Okay, you can stop sending e-mail, I was *not* looking for support from your part... That's just what life is like. Sometimes you have bad moments in real life, and it affects your overall behaviour, including programming skills. That's all. Well, I guess I just need more rest.

I have to admit I'm not in the mood. I'm totally helpless on Kyodai. No idea on what to add that would give me some fun. The only interesting thing I've done in the past month on Kyodai was some tests on adding a "Kyodai" logo in the start screen (as in v10.21, but it looks better). And that was tonight. And I'm still depressed. Sometimes in your life, you start wondering what the hell you're doing and how come you're doing it. I guess it's one of these moments. Actually all I want to do is sleep, now. I hope I'll feel better in the next few days (weeks ?)... Not sure. But don't worry, you'll have your next versions. It's just that... Well, it seems so foolish right now. Maybe I need to stop thinking ?

New poll time, new poll time !  Okay, this time it's about 2D. The question is directly linked to the poll that the new one replaces : if you said "Kyodai is in a good direction, but don't drop 2D", could you explain your choice ? Thanks for taking a few seconds to answer the question. Additionally, I think it's time to tell you what you answered. As you can see on the second poll, it seems like about 80% of you are able to run Kyodai perfectly, apart maybe from one or two problems for one third of these 80%. The result is very encouraging. Having a result of 80% was my original target, because no one could ever think of having a better result with the diversity of video cards that exist.  The other poll was about the direction I'm currently taking. As for the first poll, 80% of you are satisfied with that direction, although they don't agree on whether or not I should maintain 2D in future versions. About 15% want me to return to older versions, which I wouldn't have done anyway because my investment on 3D is far too advanced to forget it now, and for the remaining 5% who ask me to make a Linux/BeOS or Mac version, well... Both Linux and BeOS refuse to work correctly on my machine, and I don't have a Mac. I rest my case.  Thanks everybody for answering all these polls. They are important to me because they allow me to get more confident into my work. You should all be satisfied in the coming months, because I'm going to add a new game to Kyodai that you've never seen anywhere else. Yup, I'm currently developing my own rules for a game based on Mahjongg ! Stay tuned !!

Just a quick news to tell you that ZDNet has finally updated their version number for Kyodai. Phew. Also, I've uploaded a preview of version 11.33. The main changes are listed in the readme.txt file included in the patch file. Only for experienced users, as usual !

Okay, the "real set" I got on March 31 is actually made of synthetic resin, not ivory. Did you really think I'd kill an elephant for a genuine tileset anyway ? Hey it's just a game...  I'm having the French version of the help files translated right now. No, I'm not doing the translation myself, but I'll probably proof-read it. I just hate translation works. Remember, I used to translate Japanese to French in the past. I guess it sort-of bored me after some time... Not the translation work itself, but the fact that you have to adapt it in good readable French

Hi ! Kyodai is now available on ZDNet, but they forgot to update the version number. So, if you see "Kyodai 10.21" on their site, don't worry, it's v11.25 indeed !  Today I received my very first "real" Mahjongg set ! It's so good to have a Mahjongg set in real life, when you're making a living selling a Mahjongg computer game... The tiles are the same as the tileset "Real Ivory" from M. Lesselberg (well, it's in my tileset directory, and probably on his site, but not in the Kyodai package), which looks like "Real Tiles" but in (real ) ivory. Or that's some solid good plastic !  Another note. I wanted to point out that Kyodai v11.25 is available on ZDNet, although it's still listed as v10.21. According to the filesize (4111kb), it clearly *is* the latest version, but they forgot to update their data with the new version number. Don't worry then, you can freely download the file from their server, it's safe.

Last night, the Kyodai website reached the very symbolic million of visitors !! Thank you everybody !! Most of these visits were made in the last year, following the introduction of 3D in Kyodai. I'm really moved having received so many visitors, and be sure I'll do my best to make sure you'll want to come by again !  I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you a more general question about the future of Kyodai. It's a new poll on my main page, where I'm sort-of asking you what your favorite version of Kyodai is (8.52, 10.21 and 11.25 being the natural candidates in my opinion, since they represent the currently most stable representatives of 2D, OpenGL 3D and DirectX 3D). This poll replaces the "DirectX or OpenGL" poll which was clearly won by DirectX (77% of votes).

Version 11.25 is released, earlier than expected ! I have yet to receive a bug report. So I guess it's just fine now, except for a minor glitch I found myself in the Memory game (when you play with the new Ivory tile border, but since nobody seems to ever play Memory, even me, I suppose it's not important). Oh, some sites posted the file as being "beta", although it's no longer the case since v11.21... Hem. Just trust me on this. If you find a bug (or think you've found a bug) anyway, please drop me a mail, I won't eat you, you only risk making me an angry man  4:42am... I've uploaded a patch (722kb) for Kyodai 11.25 if you play the Memory game and you're angry with the little bug I think I'll adopt this patch solution more often in the future, because a 4mb is a pain to upload and download ! Please note that the patch's only difference is the Memory bug-fix !

Hi there. Slow pace of work on my side. Busy in real life, etc, you see the point. I've, anyway, fixed all of the "little bugs" that could be in v11.21 (as far as I know), and the new version will still be released next week. Actually I'm planning to work on it tonight, and hopefully upload it to ZDNet tomorrow. I'm glad to see only 30% of you claim to have problems with v11.21... Which is a good result with a DirectX engine. And maybe these 30% didn't know they had to install DirectX 6.1 or something like that, you see. So I guess the engine is reliable now. Phew !

I've just uploaded 2 new polls on the main page, to ask you if you have Kyodai 11.21 running perfectly on your computer. I just wanted to be sure... Also, I'm working on fixing a few things. Nothing important. The version currently available on my site works fine, as far as I know. The next version, 11.25, will be posted on ZDNet first, and should be available next week.