We've just put out a new game, The Engineer, which is up on the front page at the moment. Some people are getting massive lag, so I'll try to explain why that may be.

FlashPlayer 11 came out recently, and it allows flash to use the GPU (Graphics card) of a computer. That means flash can now do full blown 3d games, or in the case of The Engineer, hardware accelerated 2d. If, for whatever reason, flash can't use a specific computer's GPU, it will fall back to software rendering which dumps all of the work back on the computer's CPU and will probably make things slow to a crawl. That seems to be happening when some people try to play The Engineer.

So why does it happen? I don't know, but here are some possibilities.
- Old/unsupported graphics cards or drivers.
- Right clicking in FlashPlayer will bring up some settings. One is 'Enable hardware acceleration'. It seems to be on by default, but maybe worth checking.
- Some people say it doesn't work in IE, but does in other browsers.
- Magic

Hopefully some of these teething problems sort themselves out as more games come out that make use of the GPU.

The last few months I've been working with Jazza again, this time on a game(s) for his Larry series. The game is a big step up from Paladin, in terms of both production quality, and fun. Jazza has put a huge amount of work into animating and producing the game, assembling an awesome team to produce high quality sound, voice and artwork. The first minigame Big Dipper is out now, so go play!

Other news from the last 2 years:

Released Brotherhood of Battle across the web. It's a free online multiplayer TBS which has been running for about 3 years, but up until recently has only been playable at XGenStudios.com
Did the client side programming for Boxhead: Bounty Hunter.
Made Puzzatales and Explosioneer with the one and only Spike Vallentine.

Version 1.30 of BoB has just been released, and it includes some improvements to the map editor, including a bunch of new props and ground textures. If making maps sounds like your thing, fire up BoB, create the best looking, most original and well balanced map you can, and then submit it to the contest here.

Two $50 prizes are up for grabs for the best maps, as well as being included in the official Quick Play map list.

Good luck!

So you may have heard of Brotherhood of Battle. It's the turn based strategy game that JAZZA and I have been working on all this year, and recently released. It's just had its first update since release, which cleans up the bugs where occasionally players would be left hanging when someone disconnected from a 3 or 4 player game.

The other main improvement is to the Quick Play matchmaking system. Players can now only choose 2, 3 or 4 player games - not the game type. This means it's much easier to find 3 and 4 player games, and all game types are played regularly instead of just assault. But if you're really hanging out for a certain game type, there's always the custom game browser.

If you haven't heard of the game before, matches consist of 2-4 players, across 5 different game types. Players have 5 units at their disposal to help them complete their objective. Capturing gold mines earns you money each turn which can be spent on upgrading your fortress and unlocking new moves and upgrades for your units, or recruiting reinforcements.

If multiplayer strategy sounds like your thing, give it a go!

Play Brotherhood of Battle, or for more information check out brotherhoodofbattle.com

Thanks for all of the reviews, comments and votes on the Paladin game so far! Its score peaked at 4.44 which saw it reach #3 of all time in the flash portal. It's great to have the game do so well after so much work. All up it took just over 3 months for Jazza and I to finish, working hours similar to a full time job.

Huge thanks to Jazza for allowing me to code the game, and for always pushing the envelope with the features he wanted to include in the game.

I would like to fix the issues mac users are having though. If anyone has a mac with cs3 installed, and wouldn't mind running a quick test for me, please let me know.

Biclops Games is a new site showcasing flash games designed by my brother and I. At present it features Monster Master and Hexiom, with two upcoming releases set to appear within a month or so.
Monster's Den - Garin's dungeon-crawling, loot-mongering, monster-mangling RPG.
And the Paladin game - A sidescrolling undead slaughter, currently in production with Jazza, creator of the Paladin series

Check it out!

My new game, Hexiom has just hit Newgrounds.

It's a puzzle game where you need to arrange tiles in a certain way to find the solution.

It features a level editor, for you to create and share your own levels.
Leave a comment here with your own custom levels for others to play!