What's up ya'll! Just letting everybody know I'll be retiring this group in favor of the official Anarchy Arcade group that Steam provides.

(Even though this one says "Official Group" in its logo, it turns out that there is an even more official one that Steam provides.)

Use this link to join the real official Anarchy Arcade group chat:
https://s.team/chat/DP7mOO2x

I'll be retiring this old group next week in favor of that official one.

I hope to see you all there! Hope you've all been enjoying AArcade and all the feature updates & improvements. Party on!

AArcade's all-new and improved workshop update is now live! Many Early Access users have already shared some amazing creations onto the workshop.

If you're new to using the Steam Workshop, AArcade makes it easy with a built-in packing & publishing tool! You can share individual items, or entire arcades.

To share an arcade, just load up your arcade and press the P button to open the Packing Manager. Click Pack Arcade Save and then fill out the rest of the details on the form. After that, click Publish and be patient as your workshop item uploads. As soon as it's finished, AArcade will open the workshop profile of your newly shared item in the Steam overlay.

Also new in this update is the ability to share & subscribe to nodes! Just pull the lever next to a customized wall in the map named hub_walls to save your node and share it to the workshop!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG822zJ-g8U

• Uses the newest version of the Steamworks API.
  
• UNLIMITED workshop file size.
  
• UNLIMITED workshop shares.
  
• You don't need to subscribe to your own shares anymore.
  
• You don't need to store an extra copy of workshop items anymore.
  
• Backwards compatible with existing "legacy" workshop content.
  
• As always, shortcuts to local files have their folder paths hidden.

Remember that Anarchy Arcade shares media items themselves, not your copy of them. That means that it's perfectly fine to share arcades that have shortcuts to games or movies on your PC. Other people using your arcade would need access to their own copies of the games or movies to launch the shortcuts, and everybody can watch the preview videos regardless.

Last year Anarchy Arcade participated in the Indie Games For Good charity pledge drive & marathon Twitch.tv stream (http://www.iggmarathon.com/games/). Hundreds of indie games participated, and in total the event raised over $19,000.00 US for the Child’s Play charity. Pledgers were allowed to choose a game that they were most interseted in seeing played during the stream, and in the end AArcade was the 6th most requested game!

Earlier this week Valve announced that they will be introducing SteamVR hardware and a refined Steam controller at the Game Developer's Conference in San Fransisco (March 4th - 6th, 2015). This is exciting news for Anarchy Arcade users because AArcade uses the same VR integration as Team Fortress 2 itself which is devloped in-house at Valve. For more information on SteamVR, check out their announcement: http://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/universe/

Prototype users, rejoice! This patch will fix some major bugs that have arisen recently in the retired prototype.

http://www.smarcade.net/dlcv2/moddb/full_res_screenshot.jpg

Head to the GameJolt profile to grab the update.[gamejolt.com]

The source code of the Steam version of Anarchy Arcade is a completely different branch than the prototype, so going back to update the prototype is not something I do very lightly. However, the way that the prototype was designed (in a quick & rugged fashion) makes it susceptible to serious bugs if a web server it depends on changes its address or functionality.

In contrast, the Steam version of Anarchy Arcade is resistant to these types of follies. It has superior error handling that minimizes the effect of any problems that DO occur, and it implements all web server logic as add-on scripts that can be easily swapped out or updated when needed.

The prototype had the following symptoms:

1. Steam game cabinets would spawn with broken screen & marquee images.
   
2. Netflix movies would fail to spawn altogether.
   
3. Hulu video previews would fail to playback on the in-game screens.

Issue 1
One issue with the prototype is that some of the web server scrapers, such as the Steam games info scraper, are hard-coded into the executable. This means that when they do break, it requires a major client update that everybody has to manually download & install. That's why this maintenance update is required today; Steam changed the address of the server used for game header images & screenshots. As a result, the prototype got confused and made it nearly impossible to launch your Steam games at all. This maintenance update resolves the Steam images issue.

Issue 1.5
Ideally, the Steam image server changing its address shouldn't have stopped you from being able to launch your cabinets, but unfortunately this was the case in the prototype. Again, this folly was due to the quick & rugged fashion that the prototype was developed in. The prototype has little to no error-handling, meaning that if something goes wrong, it ALL goes wrong. This is another area that the Steam version of Anarchy Arcade excels in.

The Steam version's error handling is prepared for all sorts of failures at any stage of the process because it is designed for user-created addon scripts. Not only can it handle errors, but it also filters out any malicious commands that an evil user might try to take advantage of. It is able to detect problems and use fallback settings so that you'll always be able to at least get a default shortcut to your file spawned in your arcade, even if all hell breaks loose.

Issue 2
The prototype's issue with Netflix was due in part to the poor error handling, but was also due to an incompatibility with an all-new image format that is emerging on the internet. The new format is developed by Google and called WebP. It is actually superior than many other popular image formats in its optimization and compression, which makes it ideal for mobile-ready websites.

The problem is that Google's competitors are naturally apprehensive to add support for an image format that is controlled by Google. This means that pretty much the only browser that supports the WebP image format at this time is Google's own web browser, Chrome, and the framework it is based on.

Once again, this is a problem that only affects the prototype. To patch it, this maintainance update no longer tries to use the WebP DVD covers from Netflix. It tries to find a DVD cover from TheMovieDb to use instead. In the Steam version of Anarchy Arcade, the WebP image format will actually be fully supported, but it will still grab good ol' JPEG DVD covers from TheMovieDb so that your cabinets will be easier to share with your friends in standard web browsers.

Issue 3
The prototype's issue with Hulu is right along the same lines as the Steam images issue; the web address to embed Hulu videos changed and caused the in-game playback of them to fail. This one was easy to fix in the prototype, I just had to update the address in the Hulu scraper. When you spawn new Hulu videos, they will now be visible on the in-game screens when you select them; just like before.

Emulator Support Expanded
Some multi-system emulators require you to pass them a game TYPE for them to be able to automatically load your game. This functionality has been added to the prototype and allows for complex emulators that require this launch command parameter, such as MESS, to be function with the prototype. If you're one of the people who like to create your own emulator scripts for the prototype, the keyword for this new command line parameter is $TYPE. Just include that in your launch commands where ever you want the TYPE of the item to be inserted.

Changes in version 2.2g:

• Fixed the Steam game scraper.
  
• Updated addresses of Steam image sources to reflect the new CDN.
  
• Fixed the Netflix scraper.
  
• Removed marquee images from the Netflix scraper.
  
• Fixed the Hulu scraper.
  
• Updated the address that the Hulu scraper uses for in-game previews.
  
• Fixed slave marquees showing up as purple/black checkers.
  
• Removed the ability to set marquees as slaves.
  
• Added the keyword $TYPE to insert an item's TYPE into it's launch command.
  
• Added support for emulators that require a TYPE when launching (such as MESS).

Follow Anarchy Arcade
As always, development on the Steam version of Anarchy Arcade continues. If you need to catch up on some of the most recent news, you can check out this article on how plugins work in the Steam version. You can also follow @AnarchyArcade on Twitter to be notified of all news such as updates, live streams, or just random fun.

Party on!

This is a transcript of a video blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0FyjnRonrc

What's up my virtual maniacs, it's SM Sith Lord coming at you again with a development update on Anarchy Arcade. I've got a lot to tell you, so let's make it quick.

http://www.smarcade.net/dlcv2/moddb/slide1.png

Anarchy Arcade is more useful than just a desktop. It shows you more than just a 3D file icon.

http://www.smarcade.net/dlcv2/moddb/slide2.png

For example, if you spawn a shortcut to "Banjo Kazoie", in Anarchy Arcade it's going to have boxart, a screenshot, and a YouTube trailer all on its 3D cabinet.

These additional images and videos come from 3rd party services such as YouTube, Flickr, Netflix, or the Steam Store itself. Anarchy Arcade runs independently of all these services, but utilizes them as plug-in scripts.

http://www.smarcade.net/dlcv2/moddb/slide3.png

Plug-in scripts can be created for any website or service. Working together, they turn each one of your boring desktop shortcut into a media-rich virtual entertainment center.

http://www.smarcade.net/dlcv2/moddb/slide4.png

Anarchy Arcade is powered by the same framework as the Google Chrome web browser itself. It's so similar, that Anarchy Arcade's plugins can be used as Google Chrome extensions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0FyjnRonrc

What you're looking at is Anarchy Arcade turning this web page into a 3D arcade cabinet right before your eyes. And it's doing it all on this nifty little interface that lets me cycle through the different images by clicking on the arrow buttons.

The images themselves are taken from the web page I'm looking at, as well as other services all powered by plug-in scripts.

This functionality goes DEEP. I won't get into it right now, but let's just say this is not the last time you'll hear about these plugins.

By now you've probably heard that the Kickstarter has failed to reach its funding goal. This means that I will NOT be able to license Anarchy Arcade as a retail game. It also means that I will not be able to pay myself for developing it.

However, Anarchy Arcade WILL be available through Steam, free of charge, later this year. Please use the PayPal link and make a donation towards Anarchy Arcade's development today!

Download the prototype from the GameJolt profile[gamejolt.com].

Yesterday I coded in two new parsers to the prototype to demonstrate some of the features I discussed in my previous update. They include the ability to spawn an entire YouTube channel (or playlist) into an arcade at once, and also the ability to display your unlocked Steam Trading Cards for all of your different Steam games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EL5l5dKWZY

The beauty of Anarchy Arcade's design is its simplicity. Even in the prototype, every single item you see is a standard Anarchy Arcade shortcut.

In the Steam version, you will earn in-game rewards every time you do well playing one of your other games. You'll get points for unlocking cards and achievements, etc. All of the technology demonstrated here will be tied into your Steam profile to consolidate all of your media & gaming career into this immersive 3D multiplayer desktop.

Also in this update, I have fixed an issue with over-the-shoulder spectating. It will work properly now in Multiplayer servers.


Tomorrow, starting at midnight in just 4 short hours, I will be doing another 24 hour Anarchy Arcade live broadcast where I give away 1 free Steam game every hour. If you're interested in seeing Anarchy Arcade in action, getting some free games, or just having a good time in general, check out the Twitch stream at http://www.twitch.tv/AnarchyArcade. See you there!


There are only a few short days before the Kickstarter campaign concludes, so now's the time to head on over to the Kickstarter and make a memorable contribution to Anarchy Arcade!