Playback in Progress..

We were finally able to track down a few bugs in the playback portion of game recording thanks to Xelius and his god like abilities.

Here is the way it currently works for those who have access:

You play a game
It automatically records the data
You view your profile and look under the section “Last 10 FFR Playback Games”
Click a song to playback and it automatically begins

We have many refinements to make within this system but for the short term, it works perfectly for all staff & subscribers to record. Any member or anonymous can play the levels back. Just go visit the profile of someone like Xelius and check out his recorded games.

After testing is over I see giving subscribers the ability to browse unlimited recorded games and non-subscribers to keep their last 5-10 recorded games. Yes we will look at different scroll directions but we must make sure everything is working as planned.

Enjoy

Cheers,

Synthlight

Recording In Progress..

Tonight if you are a staff member or subscriber, replay recording is working automatically. All games will be stored for playback. You will notice a new build .706 of FFR available.

We are working out the playback bugs right now and will have the public playback utility up as soon as we can tonight.

This thing is so cool!

Cheers,

Synthlight

What a Crazy Week – Part 2

(*warning* long as hell news post)

From Chicago to L.A. to Chicago to New York to Chicago and then back to L.A. and back to Chicago again.. a few times. That is the absolutely shortest way of explaining where I have been over this past month. Unlike the past 4-5 years of my life on FFR, the last month or so has been dedicated to making phone calls and continous travel. About 6-8 hours worth of phone calls a day to be exact. Always on the go, never sleeping and attempting to over achieve like you have never seen… Because I believe in FFR.

Lets start with the news that most people want to hear about. Game replay. Would it make everyone feel better if I told you that by tomorrow night at this time people will be testing the feature? The concept is simple. Your games record and are saved into your account. You or anyone else can then visit your profile and watch the game you played in real-time, just as you had originally played it. They will see the results screen and everything. This was a bit more complex than we had realized and some of our travel plans delayed the release but we think we have it in order. In my eyes, this is going to be a really fantastic new feature. Definitely useful and interesting.

Ok, now to the travel. What have we been up to? Have you noticed the Mary J Blige songs? How about Angels & Airwaves? NLT? Menudo? Prima-J? The White Tie Affair? Medicated Kisses? and all the others? For years we have heard your calls for larger or more popular artists. So I have started at the bottom of the ladder here and have literally worked my way up with each phone call each hour of each day. Sometimes we hit roadblocks, sometimes we sail to the top, but we NEVER give up. You guys know me and you know that I do what it takes to get the job done right.

So yes, Hollywood/L.A./New York visiting all the record labels. We even spent time sprinkling in game companies here or there to hear what they have to say. There are so many fantastic things that will come out of all of this, I can’t even begin to explain. (both from an over-excited standpoint and a legal standpoint) Just know that I will keep everyone in the loop and will release details as they become available. You wouldn’t believe some of the things happening even if I flew out and told you personally.

One of the changes that you will see almost immediately will be the fact that I will be reducing my phone calls in a dramatic fashion. Basically going from the 6-8 hours to about 1-2 hours a day. Why? Because we have this incredible person in place to take care of that for us now. Who is this person? I can’t say yet but I will tell you that the second you know, you will leave a streak in your undies. This person knows this industry and will without a doubt open many doors for FFR. He understands our vision and believes in us 100%. Ultimately this means that I will be more closely integrated with our community starting tomorrow morning. This is something that has driven me nuts over the last month or so. It will be so refreshing to post spontaneous contests, make code change requests and fixes for FFR, post in the forum and take part in the profile/video chat again. It sounds corny but these are the places I miss the most.

While it will no doubt get it’s very own news story, I didn’t even have time to post about our 5 year FFR birthday or our annual Captain Jack tribute. Both of which I will get to tomorrow.

So over the next month expect new features.. Expect interface changes.. Expect bug fixes.. Expect new games.. Expect many new artists.. Expect significant news.. Expect more of me hanging out being a dumbass as usual until 4am.

On a side note, We are waiting for our Angels & Airwaves contact to announce to us the winner of the contest for the autographed merchandise. Hopefully we will find that information out in the next couple of days and will of course post it on the front page.

Cheers,

Synthlight and the 3 robotic little pigs.

What a Crazy Week

I’m BaaAAAaack.

(details at 8pm)

Cheers,

Synthlight

I Set My Knight Friends On Fire In Paris!

Knights In Paris is an electronic powerpop duo, created by Mike Glita of Senses Fail. After some searching, Mike finally settled on Nicky Danger of Vampire For Hire as a partner to collaborate with. The two of them are currently writing and recording more songs for their LP, which in the near future, should also be available to play on FlashFlashRevolution. Knights In Paris has only been around for a short time, forming earlier this year. Their first song “Love Like Robots” was released a day or two before Halloween and has already received nearly half a million plays. According to the band, they will be posting a new song next Friday (Nov. 16th) on their myspace page. Make sure to stop by the page, play the game, and tell the boys what you think of their music.

I Set My Friends On Fire is comprised of two unique friends that have a passion for singing and creating music. Matt is the half of the band that does the singing and vocals. Nabil is the other half that does all of the instruments, programming, recording and the occasional backup vocals. These boys became a huge hit on myspace for their hardcore cover of “Crank Dat Soulja Boy” (renamed Crank Dat Cavalry Boy). But don’t think that they can only cover songs. ISMFOF are really talented and by checking out their myspace, you can tell from the other songs they have up. Surprising that its just the two of them. Hopefully in the near future, we will have more of their songs up on FFR. Check out their widget here.

DrugstoreCowboy

Angels & Airwaves Autographed Merchandise (FFR Contest/Giveaway)

In case you guys didn’t know (how could you not?) The Angels & Airwave’s album hit stores today. Because it was so well received at FFR and played so often, we were able to work with Tom and the rest of the band to provide 2 autographed posters and 2 autographed CDs to a few lucky fans. Did I mention the A&A widget has been played over a million times?

I can’t decide if this is a contest or a giveaway. Honestly, it’s one of those contests that are so easy that it is basically a giveaway. By easy I mean it only takes about 30 seconds to be eligible.

Here is how you do it: Simply click on the “share” button in the upper right hand corner of the widget in order to embed the widget on your myspace. You then need to leave a comment or PM on the Angels & Airwaves Myspace Page letting them know that you have added their widget. Easy right? Of course.

Within about 48 hours, a rep of the band will tell us who the winner is and we will announce them in a front page story here at FFR. They will ship the autographed merchandise directly to you.

So if you have ever been a fan of Tom Delonge (formerly of Blink 182) or if you think Angels & Airwaves kicks some major ass, here is your chance to get autographed merchandise. This contest is exclusive through FlashFlashRevolution.

Cheers,
Synthlight

*NOTE* You may have noticed 3 more Angels & Airwaves levels added to this widget as well – JasonKey

Catch Up on the Recent Spin It Up Additions

It’s been a short while since the last Spin It Up update on the front page, however, all has not been quiet on the Spin It Up front. In the past two weeks, an additional 12 songs have made their way into the game, so prepare for a large batch of new dizzying spinfiles when you launch the game.

While I normally do a couple of sentences for each song, with 12 new additions, I’m afraid I would stretch the page into oblivion with my long-winded hot air if I did, so, here is the full list of song additions as of today:

As Do I by Prophecy – Difficulty Level 2 spinfile by MixMasterLar
Emotion’s Run by Darkstalker-X – Difficulty Level 5 spinfile by MixMasterLar
Linkxz by Sleeplessdragn – Difficulty Level 8 spinfile by MixMasterLar
{Event Horizon} by cornandbeans – Difficulty Level 5 spinfile by SulferDragon
Melted Marble by Darkesword – Difficulty Level 7 spinfile by SulferDragon
Rewind by DJ Scratchin’ – Difficulty Level 5 spinfile by MixMasterLar
Snowfall [Final Mix] by Arcsynth – Difficulty Level 3 spinfile by SulferDragon
That Is Fair by Vospi – Difficulty Level 2 spinfile by SulferDragon
Go, Go, Go Ultimate Chase by RaustBlackDragon – Difficulty Level 6 spinfile by SulferDragon
Take Me Back by KaW – Difficulty Level 5 spinfile by jugglinguy
Huzzah! by RaustBlackDragon – Difficulty Level 6 spinfile by jugglinguy

This has not yet been announced in the forum yet, but, for a fun bonus for everyone last night, I threw in an extra song:
Fun at Times by Detach – Difficulty Level 2 spinfile by BEN.(SPEIRS) 7.5

Count those up and that brings your total amount of new songs to 12. But, wait, there’s more! In difficulty level two, you will find Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus is back in action. As a friendly reminder, the spinfile for the song was done by BEN.(SPEIRS) 7.5.

As long as you’re enjoying Spin It Up, be sure to stop by and thank MixMasterLar, jugglinguy, SulferDragon and BEN.(SPEIRS) 7.5 as they have been the key producers of spinfiles for the game since I’ve been adding in the levels. As always, contributions are appreciated and you can find out more on how to produce spinfiles for the game in the Spin It Up section of our on-site forum. While you’re there, give us a shout out to let us know how we improve the game, socialize with other players and share your Spin It Up accomplishments. And don’t forget Spin It Up also offers real-time multiplayer for up to four players so we hope to see you out there!

-nestlekwik

Game Recording & Playback

Last night I hinted at a new major feature that will be hitting FFR. We are still putting the final touches on the feature but I figured you guys deserved to know what we are up to.

As the title says, you will be able to record your games and play them back. As a matter of fact, you will be able to let anyone view a level you just played by simply linking them to it or letting them click on it within your profile.

How many games will you be able to record and save? Right now we are planning on unlimited. You won’t need to download anything or configure something special. You will simply be able to save your game after you are done and everything is stored in the database automatically.

We have to make absolutely sure that this feature works before we release it. So we are looking at 1 day.. maybe 2.. maybe 3 at most until we are able to wrap it up. It all depends on how the bug hunting goes between Xelius, myself and the rest of team (including subscribers).

Cheers,

Synthlight

Happy Mannheim Steamroller Halloween

Ok.. I know what you are thinking.. “Mannheim Steamroller? on Halloween? WTF?” Normally you would associate Mannheim Steamroller with your parents or grandparents. Very well known for their extreme takeover of the easy listening stations during Christmas.

Well, first of all, this is not some joke. They have sold millions upon millions of albums. We really do have the rights to use their music in FFR. Secondly, think of just how cool you will sound when your parents bust into your room and ask “#$JS#JS DIDN’T I TELL YOU ENOUGH OF THAT DAMN FFR!?!?” and you can honestly reply with “But momma, I’m just playing the Mannheim Steamroller”. You will instantly be allowed to continue playing and will attain a new found respect from Mom and Dad. They may even buy you a new car.

How can you beat that? You can’t! And now, to save your ass from all kinds of trouble, I present the Mannheim Steamroller Halloween and Christmas widget songs (also found in the game). Please don’t be too critical of the difficulty… We are trying to make sure you don’t completely whoop your grandmother in multiplayer and make her spill the eggnog everywhere.. More difficult levels will be available shortly.

Oh yeah.. Happy Halloween! Check the news tomorrow night for a major new feature announcement.