Hey guys!

Well... uhh.... This is NOT the kind of blog post I was expecting to write anytime soon, let alone this year xDDD

Miraculously, we have a new game out! Not only that, but it's the first Megatoxic release made exclusively for the Sega Genesis platform! 

To give you all a bit of background, The School of Torture is actually a game I made when I was around 12. I created it using Game Maker 3.2 (now known as Game Maker Studio), and it was one of the first games I had ever made. After I had made it, I sent it to a couple close friends/family and burned it to a CD-R.

Over the years however, I had lost the CD it was on, and the original game was lost permanently. 

Fast-forward to 2024, just for fun I started dabbling in C programming, specifically Sega Genesis development. It was the first time I ever had a go at making a Sega Genesis game, and it was also my first experience programming in C. Probably not the BEST idea to leap right into Sega Genesis without having prior knowledge in the language, but I was really just messing around.

And sure enough, 20+ YouTube tutorials later, and a little less than a month of time, I had successfully built a complete School of Torture remake that runs on the Sega Genesis. I did everything I could to build in everything I remember about the original School of Torture to keep the game as faithful as possible, but I also did everything I could to make it as polished and feature-packed as possible:

• 10 areas to explore
• Creepy 16-bit art
• 16-bit rendition of the School of Torture 7 theme music
• Full-screen in-game still cutscenes
• One of the levels includes a top-down recreation/approximation of the School of Torture 7 floor map.
• Non-linear open-world environment to explore
• Multiple endings
• Functional sound test menu
• Runs on real Sega Genesis hardware! :)

For my first Sega Genesis game, I think it turned out pretty good!

And to top this blog post off with a nice cherry on top, I'm thrilled to announce that The School of Torture is available to play and download TODAY on Megatoxic! You can find the full game for free HERE! :)

Once again, thank you all for the support, and I hope you enjoy the game!

-Tom

Hey everyone, Tom here.

This might be a long blog post, so feel free to grab a drink and let's talk.

I'll cut right to the chase: lately I haven't really had any desire to work on games, and at this point in time I don't really plan on doing any more projects in the future. I have a couple projects that I was working on, and they're still safely backed up on my media server in case I ever want to revisit them in the future. But as I mentioned a few blog posts ago, Game Maker Studio has become a subscription-based model, so it's pretty impractical for me to use it again unless I'm really serious about game development again-- which I'm not... Never say never, but I'd say it's highly unlikely.

Now, all that's not to say I'm doing BADLY-- I'm actually doing quite well in fact! I'm still happily with my partner Jordyn (can't believe it's been ~8 years already, sheesh...), and I've been at my new web development job for 2 and a half years now. Everything's going great! But I do feel like it's getting close to time to say goodbye to Megatoxic. >.<

I don't really want this to be a completely depressing post, so I'll quickly jump to something a bit happier: As you can see, we have a new website! :)

Some new features include:

• New, modern front-end design
• "Fun Stuff" Section
• Better blog system
• Revamped "Games" page
• Javatari Emulator :)
• A special easter egg. ;D

I actually had a lot of fun building this version of Megatoxic's website. As you can see, the Forum is pretty much gone forever (though I do have a link in the footer right now, but it's likely not staying). In its place though, I've built a new section of the site called "Fun Stuff". This is a whole new section of Megatoxic dedicated to nifty little HTML and web experiments I've been doing in my spare time. 

Another great thing about this new version of Megatoxic is its use of Javatari-- which is an Atari 2600 emulator for your web browser. That's right-- now you can actually play most of the games on the site without downloading them! ;D

And finally, there's an easter egg I've planted on the site somewhere. I won't reveal what it is, but here's a hint for you: be sure to carefully examine that footer. ;o

Well, as you probably can tell, this is very likely going to be the last version of the Megatoxic website I'll ever make (though again, never say "never"). I want to end my run with Megatoxic on a happy, high note. And I think I actually did. :)

Have a good one, and I'll burp you all later. xD

- Tom

 Hey everyone. I mentioned yesterday that I would keep you all posted on what will happen with Ballzerk and Megatoxic in general. Now that I've had some more time to process everything and look into the situation with Game Maker Studio, the situation is not as dire as I was making it out to be yesterday. Frankly, there's a lot going on currently with myself and I felt like there wasn't a lot I can do with all these factors coming into play.

So without further due, here is the rundown:

• The license I had purchased for Game Maker Studio 2 will still continue to be valid for as long as YoYoGames continues developing and supporting it. The real worries won't actually happen until Game Maker Studio 3.x. This is good news for me, because I can have A LOT more time to familiarize myself with Game Maker Studio's new licensing system and gradually make the switchover to Game Maker Studio 3 if I so desire. Frankly, I would prefer to stay on Game Maker Studio until at least 2 of the 3 projects I'm working on are finished.
• Ballzerk has officially been taken down from the App Store. I was completely expecting this, and it happened as I mentioned it would. However, now that I know my current Game Maker license will continue to work as it has for the past 3 years, I'm actually reconsidering releasing a new update for Ballzerk to comply with Apple's updated guidelines.
  
  Keep in mind though, this is still a tedious process to go through-- and I've only done it once. How? Well, I basically test the hell out of Ballzerk to make sure it worked really well on iOS before I released it. It's actually pretty amazing-- one build of Ballzerk was ever released on iOS in the 3 years it's been on the App Store. Because of the difficulty of releasing an iOS app, I'm going to make one attempt at it, and if it gets rejected then I'm done with Ballzerk on iOS for real. Trust me-- it was horrendous the first time around. That's exactly why I never bothered trying to do any updates for Ballzerk on iOS. Most of the updates I've been doing were actually for the Android port.

Hey everyone. This is a post I've been sort of avoiding to make this week, because it's not really good news. I'm still trying to process in my head how to negotiate through it, and whether or not I can even continue Megatoxic. It's been about 20 years since I've been making independent games under this name, and I always felt like at some point I would quietly stop making new games for Megatoxic. I just never thought it would have to be anytime too soon. 

I actually have 3 game projects in the works right now that I've been steadily trying to develop. It's just taking me a long time to announce them or show off any gameplay trailers, merely due to the fact that I have a full-time job (that's not particularly enjoyable I might add), a long-distance relationship with the best person in the world, and an entire life outside of my job that I'm trying to tend to. So I simply never get the time, energy or motivation to work on my games for Megatoxic.

But even with all the "life" stuff I mentioned above, that's actually not what's making me feel like I may need to end Megatoxic. Here's what's going on:

• Ballzerk is going to be removed from the iOS App Store on August 13, 2021. Yeah, you read that correctly, so if you haven't played the game and want to try it-- better download it today (it's totally free). The reason it's about to be taken down is because Apple enforces developers to release frequent updates, and to put it bluntly, updating the iOS version of Ballzerk is a pain. If you're developing a game (or any app) for iOS, this is what the process looks like:
  
  
1. You must pay a subscription fee of $100 per year. For some of you that may sound pretty reasonable. But how much money does Ballzerk make on iPhone per year? $0. How much money does Megatoxic make? $0. So you can see how eventually that can catch up with us. Even when I first released the iPhone version of Ballzerk, I was fully aware of this subscription fee, and anticipating having to take it down in the future. 
2. To make an app for iPhone, you're required to own a Mac. The way I got around this without spending too much money was by buying an old 2012 MacBook on eBay and making substantial software and hardware upgrades to it, which all cost around $300. Keep in mind, this was about a 2-3 week project, and it was specifically for the iPhone version of Ballzerk.
3. To adequately test any iPhone app you develop, you need to own an iPhone. Apple supplies you with an emulator to test your app on, but an old MacBook that was several years out of date already cannot emulate a modern-day iPhone at full-speed. So I had to spend about $400 on a used iPhone X, specifically for the purpose of testing Ballzerk.
4. In order to release an app or update an existing app on the iOS App Store, you have to go through a manual review process. You submit the app file to Apple, and it takes them about 2 to 3 days to review the app and either decline it or approve it. When I released the iPhone version, Ballzerk actually got rejected the first time, because it wasn't unique enough to their store. I had to write a 4-page appeal letter to Apple before they finally approved the app. I feel that any updates I might make to Ballzerk on iPhone wouldn't be substantial enough for Apple's approval, and the effort would just go to waste.
   
   Just for the record, the Android version of Ballzerk will continue to stay available-- this ONLY affects the iPhone version. Google only has you pay a single fee of $20 to initially register as a developer for Android, and after that you can release and update as many apps as you want at no charge.
   
   So when you factor all of the above, plus the fact that Android actually dominates with over 70% of the world's smartphone market share, it honestly doesn't make sense to continue developing games on the iPhone-- unless I became a full-fledged game studio with a team of people, getting an actual income from it and doing it as my full-time job.
   
   
• To make matters worse, Game Maker Studio is becoming a subscription-based software. For those of you who might not be aware, I actually develop all my games on Game Maker Studio 2.3, which is a game development environment I've been utilizing for literally the past 20 years. Over the last 10 years or so I've probably spent about $1000 or more on Game Maker Studio, but now the company that develops that software is switching it over to a subscription-based payment model.
  
  This means I pretty much need to pay them $100 per year to keep the full version of Game Maker Studio, and I may end up having to set time limits for my projects' development cycles. It also means it would cost $200 per year to release or maintain any game software for the iPhone, which is why I decided to just pull out of iPhone development for good. Again-- as a single person working on these games and spending money out of my own pocket, there's only so much money I will allow myself to spend here.
  
  Hearing about this over the week was really gut-wrenching, since I have 3 projects currently in the works-- all of which I'm doing in Game Maker Studio, and ALL of which I've actually worked with other individuals on.
  
  

Quick update for you guys!

Ballzerk was hand-picked to be featured on GameKeys.net! Go check it out, and see some of the other games they showcase.

Happy Holidays everyone, and stay safe during these dark times!

- Tom