Hi everyone. It's been a year since I've posted anything. I'm a jerk. Time moves quickly. I'd just like to give an update on what I've been doing and ramble on about some things.

Unsurprisingly, I've continued to work on my new game. I've been building it from scratch in C++ / opengl. Just about all of this time has been dedicated to building my the display engine of my game, and making sure I'm doing everything efficiently while learning this new language. Unlike with flash, I don't have a foundation of tools I have immediate access to. I've got to build all of those things myself before I can even get to the creative stage. The length of time this takes is frustrating, but I do actually enjoy the problem solving, and I've got a much better understanding of how everything works at a lower level. I just wish there were 4 of me. I would prefer to work alone at the moment as I'd like to know my own programming logic inside and out. Once the foundation of the game is further along, I am open to acquiring help. I've actually recreated much of the functionality flash gave me, though performance is much greater thanks to c++ and use of the graphics card. Rather than a couple thousand pieces of vector or bitmap artwork on screen at once, I can now have hundreds of thousands of them at 60 fps. I can also do millions of particles, so no more cereal blood. I won't show anything until I'm closer to a complete product. I promise it will be disgusting.

I've got some regrets for not using something like Unity or Unreal, but those are not taylored to a flexible, vector 2d experience. I'm just jealous at the ease in which those engines allow someone to begin creative work immediately. Again, if there were more of me, I'd love to immediately be doing something in 3d. I'd most likely go with Unreal and c++. I've got a vive and and oculus rift, and VR stuff is also really appealling right now. I'd like to be the first person to properly implement the detailed physics of 3d disembowelment with a sword, but that will have to wait. I still feel though that Happy Wheels is best in 2d form, and I'm very excited when I think of releasing what I've got in mind.

I'd also like to apologize for neglecting the community of the old game. Unfortunately everything I'm doing is quite time consuming, otherwise I would be updating the original Happy Wheels forever. I just know that the newer platform will allow me to include everything I've always wanted to put into the game, so that is where I must focus my time. I hope some of you will forgive me for this quite long, inconvenient transition period.

In other news... over the past year, Bunim Murray and Machinima have been developing their take on Happy Wheels in the form of an animated series. It's been released just recently here.