Improbable Island Message of the Day (MoTD)

Drunken Karaoke Contest Winners announced!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2009-01-06 20:15:27
Here! Look!
http://enquirer.improbableisland.com/article.php?story=drunken_karaoke_contest_winners

Season Two: Your opinion needed!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-12-28 01:41:53
Hey, everyone - I'm at a point now in writing Season Two where I have to make a very big decision on whether to keep Turns, Travel points, Scavenging turns and so on, or replace them all with one big bank of points that works in much the same way as the current Stamina system (the thing that lets you carry on fighting after you've run out of turns, but makes you weaker with every fight).

I'd really appreciate it if you could weigh in with your opinion in the Enquirer, here:
http://enquirer.improbableisland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=2515

All players are welcome and encouraged to take a look, new and old alike.

Thanks, and have fun!

-CMJ

Merry Christmas from Improbable Island!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-12-23 15:52:43
I had hoped to do something codey-wise for Christmas, but week before last I was sick with the 'flu, this week I've been working at a gift shop (gotta love Christmas retail!) and so far I've done NO CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AT ALL. I was stuck for the last month with no cash, and then busy being sick, and then busy working... Yikes.

I can't remember the last time I left everything this late, Christmas-wise. The town in which I live, Northwich, has hilariously bad traffic planning. I went out to post off a package yesterday, and it took two hours to drive about a third of a mile.

So, um, yes. Looks like I'm gonna be doing my Christmas shopping at Asda at two-ish tomorrow morning.

For those of you who have already done your Christmas shopping, have fun, and have a wonderful Christmas!

-CMJ

Insert coins!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-28 19:52:30
Hello, everyone!

This is just a quick one to let you know that if you're thinking of donating, now would be a really good time to do so. Well, for me, anyway. For the past little while I've been sans-transport, but my van's all welded up now and ready to go for an MOT. The bill was a bit higher than I expected (I'm crap at welding, so had to get someone who wasn't crap at welding to look at it for me), and I don't have the money for tax or insurance right now. Come to think of it, I don't have the money for much at all. Every donation gets points to spend in the Hunter's Lodge on Unfair Advantages, and any help is much appreciated, even if it's just a couple of bucks.

In other news, Season Two - the next big update - is coming along quite nicely. I've started writing the first of the storylines, all the Implants work in new and interesting ways, Boss Monsters are ready to rock and it should be a lot of fun. There's a thread in the Enquirer where I post what I'm doing every now and then - the idea was that I'd update it in real time as I'm doing the things that it says I'm doing, but that just distracts from the actual doing of the things. Nonetheless, it's reasonably up to date, and it's here if you want it: http://enquirer.improbableisland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=3233

Have fun!

Cure AIDS and cancer while playing Improbable Island
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-27 16:03:56
Hello everyone! Happy Thanksgiving!

Cancer really, really sucks. I've put up a new page, that you can find at http://www.improbableisland.com/grid.html, that should tell you how we can all do something about it. It basically involves a special screensaver that uses your computer to actually cure cancer a little bit at a time while you watch it.

No. Seriously. For reals. It's awesome.

If you want to download this widget, please consider joining the Improbable Island Distributed Computing Team (details are in the link I posted above), so we can keep track of how we're doing compared with the rest of the world. And so that I can give you all a hundred Donator Points once we've hit ten years of distributed computing. Woo!

Have fun!

Poll: Season Two: Stamina
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-23 00:52:55
As always, all your feedback is much appreciated in the Enquirer. But right now, I have a specific question I'd like to ask you lot, which will help me to design the game according to how people play it. In particular, I'm thinking of having one of the new Implants interact with Stamina. The question is, how often do you lot carry on fighting using the Stamina system, after your Turns are gone?
I ride that Stamina bar right into the red, baby! Yeah! (63 - 19.6%)

I use it, but I seldom take it more than half-way empty. (93 - 29%)

I use it, but only for a few turns. (88 - 27.4%)

I've learned from bitter experience that fighting while exhausted is a mug's game. I use my Turns, and that's the lot. (49 - 15.3%)

I don't use it because it would take bloody forever to play this game if I did. (28 - 8.7%)

Awesomeness Control
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-15 18:14:18
Given that most of my time these days is taken up with coding Season Two, I've recruited some people to help me keep up the level of awesomeness on the Island. Please give a warm welcome to our new moderators; That annoying Epaphus, the Count of Saint Germain, and Count Sessine!

Their task is to keep an eye on what goes on in the Island, and remove things that are Not Awesome while encouraging the growth of other things that are Very Much Awesome.

You'll notice a little less of me around these days, but don't worry - it's because I'm on the Season Two test server, writing up a whole new range of Awesome Things! I haven't forgotten about you, honest.

There's still no set date for Season Two to go live, but I'm optimistically thinking the start of 2009. I'm deliberately not setting myself a deadline, though, because last time I did that, I ended up skipping a lot of things that I wanted to put in the game. Not good!

If you want to keep up with the development of Season Two, and put forth your own ideas, the Enquirer would be a good place to go. Just click the Enquirer link at the top of your page. Remember, you'll need a separate login for the Enquirer - your regular Improbable Island login is no good to you here.

All of the boxes of 100 cigs have now been found, and the general principle and the mechanics of putting things on individual World Map squares has been proven. We'll have more of this map-exploration coolness in Season Two.

I think that's it for now. Have fun!

-CMJ

Fair warning.
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-10 22:19:05
Things might get a bit screwy tonight, especially for users on portable devices, or VI users on screen readers. If the new chat system is too buggy, we can go back to the way we were before, for a little while at least. Please post all bugs in the Enquirer.

Saddle up!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-10 03:08:55
To serve as an illustration of principle of the map-related shenanigans to come in Season Two, I've hidden ten boxes around the Island. Each of them contains a hundred cigarettes! Grab yourself a good fast KittyBike and go find them!

EDIT: wow, that was quick. There are only three boxes left!

The Watcher tells us about her past...
Admin CavemanJoe – 2008-11-09 05:38:37
The Watcher has finally deemed fit to send her story to the good folk at the Enquirer editorial team. It's live right now, on the home page.

NOTE: I've already warned you that this is a little bit darker and more serious than the rest of the silly stuff you'll find on the Island, but I figured I'd warn you once again. If you're just here for the laughs, you might want to give this one a miss.

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