We've been promising to do the sequel to Sneak for more years than I care to admit to...and now, finally, the game is getting a start.

For those who never got to play the original Sneak, it was basically Capture the Flag, with some fun features where you could hide in grass, swim under water, and otherwise sneak around to accomplish your goal. We hope to capture the original fun and add a few new features.

We're developing it on a Beta for an upcoming BYOND release, both to help test the release and a new official library, and to make use of some new features that are perfect for Sneak.

In particular, we're using the vastly improved "big icon" handling functionality that's coming up. Now you can import large icons and even provide them with movement states and animations without having to deal with the split up icons in the editor. They act just like regular icons, except you can't edit large icons in BYOND (you have to edit them in some other graphical editor).

Along with this functionality, Shadowdarke has created a library to automate multi-tile handling that will be released. His library is quite convenient, and will save a lot of hassle.

For posterity, here is the very first screenshot from the new Sneak, using my own awful hand-drawn trees, and a blown up version of the player mob from the original game (this will be much different at release!):



To give a sense of scale, that's a 64x64 player mob, the trees are 64x128, and the trees have some animation.

It'll be a long time to finishing this, and we'll document the development in this blog. If you have suggestions, you can post them here or on the DDT forums.

Has a terrorist taken over my account? How could I not want people to vote for LRS?

Well, I've noticed recently that some people who I'm not sure actually play LRS have been making it #1 in their rankings, perhaps as some sort of corrective measure to games they don't like having the top spot.

I want to say, it has been a total thrill having DDT get the #1 game in the rankings. While some may think we are some kind of elite game creators, the reality is that pretty much everything we released previously, while we really liked the games, got crickets for a reception. DragonSnot is great, darnit, but no one plays! Birdland is a blast, if you ask me, but it just sits there. (We hope to revisit those games when new versions of BYOND come out, and see if we can make them more inviting.)

Having a game that some people have played for hundreds of hours is just amazing, and a humbling experience, and we really really appreciate the enthusiastic fans who put the game on their favorites list.

But we only want to be there if we deserve it. If you don't play LRS, or haven't played enough to know what's good about it or if you like it or not, then please don't vote for it. I'd rather you find or make a game you really like, and vote for that.

As part of this, I've removed LRS from my personal rankings to make sure I'm not inflating it with multiple accounts. I actually think there's nothing wrong with that, but LRS has had it's time in the sun, and I would love for another quality game to land in the #1 spot.

If you love LRS, vote for it! But even better, find or make a better game...that's an order!

I realized there are people who have contributed special levels of creativity to the Last Robot Standing project, and they should be recognized. So we have a new "Robot Collaborator" rank, for those who go above and beyond.

Right now Elation and Nadrew are the first collaborators. Elation provided the most excellent blue robot icon that has become the game's signature (and DDT's blog identity). Nadrew did the game logo and provided a server for us.

A Collaborator will get a year of membership from the DDT, and other perks from time to time.

Also, if you can come up with a more clever name for the rank, or other ideas for what we should do it it, let us know!

Finally, if you have contributed something and should get this rank, please remind me.

Well, not the development team, but the chemical itself looks to be headed back into action.

Thank goodness, is all I can say.

The one downside to using the name DDT for our little team, and especially the slogan Remember Kids, DDT Kills! is that it perpetuates the myth that DDT was so awful it had to be banned to save everything.

In reality, as discussed at that link, DDT is a poison with benefits and downsides...the downside being that maybe it could make some people sick if overused and maybe it sometimes weakened bird eggs (not sure if that was confirmed).

The upside being, it definitely saved millions of lives.

Or did, until banned. At which point, millions of lives were lost due to the ban, because Malaria absolutely does kill, kids.

Our society isn't very good at risk/benefit analysis. Millions of lives guaranteed, vs some birds maybe? Answer every time: Save the birds, kill the people!

Well, I for one am glad to hear this poison may be back to its proper place in society, killing deadly mosquitos and saving an incredible number of lives.

Now, back to robots!

Admins are now Overseers.

Please be gentle, our new masters!