Experimenting with BYOND Strategy's layout the same day as a Tech Tree post was probably unwise last week, but I did it anyway.

• I've been wanting to dedicate more space to featured games than the front page.  They are now on the right of every blog page. This means that every on-site Tech Tree post doubles as an ad for featured games!
• I did the same with the Forum box.
• I changed the Guild Info box to an About Us box with direct links to each rule section rather than a single link to posts tagged with the keyword "rules".
• I added a longer blog summary to the center of the front page.  Hopefully this will encourage others to submit posts.

This week's post is both a bit late and a bit short. However, I managed not to overeat during Thanksgiving dinner so feel proud of me anyway. ;)

Devourer Of Souls updated his hybrid, Witches Chess.  There were a couple bug fixes, but players might be most interested in knowing that the Traitor spell has been changed.  Make sure you have the latest version of BYOND if you wish to play because older versions will fail.

Acebloke's boardgame, Exploder, recently had its 5th anniversary and he's trying to celebrate with a tournament before the year is over.  The game's standings now list each player's number of matches and nationality.  He's currently working on Elo ratings.

The interface update has yet to be released so I'll pretend to ignore his comment that the HUD is unchanged. ;)

Geldonyetich is still working on his persistent RTS, Vehicle Wars.  However, his first attempt to spice up the Terran faction by adding dropships appears to have failed.  I'm just happy there was an iteration created.  On to the next. =)

Bladeshifter announced a new defense entry called The Wave Game.  There's no download yet, but a video was posted.  Hopefully the graphics will be updated with original, unified content.  It's nice to see BYOND's new isometric capabilities being used though.

Last week's RPG zombies appear to have bitten Theironix.  His episodic series, The King's Letter, is no longer an RTS.  Frelling zombies.  Perhaps our brains are too filling.

I updated my arcade action game, Wrangle, Warp And Weep with interface changes and bug fixes.  Now to get my older cousin, whose Atari 2600 I used to worship, to stop dodging the strays he is supposed to be collecting.

It's taking me a long time to release the next update to my card-battling boardgame, PathWrath 2.  On the bright side, I've decided to remove the unused scores and replace them with medals that should encourage different styles of play.  In an effort to promote good sportsmanship, there's also a medal for finishing games that is lost by players who quit prematurely.  Perhaps I'll start adding medals like it in all of my games.

Oasiscircle paged me with a video of his current project. It strikes me as a nifty blend of strategy and arcade controls. The reference to persistent upgrades worries me, but I'm wondering if it's more a matter of swapping unit types out. All I know is that the higher level units will have longer cooldowns and lower level units could take them out in swarms.

BTW, Oasiscircle's Let's Play group, BethlehemBrothers, recently started playing Dan-Ball's Stick Ranger on YouTube. Even the game's wiki labels it as an action RPG, but I think it has RTS elements... Take that, zombies!

Got news? Have you checked out IainPeregrine's multi-server communication library, Artemis?