Update  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Feb 16 2010 at 12:58:53 AM) Hey everyone! It's been WAY too long since I posted anything on here so let me take a few minutes and catch up with what's been going on. Let's start with the game. It is still being worked on but no ETA for its release. The graphics engine is done along with the terrain engine. The new UI backend is pretty much done but I still am tweaking it as needed. Scenery objects are finished as well. As of right now only the B&M sitdown track has been ported over to the new track renderer. However, doing one track style took care of most of the things needed for additional styles. I have a few more things to tweak before starting on the other styles. In short, most of the code is finished but there's still a bunch of work to do on the new animated models, UI graphics, etc. Below is an older screenshot showing off the new terrain but the track in it is running on the old renderer. So why is it taking so long? Simple.. My other responsibilities have taking up almost all of my time. For a while I was working a ton of OT at my day job. Since I started with this company they went from having 600+ employees to less than 20. Then in November they laid off almost everyone, including me. Of course, two weeks before I was laid off, Erin and I finally bought a house and our daughter, Madison, was born two days later, on October 27th. So now my time to work on anything at all is down to a few hours a week. It will get done, I just don't know when exactly.    Registrations Disabled  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Feb 04 2008 at 11:22:16 PM) I've disabled new registrations for now due to spam bots wreaking havoc on the site on occasion. A new site is something that I've been working on for some time now but I'm not sure when it will be launched. Many have emailed and asked on here about SM2. Yes, it is still being worked on. No, I don't know when it will be released. I had hoped to release it about 2 years ago but we all know how that worked out The last few months I've had more time to work on it and I made a lot of progress. But even an Alpha version is still a couple months away at a minimum.    Still Alive  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on May 21 2007 at 03:30:24 AM) Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still alive, and so is SM2. I still don't have anywhere near as much time to work on the game as I would like but I try to code when I have the time. Some weeks I'll do 20-30 hours and others maybe only 2 or 3, if any. As far as the game goes, it is a completely functional game and all the major features have either been added or prototyped. One of the things I've been running into is how much modern hardware has advanced since I began. The game really pushes the edge graphics-wise and a Shader Model 2.0 video card is required. Originally I did paths for older cards but it rapidly became a big mess and required too many compromises. That being said, performance is usually faster than SM1 when comparing similar rides. Of course, with some of the prettier features such as water reflections it can run slower on complex rides. And before someone asks, no, I don't plan on posting any screenshots anytime soon    Scream Machines in 3D!!!  (Posted By: Kobain on Nov 21 2005 at 02:36:07 AM) Interesting in playing SM in 3D?!?! go read this article: http://www.wounded-heart.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2582    Back in action.  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Sep 28 2005 at 4:54:46 PM) Hey everyone! My back is pretty much healed so I should be back fulltime now. Many thanks to those who emailed me asking how I was feeling and so on On a totally unrelated note, I've been getting emails from quite a few people giving very specific ideas that include GUI layouts, and in some cases even source code samples. While I really appreciate the effort involved in making such suggestions, I can't accept such emails. I know that the intentions are usually sincere, but all it would take is one person claiming that I stole thier GUI layout or source code or whatever, and the project could be in legal trouble. So from now on, I will not be reading emails that make any kind of suggestions. Feel free to make general suggestions in the correct forum on here if you want though. This method makes the suggestion public knowledge and fair game so to speak.    Taking a break so to speak.  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Sep 13 2005 at 06:52:47 AM) Hey everyone. I probably won't be around too much for the next few days. I hurt my back once again (I've had problems with it ever since an auto accident a few years ago) so sitting at the computer isn't the most pleasant experience right now. I'll still answer lost keys email, but everything else will have to wait until I can sit here for more than a few minutes at a time    Scream Machines 2 Testing Information.  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Jan 21 2005 at 8:32:30 PM) Hello everyone. As promised, here is our plan regarding SM2's testing periods. The first period is a closed Alpha test. This period is invite-only, and we have already picked out participants. We have not notified most yet, and we won't until we are ready for them. Testers should expect major bugs, and plenty of missing features. Testers should expect signing a NDA during this phase unlike during SM1's testing. The next period will be beta testing. At this point, most of the features will be finished, although there will be only a handful of track styles available. This period will be open initially only to those who purchased SM1 before SM2 was announced. As it progresses, we will start letting in more testers based on purchase date as well as adding in the other track styles. In other words, the longer you've owned SM, the earlier you get in. A few quick but important notes about testing: 1 - You will be issued a new serial number that is hardware-locked to your system. There will be a limit of 1 key per purchased game. This also means that if you change out some computer parts, the key may no longer work. If you notify us beforehand, we can invalidate the old key and issue a new one. If you don't, a new key will not be issued. These keys will be in use only during testing. Once the final game is released, a different system will be in place that most likely won't be tied to a single computer. 2 - We will not be contacting people other than the alpha testers. We will post what purchase dates are being accepted, and instructions for registering for the beta test. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but we want to focus on making the game, not tracking people down 3 - Sometime between now and SM2's release, we will be ending the purchase SM1, get SM2 free deal. We will be announcing this at least one week before we cancel the deal. When this happens depends on how quickly the game progresses, as well as a few other factors. In other words, it could happen anytime. 4 - Those who violate either SM1's EULA or SM2's EULA will have thier beta keys revoked, and they will not be recieving a free copy of SM2. So if you've been busted giving out your SM1 key, don't bother asking to test    Holiday Sale Information.  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Nov 16 2004 at 06:35:11 AM) Hello everyone. I've had a lot of people ask me if I'm planning another sale like I did last year around this time. Well, we lowered the price a while back, but didn't say anything about it at that time for specific reasons. I had planned on raising it back up to the normal price at the beginning of this month, but I'm feeling the holiday spirit so I'll leave the price as-is ($19.95) until the end of the year    New Development Team Member.  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Oct 19 2004 at 10:54:18 PM) We are pleased to announce that David Beauchesne has joined our growing team here at Wounded Heart. Dave will be part of the graphics team. For those not familiar with his work, he donated many of the new trains introduced in Scream Machines over the last few releases.    Scream Machines v1.55 Released  (Posted By: DragonsIOA on Sep 07 2004 at 7:03:51 PM) We are proud to announce that v1.55 is now available. This update includes two new trains: A second generation train for the multi-element styles, and a new, Hi-Q, version of the LIM Looper trains. You can either grab the full download, or a patch that will update v1.5 or v1.51 to the latest version. For those that like to add custom objects to your parks, we've also released a new version of Object Editor that has much-improved 3DS support as well as JPG and Compressed TGA texture support. This combination fixes all of the reversed and/or mis-mapped texture problems found with previous versions.