BYOND announced the creation of the site's official Facebook page.  Anyone with a Facebook account can now become a fan.  They don't even need a BYOND account.

You and complete strangers can post on the fan section of the wall.  Your Facebook friends might get a notice about your activity, but only posts from administrators will be relayed to other fans.  Those who desire help navigating through the crowd can use the filter options above the top post.

Links to share games and blog posts on Facebook have also been added across BYOND.  These have nothing to do with BYOND's Facebook page.  Instead, they allow readers to easily share content on their own Facebook pages.  Their friends will then be notified privately.

This will help promote the creators of games and blog posts.  Those creators need not worry about the content being automatically posted on their own Facebook pages.  Likewise, the only way any of their Facebook friends will know about it is if they are also friends of the person who clicked the link.

First, a bit of guild business that I wish I had noticed earlier.  How many of these featured games are actually correctly labeled as being for one player?  As far as I know, Last Robot Standing, Mano A Mano, Boxed, and LaserWars all require multiple players.  The creators of these games are not active.  (At least, not publicly.)  If they can't edit their hubs, can the BYOND staff?

Veemonthedemonking released and submitted a defense game called Cow Strategy.  There appears to be some dispute over the rights to the sprite it's named after, but I'm not familiar enough with the situation to deny it entry.  As with many projects though, I would suggest updating the skin.  Some of the anchors are not set and the window turned into a small rectangle the next time I logged in.

EGUY released version 18 of his tile-laying game, Deus Rex.  Along with bug fixes there have been some minor GUI changes.  I'm still curious about why I get black lines on the side of my map and am not allowed to edit them out.  I'd also like to see an in-game helpfile just for convenience.  However, I'm guessing that the current feature requirements are being met.  I'll try to confirm it soon. =)

Vexonator has updated his authorized version of Kunark's tactical fantasy, Surreal Dreams.  He appears to have overcome his previous source code loss as he's claiming the new version is more stable and includes new features.  Meanwhile, balance issues and suggestions are being welcomed in his forum.  How about a hub entry?!

While Acebloke has yet to implement them, he is planning on adding more infantry and ship units to his economic/military simulation, Wargames.  His goal is to have at least one ship per age and eventually add more ship types.  Players can expect frigates, aircraft carriers, submarines, cruisers and more battleships.

DarkCampainger is spending part of his spring break on the continued development of his "unit-pushing strategy game of red-rover", Breach.  He recently created a title screen and is still working on the interface.  What I find particularly interesting is the way he plans to redesign the pieces for easy identification.

Geldonyetich's non-BYOND blog, Digitally Staving Off Boredom, has been moved to another service.  Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out whether his recent non-progress reports and muse-mourning mean that his persistent world, Project Shock, has been canceled... or put on hiatus... or, you know, started. ;)-

Is this getting too mean?  At least I hung out with Flick online before picking on him.  Geesh.

I realize that I make a decent amount of errors in this column, but I was still annoyed when I found out I've been adding an extra 'o' to Vermolius' name for months.  I'd apologize, but maybe it was subliminal disrespect to let him know we still want that Efencea update.  Yeeeeah, that's it.

I didn't touch Genetic Fork much this week, but I'll post a picture to pretend I did.

Instead, I worked on designing the mechanics and interface of Grim Prospects.  It's a card game that's sort of the successor to my abstract dungeon crawl, GrimTunnel.  However, there is less math and a greater ability to plan.  Meanwhile, the phase actions are rather simple to understand so I won't be embarrassed about submitting it to BYOND Casual.  There will also be AI for Single Player Games which should make it easier to find testers and promote on The Game Crafter.  For that reason, this project might take precedence.

I figured I'd mention the ModDB awards. Anime fans in particular might be happy with the choice for best upcoming mod.

Got news? A new episode of Supernatural is supposed to air tonight.