I don't know, have you tried turning it off and back on again?

 Hello again internet!

Yeah, lotta hate in the comments from last time, and they're well deserved.  It *HAS* been a while.  Not intentional.  "Funny" how life just punches you in teh face when you're just minding your own business.  But enough about me.  

Those of you still checking this blog probably know I only post when I've actually worked on the game.  And hey, I'm posting.  I wake up early maybe twice a week and work for like half an hour.  It's not fast progress, but it is progress.  (I suppose it's light speed compared to 2020 - lol).  Normally I'd wait and post when the next game update is actually ready.  But two events have forced my hand - figure I better get in front of both of them.

First, Patreon closed my account.  Oddly, this is a mixed blessing, something I was waffling on doing for a while.  As much as I like the idea of a side hustle that actually makes money, having it connected to my real life just isn't okay for me.  And without a real name and address, Patreon decided I wasn't serious enough to have an account.  I may come back to this later in life, I kinda like the idea of picking it up seriously as a gig once I retire from the day job.  But for now, I'm content to make games for fun (and hey, that means they're free again too).

Second, Flash died.  Okay, that's not a shock to anyone, they've been announcing it for years.  What I didn't expect was that they would actively remove old Flash installations and prevent new ones.  I just sorta assumed it would linger on like a zombie forever.  Sorta like Cobol and Fortran.  But that's not what happened.  

So this is the part where I start asking y'all for help.  If you know of some good alternative programs to run old Flash games, please post them in the comments.  There's no shortage of "How do I run this" in the comments, but I'm lousy at tech support.  If you know the answer, don't be shy!

For what it's worth, my game uses ActionScript2, which is one of the older 'flavors' of Flash.  It doesn't port automatically to HTML5, but by the same token it should be easier for Flash emulators.  At the moment, I'm aware of Ruffle, but my quick attempt didn't seem to work.  I'm also aware that NewGrounds has built their own emulator (maybe?), and that old Flash games there seem to still work.  So maybe I just need to upload my game there?  Talk about going full circle - that's where this show started in the first place.

That's all for now.  I am aiming for a release sometime this summer, hopefully with the beach/Naga level completed.  But we all know how bad I am with release dates.  So here's hoping we speak again before 2022.  Til then, take care!  It's been a scary world these days.

-DirtyC101