morning, gang! today, we're diving into some of the
hottest topics in the LG Productions multiverse. to kick us off we have... wait, what? a
major update? oh. that explains all those weird guys on the homepage. sooo... yeah. i overhauled the web site again. this blog started with an overhaul, and now it ends with one. wait no-
i wouldn't call this update
rushed, but i will say that it only took 6 days. is that embarrassingly long or worryingly fast? who cares,
IT'S HERE!! the one word i'd use to describe this site layout is
simple. instead of all the cluttered boxes and ugly themes, i've done a complete 180 and reimagined the entire site. you've probably already noticed all the characters floating around the main pages. since every version before lacked any sort of life or charm, i've dumped my characters onto a handful of pages to liven them up. not to mention the
background has changed- it uses the George Series colors and has a variety of shapes that fade in and out. recognize them?
i also made this place as a whole more traversable. everything is clearly defined and easy to spot, rather than blending in with all the orange clutter. a bunch of useless-or-otherwise-unimportant pages have also been either merged or deleted. the About Extras page was the biggest example of this- it was pointless. the FAQ page got merged with the
About page (which looks
beautiful!). the
Patch Notes page has also been introduced, kinda like a spiritual successor to the Updates page from v1.0.
the entire Lore folder got cut, same with all the embeds on the homepage. they didn't really add to the site much, and only made things more messy. and yes, that does mark the end of all Scratch embeds. sure, they were a neat feature, but why not just...
go to its Scratch page? the navbar also got changed quite a bit- it only has three links now. to get back home, just click my logo! (you already could.)
the site as a whole feels much more... animated. besides the characters, there's a lot more images now. just look at the new
Games page! now there's a bunch of neat, informative buttons instead of large thumbnails. i actually planned to redesign
just the Games page, which somehow spiraled into a site-wide redesign. i think i felt inspired by a friend's website again, which is actually how i got into this business in the first place.
that about wraps up all the site update stuff. if i went on any longer, it'd just be "look at this page!" "now look at this one!" you get the idea. feel free to look around and have fun, i certainly had a lot of it when remaking this place. plus, i got to use my characters for once! damn, i wish i was an animator. wouldn't that be cool? i'd love to have my characters doing funny stuff outside of their games, but animation takes time, which is something i lack. plus, i still gotta animate those games of theirs.
you might've already noticed on the front page that i have a
new game!? that's right- it's
Labyrinths II! yup, while i was working on the site update, i also worked on Lab 2 alongside it. the first alpha isn't quite ready for release, mainly because this game requires a
lot of balancing and playtesting. but hey, i figured i could still talk about it here.
so, what's up with this sequel? well... The Lost Labyrinths was left in a rough state after Alpha 1.2 was released. there were a ton of unfinished features, messy code, and bad art. it led me to abandon it for over a year and a half! in the meantime, i made projects like
Fire Forge (rip) and
SMS '24, which improved both my code and art. soon enough, i felt ready to tackle a Lost Labyrinths sequel, with
actual labyrinths this time. the initial prototype was finished in about a week, and it's grown quite a lot since then. now if you don't want
minor spoilers of the game, skip to the next section. but if you're still here, let's dive in!
first off, this game takes place almost exclusively in labyrinths. each one ends with a Brute, a boss with greatly increased HP, damage, and unique spells to use. you'll travel through rooms, which could lead to a variety of random events. you could fight a monster, find some loot, buy from a vendor, or have literally nothing happen. it's all random! certain labyrinths may also have unique events, such as booby traps or mini-fishing spots. the difficulty of each labyrinth increases with each floor, so be sure to stay on your toes.
deals are back too, and they work almost exactly the same as before. they don't provide unique rewards yet, but this
is the first alpha, after all. fishing is also back, and while limited, is still useful for brewing potions and such. mining has returned as well, and it too, is limited. to sum it up, many features have come back from The Lost Labyrinths, but in a pretty unfinished state. deals, fishing, mining, all of it. it'll all be expanded upon with each update, obviously. oh yeah, the CSS also looks
infinitely better. and there's a lot more effects, too!
the standout feature is definitely labyrinths, which are really the best feature of entire game. trust me, this could be my magnum opus someday (in IGM, i should make that clear). there's a lot more small stuff that i could mention here, but i'll save it for when the full thing actually releases. i might even
stream myself starting a new save when it releases, which could be pretty fun.
rumor has it that i might even become a PNGtuber, but that could never happen.
so yeah, a lot of stuff in basically one month. i'd say that's a definite highlight of the year, and we're not even halfway through yet! maybe now i can focus on George 1.5, which i sadly neglected the entire time. look man... the motivation just wasn't there. but hey, i found it in other areas! the site looks a thousand times better, and i've got a fresh IGM game in the works! i'm proud of what i've done this month. now, onto the real-life stuff, which also happened.
outside of all the LG Productions-related stuff, i think i had a good spring break. the first thing that happened was a pool party involving the musical cast. now, if you know me, i
love swimming. ever since my shoddily-built pool got obliterated a couple years ago, i've been looking for ways to enjoy a good swim again. freshman year didn't exactly help with that (or much of anything), so let's skip to that pool party. one of my castmates hosted it, marking it the first time i was visiting a friend's house in over a year. wow, look at all these milestones!
the party itself was a blast. they had a damn nice pool, and even used pieces of the actual production's set as decorations. it was also just nice to, y'know, hang out. i dunno, it feels like it's been forever since i had actual conversations with people. so yeah, fun day. it was a pretty great way to end this era of theatre. and yes, i'll be back next year.
another school-related thing that happened during break was the Theater Arts' class production. they were performing Homer's Odyssey, a story involving Greek mythology. i knew basically nothing about the story going into it, and as i'll get into soon, knew basically nothing leaving it. so how was it? in all honesty, it was just a
mess.
first off, over half the actors had their scripts up with them. i thought it was a stylistic thing at first, but more and more of them started bringing their scripts on stage. it
butchered the pacing of the play, since dialogue would come to a screeching halt every time someone had to glance at their script. it lead to these awkward silent moments that persisted throughout the entire play. i think the lead actor even swore on stage during one of those moments. yikes.
secondly, none of the actors were mic'd up. this meant that we'd have to hear them from their mouths, not a speaker. a few of these people were
quiet, which made some dialogue near impossible to hear. i had to guess what was happening at some points since the actors either spoke too quietly or were stuck using their scripts. one girl even had to look at
someone else's script during an important scene.
lastly, the play seemed to be plagued by these odd technical problems. a prop got lost underneath the set, actors had to awkwardly leave behind the set when they were prompted to exit, and the script problem led to some
really poor cue timing. plus, the actors would often smile or even laugh on stage, which made it extremely hard to take this thing seriously.
look, i
really wanted to like this play. not even all of it was bad! but i'd give it a 5/10 at best. there were a couple strong performances, but they were few and far between. it was still decently fun, i guess.
for most of spring break, i was pretty much just working on the web site and Labyrinths II. when i wasn't doing that, i was either napping or hanging out with my parents. one thing they've taken notice of is how much i go driving with them. even if they're just getting dinner for that night, there's a good chance i'll tag along. i dunno, i just like a nice drive. i
do know that my parents are gonna sign me up for driving school once junior year is over. am i excited about it? not really, i'm scared of driving. maybe i'll end up enjoying it, but that's a later problem.
i also watched the Minecraft Movie again with some other friends before our break ended. one of them couldn't make it last minute, but it was still fun. interestingly, our theater was
dead silent throughout the entire film. it was full of little kids, which i expected to have at least SOME reaction. even during the chicken jockey scene, no one said a word. i don't know which i prefer- a live chicken being brought to the cinema, or Jack Black saying "Coming in hot!" to dead silence.
now that spring break is over, another task has unfortunately been added to my list of things to worry about. that task is my Honors Chemistry class, which has been a b*tch to go through ever since the first day. that class is painfully hard, and i'm painfully lazy. both of those things have led to my grade of 69 in the class. nice. if i don't have that grade up at least
one point by the end of the semester, i'm in trouble. a D on my report card, even in an honors class, looks pretty bad. and now's the time when i
really have to start looking into colleges. i can afford a C, but a D? double yikes.
that's not even the only class i have to worry about. my Journalism class, which i'm sure i've mentioned several times, has also been quite a chore to deal with. it's not that the class is "hard" per se, but it's more
confusing than anything. we get assigned in "groups" to do stories for our weekly news video, but they always fizzle out quickly and end up in a rushed, half-assed video.
the class is
horribly managed, and instead of actually doing anything about it, the teacher either whines about the class, puts on some movie and sits there, or teaches us the most useless, ass-pulled information he can muster that day. half the time we don't even get a chance to work on our assigned stories! but when we do get the chance, why don't we actually work on them? to put it simply, nothing motivates us. you might jump to "grades" as a motivator, but that doesn't work when your teacher threatens to give the class a C "because he feels like it". if you're so great at journalism, then why don't you PROVE IT instead of staring at your phone all day?!
other than that, it's solid. i'm actually doing all my math homework this semester, history is great as per usual, you get it. it's just these two classes that drag it all down. if i had taken regular Chemistry and just stuck to Art I like my counselor recommended, i wouldn't be in this situation. it's just my parents
insisted i take an honors class, and this was back when i actually had time to make videos. so, naturally, i wanted to learn about video editing. but instead i took the most worthless, should-be-an-easy-A-but-somehow-isn't class there is. i swear, if i didn't do all that theatre stuff this year, i would've lost my mind.
to be honest, i've been feeling down again. yeah, i know we
just got past the sad stuff, but it's felt different since break ended. school has been stressing the hell out of me lately, with each class adding something new to the table. i somehow forgot to do an
entire Spanish project during spring break, and i know it's gonna f*** my grade. i have a few religion assignments i missed that dropped my grade a few percentages, and i haven't found the time to do them yet. my Geometry class has a poster project due in a week that my parents are
hounding me to do. look, i know i'm last minute, but please stop adding fuel to the fire.
i already went over Journalism and Honors Chem, which only leaves World History and English II, which are fine. fun situation(s), am i right? i blame this entirely on pure laziness and forgetfulness. i've neglected schoolwork for my personal stuff, and look where it's gotten me. obviously, i should probably stop making my games and focus on school for a while, and i might just actually do that. i'll let people have fun with Lab 2 and the web site for now, but this might be the
last update for a couple months. you might be asking, "months? plural??"
i dunno if i mentioned this before, but i'm going to Europe this summer. i won't say what countries exactly, but i'm going to quite a few of them. our trip starts a week after the last day of school, and lasts around two weeks. i'll be kinda busy for a while, heh. but before that happens, i really have to buckle down and get all this school stuff under wraps. i can't afford a D in Honors Chem, and i'd like to see as many A's as possible. my grades matter more than ever.
overall, i think i'm just ready for the school year to end. after
that mess comes to a close and my trip to Europe ends, i want the rest of this summer to be productive. i want to see George 1.5 actually get somewhere, and i want to see Labyrinths II make it past the first alpha. i also want to explore Neocities for once, seeing all the obscure sites it has to offer. maybe i could make some more friends along the way. i've still got two years before college, and i have a lot more time than i think i do. just gotta put it to use.
with all that in mind, i'm excited for what this summer has to offer. i have a lot more to show you all.
until then, i'll see you next month for my Sophomore Year Review.
2 am rambling goes crazy (i do this often)
