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Keep an eye on your email--if it went through, you should get an email with a download link.

The short answer is, I'm preparing the first downloadable demo, and I want it to be as polished as possible so I can send it out to various websites and get coverage of the game. It's a marketing thing. :)

Is this in TSoG? Make sure you're clicking twice to overwrite the saved game file.

Maybe the beggar can learn to fiddle for the Shadow Bug Queen? ;)

That is to say, he has been banned for an unlimited time period: the ban will not be lifted after "x" amount of time, and steps will be taken to insure that he will not appear again on these forums under some other name/identity, thereby disallowing him to actively participate for any long period of time on these forums (ie before his new identity is deduced and he is banned again) and, effectively, making him  a permanently banned person.
(And given that his posting style and content were exactly the same under the new username, I don't see any reason at all in foreseeable future to allow him back on the boards.)

Just to be clear: there is really no way to know if he has returned under a new account unless he starts antagonizing people again. But as far as I'm concerned, if he returns under a new user name and becomes a positive, productive member of the forums, then it won't matter that we can't recognize him.

This could actually be useful, insofar as people could be organized to all test specific areas of the game at once, meaning I could collect all the bugs in a given area and fix them at once rather than jumping around to the millions of little things people find in different areas all the time. That would be an efficiency gain for sure.

A topic that isn't moved down the page as other topics get posted in--it remains "stuck" at the top of the page.

Anyone who wants to post in celebration of the 100th forum member is certainly welcome to do so.

Maybe--we'll see! I'm not convinced that the iPhone is a particularly good platform for RPGs like TSoG, honestly. People on the iPhone like games they can play for short periods while they're bored, then set down, then pick up again without having to remember where they were. I would imagine that a pick-up-and-play arena game like TPA2 would probably translate better to that platform.

I got telepath psy arena 2!

Good for you! ;D I hope you enjoy it!

Apple wouldn't need to make the app for me--in theory, I could probably get Flash CS5, recode the game, and then simply export it myself. (It's that "recode the game" part that concerns me. :( )

Cool! Thanks for the post, Zackirus. We're glad to have you here. :)

So far all feedback has either been supportive or neutral: Craig, what do you think of adding this small stat in light of what has been said above?

We'll see. I have plans for a bunch of other variables that affect dialog--I'm not sure I want to add this onto the heap, but I'll consider it.

The loading hand won't be in the final game, since the final game will be on your hard drive. ;)

The 10th Amendment isn't considered an affirmative limit on Congressional power, though: as interpreted by the courts, it only really applies to keep Congress from hijacking state governmental functions, as mentioned above. It's actually Article I of the Constitution that limits Congressional powers to those enumerated. (Trust me on this one: I used to be a research assistant for one of the country's foremost Constitutional scholars. :) )

Personally, I think those 11 states are going to have a very hard time arguing that the commerce clause doesn't support this bill. Ever since Wickard v. Filburn, there's been a rule in commerce clause jurisprudence called the aggregation principle. Basically, what it means is that even personal conduct that never crosses state lines can be reached through legislation via the commerce clause if that behavior, taken in the aggregate, has a substantial affect on interstate commerce.

So in Wickard, agricultural laws passed in response to free-falling food prices during the Great Depression limited the amount of wheat farmers were allowed to grow. The guy suing was a farmer who had produced about 240 bushels of wheat above the amount allowed. The excess wheat was for his own personal consumption, and wasn't ever going into commerce anywhere, so he claimed that the agricultural act reached beyond Congress's constitutional powers. Not so, said the court: "That appellee's own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial."

The situation is similar here: you have an industry spanning every state, and Congress is trying to control prices by regulating individual behavior. While someone's individual choice to not buy health insurance will have only an infinitesimal effect on interstate commerce on its own, taken in the aggregate, that kind of decision would have a huge effect, raising the cost of covering really sick people. I think the chances of the Supreme Court striking this law down are about 1 in 1,000. It could happen, but I'd be really surprised.