SGX CD’s

Just wanted to update everyone on the Synesthetic SGX cd progress. As of today we are 100% caught up with orders. We spent last week packaging, duplicating, printing and shipping them as quickly as we could. If you have ordered your CD and it does not come in the mail by the end of this week, please send me a message as the shipping should only take 3-8 business days at max.

Thanks for everyone who ordered and continues to order! This CD has been quite a success!

Cheers,

Synthlight

Downloadable Version with 70 Songs Available

For those of you new to the site. You can play FFR to your hearts content for free. This is the way it has always been. There are links on this page that allow you to load FFR and use all of it’s current features for no charge. FFR is a non-profit project.

Here is the conclusion I have come to regarding the downloadable version. People who donate $3.00 (credit card or paypal) to the site will have access to a "one time download subscription" that allows a special non-standard version of FFR to be downloaded. This special version contains all the current songs in one neat little 70mb package while still retaining the ability to use online scoring, the shop and challenge modes. Our server costs are in the 4 digit range due to how fast this site is growing. The donation money allows us to recover some of the server costs while promoting quick development of new features. This version is a thank you to those who support us. Below are some quick features of this downloadable version.

* You are supporting a free non-profit game that I have poured my heart into for over 1 1/2 years

* Donating helps us tremendously cut down our outrageous server costs
* Donating helps enable further development and or speeds up current development
* We are current hitting 50-60gb+ a day of data transfer and that rate is growing with every new member that joins
* We are currently experiencing a growth of approximately 1000 new members a day
* $3 also helps offset the cost of the 70mb download of this version
* Downloadable version contains 70 SONGS! that will reside in the game on your machine
* Perfect for 56k users who hate waiting for songs to download
* FFR is 100% non-profit. All money pays for server costs and basic development. Nobody pockets profits
* Contains new tracks for the menu screens by "For Great Justice!"
* Draggable game window
* Fullscreen toggle button
* Instant exit via escape key
* Contains secret songs and more that are unlocked as you earn credits
* Fully working stats
* Shop and Challenge active when connected to the net

We cannot thank everyone enough for their support. We appreciate every ounce of support. We also must remind you to not only support FFR but to support DDR by playing at your local arcades. FFR is proud of the fact that we have opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people to the FFR/DDR community and will continue to promote both.

You can donate and get the Downloadable Version Beta .67 by Clicking Here

Small Code Changes

Making some small database code changes today. Keep you eye out for bugs. There shouldn’t be any as a result but if you spot any, let me know.

Thanks!

Cheers,

Synthlight

Quarter Million Member Mark

Well, we have done it. We have finally reached the quarter million member mark. 254,378 members to be exact at the time of this news post. To entertain myself I did some figuring of some unimportant stats. For instance, 1 in every 1000 people in the US have an account on FFR. Ok, sure, well.. That would be if all the registered members were from the US only. We cannot forget all the people from Canada, South America, Europe, Aussie Land (bprc!) and last but not least Asia. So thinking on a worldwide scale that is more like 1 in 25,000 people worldwide are FFR members. Still not bad! Useless info, but interesting. We also have about 500-1000 new members per day, every day. Not bad considering we have been around for about a year and a half already. It is always good to see new people joining the site and experiencing the game. That would mean that most likely there is not a single school out there that doesn’t have students that use FFR. Potential advertisers are you reading this? lol

We are averaging somewhere around 400k-700k page views per day depending on what stats package I look at. This comes out to about 2 million+ hits per day. The file transfer per day ranges from about 40gb to about 60gb PER DAY. Which of course is costing me a fortune. Thankfully we have people supporting us by purchasing CD’s and mp3 packs etc..etc.. (thanks to all of you!)

We are still trying to wrap up .68 for you guys (done soon I hope!) and R2 development continues on. We are still trying to figure out how to handle a feature in R2 because I think it is going to cause some serious bandwidth problems but we will find some way around it.

See you guys soon with .68!

Cheers,

Synthlight

SEXCOPTER RUL CD (aka Arktisk aka David Poore) & SGX CD

As most of you know.. We started taking pre-orders 2 weeks ago for the SGX
and you will be glad to know that they we have started duplicating and shipping
these cd’s! Thanks for your patience while we got everything together. Thanks
also to all the people that have supported SGX and FFR in the past. Obviously
all of these people have made FFR possible with their contributions.

Now… On to something new!

You guys may or may not have heard of Arktisk aka David Poore. He has
contributed a few songs to FFR and goes by the name "SEXCOPTER RUL". Well he has
officially finished his CD and we are now starting to take orders on his CD
today. The CD will begin shipping in exactly 1 week. I must warn you that this
cd needs a PARENTAL ADVISORY warning on it. It is not for the weak hearted! You
will agree once you listen that all of his songs have a unique "SEXCOPTER RUL"
sound to them that only David himself seems capable of making into
mini-masterpiece on each track. Seemingly fueled by sex, media, sex, anger, sex,
and 8-bit console systems… Always shocking and always unique. I should also mention that Ian Daniels contributed his own flavor of guitar segments on all of David’s tracks.

We have included a free track for you guys to download. It is a  remix he
made 100% from the ground up including vocals. It is the SEXCOPTER RUL remix of
the Outkast song "Bombs over Baghdad" and can be

DOWNLOADED BY CLICKING HERE To visit his site directly..
CLICK HERE

If you enjoyed his remix and would like to listen to something a little more
in depth and a bunch more raw you can purchase his

CD BY CLICKING HERE. Again I must warn you that there is a Parental Advisory
on this cd..

Rewriting a portion of the Simfiles section

Well, with my tinkering it looks like I have caused a problem with the uploads in the simfile section. We are in the process of rewriting the upload code to accept PNG files as well as JPG and will also fix the upload. Until then (just a day or 2) enjoy what is already up and we will be weeding out the files not worthy or corrupt.

Cheers,

Synthlight

FFR League Registration

Well… After a few weeks of procrastinating… I have finalfly took the time to make up the registration forms and the randomized picking.

http://ld42.tmb.org/ffrleague/register.php <------- registration page

All I need from you now is your email address, username, and level, just guess on that part. I will then go though all the submissions (after a few days) and seperate everyone into 3 categories, then my script (which took forever to write) will randomly select your matches. Rules are still being finalized and will be released shortly.

I encourage everyone to sign up, regardless of ability, I hope we can continue this in the future

~LD

R2? What is that?

Before I go any further I have to explain a few things about FFR. We are at a
point now where the original engine is about as far as we want to develop it.
There are limitations that we just cannot get around with the current structure.
We will soon be trying to wrap up the new R2 engine and will incorporate that
into the FFR main engine as levels with "R2" mode. Both the old levels and new
levels will be playable. The new levels made with R2 in mind will have a special
look (maybe a color change) and will then seemless integrate (crossing fingers)
with the high score system and the rest of FFR. This engine is pure code which
makes it tiny and efficient. I have included a non-interactive sample of the R2
engine with no interface, no music and no interactivity.. That will come with time. What you see in the lower right window is not a mock up, it is the actual code in action. All code is 100% original and copyright Synthetic Light Studios 2004 (Thats
me!). So enjoy the little teaser and I will post more as we progress. Btw, this isn’t the revolutionary feature I talked about last week.

Total Size of engine: 8.9kb
Total size of arrow graphics: 2.4kb

Fully 100% DWI compatible without conversion
BPM changes Supported
1x 2x etc Speed Modifiers. Arrow speed depends on BPM of DWI
Accuracy down to the Millisecond (1/1000th of a second instead of Frames
will make this version extremely accurate)
Final version will stay in sync perfectly due to millesecond timing
Possible to play your DWI/MP3 locally within the browser. (not 100% finished
yet)
And many many many other features. This Alpha is from months ago.

Added modifiers for DWI Format:
* = Stop an arrow and then restart on next *
# = Fade arrows out as they scroll up
! = Freeze arrows (already in DWI)
@ = Pulse the arrows visibility during movement
$ = Rotate arrows during scroll up

Format allows for DWI effects to be added in as need
demands or as programmers get creative

Estimated Release Date: ? To Be Announced…

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* Before I forget. I would like to credit Bprc for his work on the R2 engine last year. He definately played a huge roll in development and hopefully we haven’t seen the last of him.



*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* For those of you who missed the flash sneak peak, sorry. It shall return in the future.

Sneak Speak

If all goes right, I will have a little sneak peak at something for you here today sometime. It is nothing incredible but you guys might find it interesting. Should be posted before 5pm CST

Cheers,

Synthlight