News

Hey everyone!

It's been a while, and I have a lot of really exciting announcements to drop in one blog post, so grab yourself a drink or snack, and read on.

To start off, as you can tell I've decided to completely revamp the website. It's interesting to note that this is the fifth iteration of megatoxic.com, and for this one I've decided to tone down the color scheme a bit and go for a more traditional look. I've also designed the website to be fully responsive, so you can view it and navigate comfortably on the full spectrum of devices (smartphones, tablets, PC's, etc.)

On the homepage there are a lot of visual elements now. I have slideshows presenting some recent projects I've worked on, as well as older projects I've done which I regard as my best work from back then. I have also integrated a Disqus commenting system on the homepage so people can leave comments and feedback on the website, or just say hi.

As for other sections of the site, I've re-designed the About section to look more professional. I have links to my e-mail and Skype account for people to contact me. You may also notice that the Games section has been stripped down quite a bit. I've removed a lot of my older projects from the early-to-mid 2000's, because while those projects nicely demonstrate how I've progressed over the years, I find them to be a bit childish. The goal of this re-design is to make it presentable to employers who want to see what kind of work I'm capable of as an independent game designer, so I want to adjust the content of Megatoxic.com to suit that notion. The other issue with my older works is that some of them utilize copyrighted assets, such as character names and music, and I want to be careful in which games I make available and in what context. I spent a lot of time going through each game, and picking out my most original work to host on this website. Ironically enough, the Atari 2600 games I've made are really what fit that category, as those are the only games I have available right now. For those that are fans of my childhood game projects, I'll likely make a dedicated post on the forums so they can still download them.

...... And that brings me to my last segment of this blog post: Megatoxic now has its own official forum! You can access the new forums anywhere from the website by clicking on the button in the left-hand navigation pane. The forums are more-or-less an experiment I'm trying in generating social awareness and interest in Megatoxic as a brand. In this iteration of Megatoxic, one of my goals is to make it as open to the public as possible. I want people to be able to leave feedback, post comments, exchange ideas, and engage with other people. I think the forums are a great way to enable this to happen.

So that's everything I wanted to announce in this blog post today. I consider all of this to be more than just a revamp of the website; it's a rebranding of Megatoxic. My goal for this year is really to start making Megatoxic a more serious entity, and make it as public as possible.  I'll be posting more things on Facebook related to Megatoxic, and make more references to the site in general. People will be able to respond to blog posts, leave comments right on the home page, or participate in the new forums (which by the way, are not free, so I'm taking this whole thing pretty seriously). I also have a slew of new game ideas I'd like to pursue over the next few months, so stay tuned for those. Until then, I hope everyone is excited about this new rebranding of Megatoxic and thank you for the support you've given me. :)

- Tom

Hey guys. ;D

As we enter our fifth version of the website and the major re-branding of Megatoxic, I thought it would be appropriate to share some interesting pictures I was able to gather of the different iterations of Megatoxic.com. They span from as early as 2002 to as late as last year, and demonstrate how the Megatoxic website has evolved over time. So, rather than talk about it more, I'll go ahead and show it to you. Hope you enjoy these pictures! :D

This is the first version of the website. The logo on the top left actually animated and came in from the top, which was a unique visual effect. Other than that, the website looked very simplistic and a bit amateurish as you could tell. As I was very much an energetic 13-year old back then, I was super-excited and over-used exclamation points a lot! LOL! I was very enthusiastic when I was working on a game project, whether it was one that was brand new or one that was just nearing full completion. The Strange X-50 was about to release at the time this screenshot was taken, so you can see my excitement in the way I announced it! :)

Here is the 2nd version of the website, circa 2006-2010. This version of the site teased the School of Torture 7 in a live-action trailer I made, and it also teased High Alacrity (shown above). This was actually a very ambitious version of the website, as it was going to have various subsections like an FAQ, a place to download desktop wallpapers, and an "Apps" section, which (believe it or not) was a new thing at the time.

In between website versions, I had to take the whole place offline for a few weeks as I finished designing the new layout. While this was going on, I mainly used Megatoxic.com as a repository for some of my work that I'd done. It also was the first time actual gameplay of the School of Torture 7 was finally revealed, before the project got canned.

Here is one of the newer versions of the website that spanned from 2011 to 2014. One thing to note that's interesting is that this version of megatoxic.com was actually produced on a Linux computer. I was heavily into Linux at the time. Another interesting tidbit about this version is it's the first version to be designed with touchscreens in mind. The navigation buttons are now on the left and are much larger, making it easier to press each one with a finger.

And finally, we have the most recent version of Megatoxic.com that we just transitioned from, spanning from 2014 to July 19th, 2017. For this version, I decided I wanted to go back to the darker, green-blue color scheme that the website had when it first launched. This is the first version of the website to make use of a blog, and it had interactive slideshows for each game page. Many of the elements from this website were carried over into the current version.

Hi guys. Been a while. ;o
So today is pretty awesome because I just released my first Android app on the Google Play Store.

The app itself is not a game, but a complimentary app for the cuSchool website. If you want to learn about managing credit unions, then this is the app for you. I had a bit of fun making this app, and included a few fancy features for changing the background and text color. It's a pretty cool app, even if it's not an actual game. Gotta start somewhere, right? ^^

WHEW!!! Well....

I just spent the last 3 hours trying to fix the comments feature. What was happening was, whenever you posted a comment, it would redirect you off of this website and bring you to blogspot, which is where my blog is being hosted. Now that doesn't happen anymore; you can comment right from megatoxic, and it won't redirect you away from the site! ^-^

Only disadvantage is that any old comments I had before don't show up, because technically I'm using a different comments system that's sort of "attached" to my blogger account. Lol.

So after 20 billion years of not having updated Megatoxic, I finally got around to it. You'll notice that the layout is completely different, and I've made the website a LOT more interactive.

To begin with, there is a new interactive drop-down menu at the top of the website, and you can use it to access other sections of the site now. Perhaps the most significant change though, is that I've figured out how to embed a live blog in my homepage, and DAMN, it is awesome! People can now comment on my blog via Facebook, Google+ or Twitter, and they can "like" certain things I post here, or share them if they want to. This live blog will really help me out a ton as well, because since it's live, I'm no longer required to re-publish my website whenever I make a new update post.

I'm still playing around with the look of the site, and I may actually change it again. I'm not sure if I really fully like this green look or not. But hey, now you can leave a comment below and give me your opinion on it! HAH! XDDD

As for other things, you'll notice that I've added more content to the site. I now have links to our Atari games, our media that I've made for school, and the new OUYA version of Game Catcher, which marks Megatoxic's very first game release to a wide audience!

A lot has been happening, and there's still more to come. Hopefully soon I should have some gameplay footage of the School of Torture for the OUYA ready for everyone to see.

See you guys soon, and Happy Thanksgiving! ^^

It's a test....

Well, as you guys know, it's been a long time since I released a new game. The reason for this is not because I've lost motivation to make new games, or don't want to do it anymore. I just recently switched to Ubuntu from Windows. Now when I say "switch", I mean I switched every computer I have access to. None of the computer monitors here will give you a desktop with a taskbar and Start menu at the bottom. I made the switch because I didn't want to deal with viruses and blue screens anymore, and so far it's been a painless ride. The only difficulty is I can't get our game creation software to run on it, because it's Windows-only software. So I'm trying right now to figure out a way to run our familiar game creation software in Ubuntu in a non-buggy state.

So for all those who think I'm retiring in game development, you're wrong. The fact of the matter is, making games is still my passion, and I actually have a whole backlog of games that I want to make in my head. And just for those who are REALLY curious, I will tell you that the first game I work on next will indeed be a remake of the first School of Torture. Yes, that's right. I don't really want to spoil anything right now, but let's just say, it's going to be an amazing game. I'm going to combine everything I know about game design with everything that I remember from the original School of Torture game. I'm going to say it right now though, it will not be in 3D. But I hope sometime I get to make another 3D game again.

Whew.... well this was a long update. I actually had to rework the html of this text box to allow a scroll bar especially for this one entry. xDDD Anyway, I will post back probably soon, once I've managed to get a stable environment working for our game creation software. At that point, I will start approaching the School of Torture remake. Stay tuned for that, and have a great day.

As you all can see, we've decided to completely re-design the website from scratch, making this the third iteration of megatoxic.com. Our goal as of right now is to completely re-build the entire website with a much more streamlined, cleaner look, and fix all broken links that creeped in over the years. The navigation buttons are now located to the left, and are larger and more touch-screen friendly. Every section will soon be re-polished, and it should all be done by the end of the month, if we're successful. Hope you guys enjoy the brand new layout, and I'll keep you posted on further updates as progress goes on.

I decided to lay out the home page a slightly different way, just to try something a bit different. I don't know about you, but I really like it!

I'm going to attempt to fix the background on the other pages and finish off the rest of the site before I get some shut-eye tonight. It's going to look really sick when it's all completed-- I guarentee it!

As you can see, I've gotten the first official School of Torture 7 trailer up today. I don't have a specific release date planned for the School of Torture 7 yet, because I cannot get to work on it until I finish working on this other Sonic project with another team (For now, I am not revealing what project this is).

Well, hope you guyz out there enjoy the new layout of the home page, and stay tuned for more major revamps to the site!

- Tom

Wow... how long has it been, 2 years?! Well, we're finally back in business! And all the links will be fixed and fully functional by tonight, if all goes planned.

Just to bring you up to speed with what's been happening since 9/19/05, High Alacrity unfortunately was going through major development difficulties and it was decided by the team for the project to be cancelled. However, the School of Torture 7 is NOT going to be cancelled, but will see a major delay in progress for about a year and a half. A new project, titled Game Catcher 2, is in the works, and has seen a nice smooth development so far. =)

By this weekend, the website should be completely finished-- all links working, including the ones that were never born on the right column over there. >_>

Well, that's about the long and short of it all. lol. Let's see how things turn out from here on in.

Catch ya lata!

-Tom