I have an aunt and uncle who celebrated a wedding anniversary this week.  Naruto turned ten on the same day.  Believe it!  (Yeah, yeah.  Dattebayo.)

• On GameHounds, Nicholas Sylvain is continuing his examination of Schwarzenegger v. Electronic Merchants Association.  Postal 2 is the petitioner's representation of the game industry.  *sigh*
• The Experimental Gameplay Project's october challenge is for boys to make games for girls and girls to make games for boys.  Other genders get free reign.
• Game Career Guide has challenged developers to create 15 games that would fit on 15 old floppy disks.  Entries must be submitted by the 20th.
• On indiePub Games, the 3rd Independent Game Developers Competition Awards have been announced.  Dustforce! won the grand prize of $100,000.
• The Game Developer's Choice Online Awards were also posted.  League of Legends appears to have come out on top.
• The IndieCade Finalists for the 2010 Festival were listed as well.  The event has already ended, but you can still view the games in some form.
• On his Gamasutra blog, Radek Koncewicz described how his team planned their tactical title, Trudy's Mechanicals.
• Chris K posted a list of videogame-related charities on his Gamasutra blog.
• Area5 is posting episodes of CO-OP again.  Viewers can now fund the show with donations of $2, $3 and $5.
• On Rock, Paper Shotgun, Jim Rossignol interviewed Blue Giant Interactive's Mark Curry with a focus on the RTS Apox.
• Farewell to the Pink and Deadly podcast.  Good luck on future projects.  I thought the slogan was funny.

In local news...

Acebloke's Exploder is one of my favorite board games.  It's easy to learn and hard to master.  BYOND Strategy has been proud to feature it.  However, the confusing interface has always been a concern and later versions were a bit worse.  With Acebloke's permission, I have redesigned the GUI and uploaded a demo to help him implement the dynamic settings.  He seems appreciative and the changes should be included sometime in the near future. =)

By the way, my interface articles are now linked to in the tips of the feature checklist.

Twin II is working on a multiplayer strategy RPG called Axiom.  Thus far it features turn-based combat with map-based positioning similar to Final Fantasy Tactics.  The engine is roughly finished, but some real-time features might slip in as well.

Despite comments to the contrary, I didn't miss Axiom in the last Tech Tree as the post wasn't made yet.  I didn't miss Bandock's recent post on his "Strategic Warfare Prototype" either.  I just figured I've been jerked around by its questionable existence enough and wasn't going to give it any press...  Aw frell.

  I did, however, miss that Codefreak101 is working on some sort of turn-based strategy game with management of multiple resources.  Oops.

Inside the forum, VcentG has asked what BYOND Strategy needs in terms of games.  Aside from the usual rant to meet the feature standards, I'd say we could use more projects designed with lone players in mind that have good interfaces.  We have games with well-designed skins that go unplayed when their hosts can't find opponents.  (I'm biased as I believe I created some.)  Meanwhile, we have games with AI opponents that otherwise aren't as user-friendly.  Projects that merge the two could have an easier time finding an audience.

Perhaps that's not quite the answer VcentG is looking for.  However, I don't know if he'll read it anyway considering how Tech Tree apparently escaped his notice for 3+ years. ;)

The results of IainPeregrine's recent Game in a Day event have been postponed due to illness.  However, he expects to have them written by this weekend.  Keep watching his blog for more details.

I'm still working on my racing combat board game, StarScurrier.  However, I'm also thinking of working on interfaces for other games.  (BTW, here's a feature request that could make some laging winget() calls unnecessary.)  I've been considering Incursion, Fortay and Ultimatum just because they're featured.  Naturally, the developers would have to be active and willing.

Okay, I'm posting three videos today. However, they're all related to gaming and they all have one clear message: I'm old.

Sign the petition from the Electronic Consumers Association submitted along with their amicus brief in the case of Schwarzenegger v. EMA. Protect your gamer rights!