it a ton, finish it in a week, and ignore it forever.

Then 2010 came along, and somehow it was worse for me. I enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto IV expansions (I got my Xbox 360 this year), Skate 3 was a fantastic improvement on Skate 2 and once again ate hundreds of hours of my time. There weren't many other games I was truly into in 2010 so I put Dead Rising 2 third, which was fun in short doses and in spite of the ridiculous lack of a "sandbox" mode (you HAVE to do the story, and you HAVE to do certain quests which are far less fun than just killing zombies).

2011 was stunning. Best game lineup I've ever seen, and the first year where I had to fight multiple games. Honourable mentions would be Pokémon Black, LittleBigPlanet 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim, and Saints Row The Third, all of which I adored. But the best three are headed by Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I was enamoured with it from start to finish (ignoring the bosses). It's one of those games that just let me play it however I damn wanted to. My mate would take a turn and do things all-guns blazing, I got to hide in pipes like a wimp and stealth-kill people. The missions were endearing, the side missions interesting enough, the game was sexy (though very black and orange) - it was just excellent. Narrowly second (I swore this would be first until I touched Deus Ex) was Portal 2. Portal 2 did the odd thing of making me nostalgic for it just days after completing it. While short, it was flat-out hilarious, memorable, stupidly clever - stunning stuff. And third goes to LA Noire, yet another memorable and unique experience. The facial motion tech it displayed was stellar, the game was interesting and long, it was set in a period not often seen in games and... yes, I just loved it.

2012 was, for me, the year of the sandbox (weird given GTA didn't get a release that year). As well as finishing Saints Row The Third in 2012, I bought and played through Sleeping Dogs and Batman: Arkham City (the Wii U edition, so it was technically a 2012 release for me). Sleeping Dogs was another great sandbox game, though part of me kept dreaming about GTA V while playing it. Batman was fantastic, I'm surprised I hadn't bought the original version on impulse but it did mean I had a launch game on Wii U that wasn't the meh-tastic ZombiU. Speaking of the WiiU, it had a pretty good launch lineup! Ignoring ZombiU, I enjoyed four of its launch titles a ton - Batman, NintendoLand, New Super Mario Bros U and Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing Transformed. Best launch lineup I've seen for a console in recent memory (hi, PS3!). I put Professor Layton third because I fucking loved that too. I've loved all the Professor Layton games, but Miracle Mask was the best one I've seen since the first one.

I predict for 2013 that GTA V will win it (GTA IV remains my favourite 7th Gen game to date), followed by Watch Dogs for PS4 and then... well, I don't know! Let's say Far Cry 3 or Tomb Raider's reboot for now.

eBay Score!

I browse eBay a lot for random job lots that are low on auction time and price alike. I just, for £70, got a chipped PlayStation 1 with two controllers, two memory cards, all the PS1 original manuals (and Demo 1, which is awesome)... and the following Japanese PS1 games:

Alundra 2

Arc the Lad III

Biohazard Director's Cut (Resident Evil)

Biohazard 2 DualShock Ver.

Biohazard 3 Last Escape

Black/Matrix+

Bloody Roar

Bloody Roar 2: Bringer of the New Age

Bomberman World

Brave Fencer Musashiden (x2, different boxart on each)

Brave Prove

Brave Saga

Bushido Blade 2

Captain Commando

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Chrono Cross

Chrono Trigger

Chocobo No Fushigina Dungeon

Command & Conquer Red Alert 2

Complete Graphics

Crisis Beat

Cyber Org

Dance Dance Revolution 2nd Remix

Dance Dance Revolution 2nd Remix Vol 1

Darius

Dead or Alive

Dewprism

Dino Crisis

Dino Crisis 2

Dragon Quest 2

Ehrgeiz

Fifa 99

Fighting Force

Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy VIII (x2, though one's only one disc)

Final Fantasy IX

Get In The Tomorrow

GETTER ROBOT the BIG BATTLE!

Gran Turismo

Gran Turismo 2

Gundam The Battle Master 2

Hokutonoken Seikimatsukyuseisyudensetsu (dead serious)

Houshinengi

J.League 1999

Kagero

Kiganjo

The King of Fighters '97

The King of Fighters '98

The King of Fighters '99

The King of Fighters KYO

Koudelka

The Legend of Dragoon

Legend of Mana

Lunar Silver Star Story

Macross Digital Mission VF-X

Macross VF-X 2

Marvel vs Capcom Clash of Super Heroes EX Edition

Metal Gear Solid

Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

Mobile Suit Gundam: Perfect One Year War

Mobile Suit Gundam: Version 2.0

Mobile Suit Z-Gundam

Mortal Kombat 4

OverBlood 2

Panzer Warfare

Parasite Eve

Parasite Eve II

Pocket Fighter

Pop 'n Tanks!

Puzzle Bobble 4

Racing Lagoon: High Speed Driving RPG

Real Bout Special: Dominated Mind

Real Robot Battle Line

Real Robots Final Attack

Ridge Racer Type 4

Road Rash 3-D

Rockman X-4 (Megaman)

Rockman X-5

Runabout-2

Saga Frontier

Saga Frontier II

Samurai Shodown Special

Samurai Shodown Warrior's Rage

SD Gundam G-Generation

SD Gundam G-Generation Zero

SD Hero Fighter

Shiritsu Justice Gakuen Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki (assumed, same Kanji as sequel but without the 2 or the English...)

Shiritsu Justice Gakuen Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2

Silent Hill

Sin SD Sengokuden Kidoumushataisen

Sol Divide

Soukaigi

Star Ocean: The Second Story

Street Fighter Collection

Street Fighter EX-2 Plus

The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love.

Super Robot Wars Alpha

Super Robot Wars Complete Box

Super Robot Wars F (x2)

Super Robot Wars F Final

Tales of Destiny

Tales of Eternia

Tekken III

Tenchu

Tobal 2

UEFA Champion's League Season 1998/99

Valkyrie Profile

Wild Arms 2nd Ignition

Winning Eleven 2000 (either ISS or Pro Evolution Soccer)

X-Men vs Street Fighter Ex Edition

Xenogears

Zill O'll

??? (Super Robot Wars game)

???

??? (I imagine it's Japanese letters not Latin numerals but it looks like 335 something)

??? It's something to do with The King of Fighters)

??? Something II

...as well as two GameWeekly demo discs and a few unlabelled VCDs (I think) I'll be testing later.

Me In Numbers

A "point of interest" blog entry, methinks! These are some numbers related to me.

20.4: My current age in years
1991: My year of birth
1: My address's current number
3: The number of residences I've lived in
2: The number of countries I've lived in
14: The number of years of my life spent in school
2: The number of schools I've been to
1.3: The number of years I've worked for YoYo Games
52: The number of games I currently have on YoYo Games
45: The number of games I currently have on Game Jolt
1,208: The number of editables I've started in GameMaker (excluding any I no longer have - I have most of them though)
8.7: The number of years I've used GameMaker for
5.0: The version number of GameMaker I began with
47,660: The current play count of my most played game on YoYo Games, madnessMADNESSmadness
84: The current play count of my least played game, 1n23g4r
2003: The year of creation of my first GameMaker game, Gemocide
2011: The year of creation of my latest, The Inverse Man
-9,999,996: My current reputation on GameMaker Community (thanks Mike Dailly...!)
5: The number of fonts I've created
2: The number of fonts I've created that aren't "lost"
11: The number of music tracks I've created (estimation)
4: The number of issues of RekameMag I've created
10: The number of issues of GMTech I contributed to (initially spellchecking, later reviewing)
3: The number of issues of OverByte I contributed to
95%: The likelihood of me subscribing to someone on YouTube if I find their videos consistently entertaining
15%: The likelihood of me subscribing to someone on YouTube if I find their videos consistently entertaining and if they hassle me to subscribe
73: The number of videos I have on YouTube4: The average IQ of someone who starts a comment on any YouTube video with: "First", "Thumbs up if...", "[dislike count] people..."
2: The average IQ of someone who reposts threatening chain mail actually thinking it's true
176: My current friend count on Facebook
A lot less than 176: The number of Facebook friends I could truly consider friends!
1:6: My current Twitter Following:Followers ratio (49 following, 298 followers)
2,207: My current tweet count
34: The number of numbers listed. So meta!