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Work in Progress / Old School - platformer!

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Bizar Guy
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 20:44


Before anyone asks, Block Verse should be coming out Friday. I just posted this now as I've been working on it for quite some time, and got tiered of waiting for Block Verse to be finished.

And oh yes- the is NOT a mario clone!

Old School is a side scrolling platformer. One look at the screenshots could tell you that. It may appear to be 2d, but take a close look at the screens and you might realize it's actually 3D plains set at different distances. I wouldn't say Old School is the most fine tuned platformer game play-wise made in db, as I haven't seen all the platformers made in db. But of all the platformers I have seen here, it's by far the most tweaked.

In Old School you play Kreg, who's that chubby little guy with the messy hair. He can do lots of things, like jump on springs, run and walk, smash things with a hammer; throw bombs, dive through the air, and much, much more. I've built up a pretty advanced camera, which take advantage of the 3D space to put off a view that is rarely ever the same, without getting confusing. Also, rather than just dying when you hit something, Kreg has a health meter which decreases each time he's hit. He can find hearts to increase his health, or die when he runs out of life. This may sounds like it makes the game too easy, but it doesn’t as I play to have tons of enemies, and it eliminates that feeling that something unfair happened.

Old School will have ten levels, in different areas such as hills, islands, forests, and clouds. I'm still working on the engine, but it's pretty far along, and I'll release a beta demo once it's finished, hopefuly with the particle effects added.





zzz
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 20:55
Wohoo!
You are the best, Bizar Guy!


Big Man
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 21:00
That looks really good we havent seen one of those for ages (well never to be exact)

Well done keep the screenies coming.

BM

Our aim is to keep the loo's clean, your aim can help.
Sergey K
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 21:04
for your last project and this project, i can say that u like to make cartoon-style games.. right?

nice project btw..
when u gonna finish that project so we can have the demo?

Just. ...Leave me alone =/
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 22:32
Wow! Glad to see people like it!

Quote: "You are the best, Bizar Guy!"



Quote: "Well done keep the screenies coming."

Sure thing! I'll try and have an update and a screen every time I post.

Quote: "for your last project and this project, i can say that u like to make cartoon-style games.. right?"
Quote: "when u gonna finish that project so we can have the demo?"

Well, I am somethin g of a cartoonist...
If you mean Block Verse, hopefuly friday. If you mean this, as soon as the gameplay is finished.

I forgot to mention in my first post- When you collect coins in Old School, it builds up and you can use them to buy useful stuff at the store. And The game uses a pretty dynamic sound system, so for like every step you take, every time you hit the ground, and everything else you do, the is an accompanying sound. I have yet to add music, so I may eventually ask for a musician.

Here's a pic of the world.


Big Man
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 22:34
I'm gonna follow this one.
it looks great.

BM

Our aim is to keep the loo's clean, your aim can help.
Kangaroo2 BETA2
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 22:41
This looks quality! I want it I want it I want it


Preorder EA here:http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=67575&b=8&p=0
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zzz
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Posted: 28th Dec 2005 23:19
I like that small red house, it look so swedish...

Hawkeye
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 00:24
Nice graphical style... only thing I can think of to improve would be Kreg's hat - make it a pirate hat instead!


I am but mad north north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw - Hamlet, Hamlet
zzz
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 00:26
I don´t think it´s a hat...

Bizar Guy
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 02:40 Edited at: 29th Dec 2005 08:08
Quote: "I don´t think it´s a hat..."

No, it's not. Kreg has nothing on his head but hair and goggles. And you have no idea how much work it would be to give him a pirate hat...

Quote: "I like that small red house, it look so swedish... "

Ah, I see you like the store...

Well, I forgot to say one more major thing in my first post- the controls. Not only can you do tons of things in Old School, but you can do them all easily with four simple buttons. The up, down, left, and right keys. It's really amazing how simple controls can become when you assign multiple actions to a single key depending on what's happening in the game... Trust me, it works amazingly. Even my mom, who has no gaming skills outside of solitaire, could figure it out.

And since I said I'd have a screen and an update in each post, here you go. I've added the bombs, and will be working on coins and more baddies next.


EDIT:
Here's a funky little animation I did while I should have been sleeping... 2am now, must-...sleep.......


dab
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 04:51
Wow, I love how you make the games seem cartoon-ish. I love it.

zzz
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 11:09
Oh, I forgot to say: The camera= !

Zotoaster
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 13:22
Hahaha! That looks awesome! Well done!

TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 15:10
Looking great! When you eventually ask for a musician I'll give it a shot.

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Peter H
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 20:31 Edited at: 29th Dec 2005 20:31
whoa!
looking really good! i really like your art style!

i think the black lines around the clouds however seem to detract from it... (not in the "Here's a pic of the world." pic, but that's because that one is 2D, and the other clouds are 3D)

they might be better if they were thicker... or just not there at all

good work so far though!

[edit] of course, it could just be because of the screen resizing.. but i doubt it..

--Peter

"We make the worst games in the universe..."
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 21:09 Edited at: 29th Dec 2005 21:10
@Andrew, thanks in advance!

@Peter, yeh, in those pics the lines were sort of an accident. But I decided I wanted them, so I've updated their textures.

NOTE TO ALL: Many of the textures you see at the moment are temporary, and will be replaced with improved versions of them later on.

And, UPDATE! I've added coins, improved the usage of the hammer and bombs, and added the first version of the hub!!

Next I'm going to make some more powerful baddies. At the moment I have two robots that use very basic ai and are the weakest enemies in the game. Time to give Kreg a challenge.

Sergey K
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Posted: 29th Dec 2005 21:59
what is the game resolution? it looks v. big from the last shot.. (i c the debug mode v. small)

Just. ...Leave me alone =/
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 30th Dec 2005 23:19
@GogetaX,yeh, I'm running the game at 1600x1200,32. But fear not! The game runs at like six different resolutions, and the game will automatically select the one your computer is running at. There will also be an option to change that if you don't like it.

Alright, I've made the first more difficult enemy, and updated the hud. This spiky guy moves verrrrrrrry sloooow, but as soon as he sees you he'll charge so fast you'll barley be able to outrun him. You can kill him by diving into his side, mashing him with a hammer, or throwing a bomb at him.


blanky
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Posted: 30th Dec 2005 23:39
Quote: "The game runs at like six different resolutions, and the game will automatically select the one your computer is running at."


Hehe... I have a widescreen laptop running at the exotic native resolution of 1280x800.

Still, the graphical quality of this game (like BlockVerse) is excellent. I'll be following this thread, and I'll download it as soon as the demo's out.

Support the AAANJL by doing nothing! Visit teh site below..
Manticore Night
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Posted: 30th Dec 2005 23:46
Kreg looks a bit like a mix between mario, and some french cartoon caracter whose name I forget. It's by the same guy who made the Smourfs. It's been a while since I've read those comics. Anyway, it looks very, very secky.

[center]It's amazing how much TV has raised us. (Bart Simpson)

He's back! With 20% less intelligence!
zzz
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Posted: 31st Dec 2005 12:25
Quote: "some french cartoon caracter whose name I forget"

I think his name´s Gaston or something like that...
Bizar Guy, the new enemy looks cool! Is he also some sort of robot?
Maybe you should change the quality of the clouds and the hills a bit more, they´re still a bit "pixelized".
The HUD is getting better and better!

Math89
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Posted: 31st Dec 2005 14:36
Looks cool, man , I like your cartoon style.
Quote: "I think his name´s Gaston"

It's not Gaston, it's Pirlouit.



(add some smurfs in your game ^^)
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 1st Jan 2006 21:49 Edited at: 2nd Jan 2006 05:08
@Blanky, well, then I'll set it to have a default resolution if you computer doesn't run at one of the normal six.

@Manticore Night, zzz, and Math89- he he, cool. I never actualy though about the cartoons that way.

@zzz, yep, all the enemies will be robots, aside from the boss who will be an evil magician in a suit of armour. And since you mentioned it, I geuss I will make the textures larger, as those are some of the few final textures I'm using now.

@Math89, hmm... smurfs... maybe I'll add them as an easter egg in one of the levels.

Sorry but I'm not finished with my nest update. I posted here because I just got this great idea. What if in some parts of some of the levels there was a hover craft or boat Kreg could drive to get through parts of the levels, and it could even be like the submarine and plane parts of super mario land for the gb classic, where you can't turn back or something. In general though, just the idea of being able to control vehicles for short periods of the game seems really cool to me. So what do you think?

Edit: Forget vehicles, I have a better idea that suits the gameplay more. Controlable platforms! You shift your weight to one side or the other, and the platform moves in that direction!

Manticore Night
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Posted: 1st Jan 2006 21:57
Quote: "It's not Gaston, it's Pirlouit."
Yep, that's it! He looks like Pirlouit with Johans eyes. Acctually the whole style of this game reminds me of those old french comics. I can't wait until it's done.

By the way I think there was one called Gaston, made by the same guy, but he didn't have a very good story(he was just some kid in France) so I didn't read those at all.

[center]It's amazing how much TV has raised us. (Bart Simpson)

He's back! With 20% less intelligence!
Diablos
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2006 08:11
this looks absolutely amazing. i would press you for the demo, but i dont want you to rush it

-Pain is temporary, pride is forever.
Lukas W
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2006 14:07
i love the 2d in 3d graphics .^^ this is my favourite game to follow progress on


The Cowboy Game progress 17% (bullets)
Mattman
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Posted: 4th Jan 2006 02:34 Edited at: 4th Jan 2006 02:47
Looking awesome Bizar Guy. I wrote a song a while back, in MIDI (although I can redo it with actual quality insturments if you would wish to use it in your game) that sounds mario-esque but never went far with it because I never knew what to do with it. I'll upload it and see what you have to say and I'll keep working on it if you wish.

Why make sense when you could make brownies?

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Wiggett
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Posted: 4th Jan 2006 06:41
hehe yes this is old school! OLD SCHOOL! looks pretty neato, can't wait to play. love the paper mario style logo

Bizar Guy
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Posted: 5th Jan 2006 04:23 Edited at: 5th Jan 2006 12:53
Quote: "this looks absolutely amazing. i would press you for the demo, but i dont want you to rush it "

Yeh, the demo needs a bit more time to bake in the oven before I can serve it. Right now it could still give you food poisoning.

@Mattman, as I said in the e-mail I sent you, that is awesome!!!! It would work well as a theme song, although in does need to be mp3, and it's a bit too much Mario at the moment. When I release the first demo, play around with it until you get a good feel for the game, and then adjust the song as you see fit. It's much too early for any music but the theme song, though, so I don't need anymore music at the moment. Not until I've got finalized graphics and the looks of levels.

Well, I guess I should say why I called this Old School. Although the game doesn't use retro graphics, the gameplay in finely tuned in the way that is only seen in the old side scrollers. Mind you, not the VERY old ones (when they were made out of peoples basements), just back before 3d platforming started. I've basically tried to go back to formula and do things differently (only with better technology under the hood). Rather that trying to do something completely new and unrecognizable, I'm taking a different approach to platforming strait from the roots. I hope to later make other Kregs adventures, slowly improving this new formula, even bringing it into the realm of 3d and possibly to the next generation (not sure what this means quite yet).
I can't exactly point out at the moment how Old School is so original in a retro way , and I'm not sure if people will even realize it in this first game. It feels fresh though. It's not just a re-hash of what's already there, or even an improvement on it. It's a different take on the beginning (at least I THINK it is).
I'm not sure if I explained that right, but this game is old school. It starts at the roots.

Update! I've added missile launchers! They launch missiles at you, and some missiles take one health and others two. The graphics for the missiles and the launcher are NOT final, and I may even replace them before the first demo.


Edit: Yay, another mention in the Newsletter!!!!

zzz
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Posted: 5th Jan 2006 10:28
Bullet bill´s brother?
Looks good Bizar guy! It´s much better now with the fixed clouds and hills!
And a little question, are you using a dll to load mp3-files?

Bizar Guy
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 03:53 Edited at: 6th Jan 2006 03:59
Quote: "Bullet bill´s brother? "

Until I update the model, yes. The finals will actually look like missiles, and will come in three different colors. Gray ones will do 1 damage, yellow ones will do 2, and the red ones will be heat seeking.

Quote: "And a little question, are you using a dll to load mp3-files?"

...? No, I'm just loading them like I would any music or sound.


Well, I've made a bunch of progress, but little of it is visual. Technically I've fixed a dozen bugs I found only through testing every possible scenario, and I've gotten rid of a bunch of redundant code. I've coded the different missiles, but they all look the same at the moment, so it's nothing special in a screenshot. I've designed three new enemies, which I'll later be putting into the engine. And visually, I've made a small mine enemy that can't be destroyed. It just hovers up and down in place, and if you hit it you'll get hurt. It adds a lot more to the game than I anticipated, so I imagine I'll use a lot of them in my level designs.


Edit: I can now safely say Old School is addicting. Even when you run out of things to do, there seems to be this irresistible urge to do everything possible. I'm not just speaking for myself, I'm speaking for ever single person that tested it. Even those who had about as much skills in gaming as a pigeon couldn't stop laughing as they died over and over, and seemed to feel immensely rewarded every time they did something right.

zzz
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 12:06 Edited at: 6th Jan 2006 12:08
Quote: "...? No, I'm just loading them like I would any music or sound."


Oh my god! Am I stupid or what!? How could I miss that!?!?!?
I always thought DBC couldn´t handle mp3 or jpg´s or png´s or anything else than those crappy old formats. I´ve always used WAV and BMP! Stupid me...
This is a great day in my life, thank you again Bizar Guy!!!!

UFO
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 13:02
I believe DBC doesn't support MP3, but it does support jpg and png.


Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia-Fear of long words
Roxas
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 13:06
You are really cartonist this game gonna be great... I following this



Goto the http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=68828&b=8 to see latest news on my game..
zzz
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 13:10
UFO
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 13:43 Edited at: 6th Jan 2006 13:45
It does?

Oh yeah, butyou can only load it as a sound. I just looked in the file formats in the key features page of DBC.


Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia-Fear of long words
zzz
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 14:22
No, you can load it as music too!

Alkaline
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Posted: 6th Jan 2006 15:07
did you use paint, photo shop or another 2d artist program, i just thought it would be cool if you did all the grphics from paint

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Mattman
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Posted: 7th Jan 2006 20:54
Glad you liked my song BG. I'll work on it some more once I finish my science paper today.

Why make sense when you could make brownies?
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 8th Jan 2006 03:16 Edited at: 12th Jan 2006 05:16
@zzz, glad I could help.

@UFO, tis true, mp3 files can run as music or sound in db.

@JaRsE, thanks! I actually am sort of a cartoonist, believe it or not. Not a paying job at the moment, but it gets me recognized pretty well at my school.

@Alkaline, I'm using a different art program. I think its called selfdraw or something, I think version 5. Doesn't work for much anything other than drawing and animating, so I don't use it for making logos. It WOULD be cool if I made the graphics in paint, but that would make a hard job nearly suicidal.

@Mattman, Thanks!! If you want, I can e-mail you an early version of the engine so you can get a feel for what the game will be like, if you think it will help you make the song more suited to the game.

I've working on adding some finer details to the engine, basically the stuff that no one will notice because the only way anyone would notice it is if I hadn't done it...
So no visual updates to show off right now...

I also think I should give a better explanation of why I called this Old School. My last explanation was too long; I don't think I said what I wanted to. I gruess you'll have to wait and see...

EDIT: New page!!!!!!

Mattman
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Posted: 8th Jan 2006 19:30
Hah I just sent you an email before reading this. Yes, an early demo would be awesome.

Why make sense when you could make brownies?
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 8th Jan 2006 21:34
Alright, I e-mailed you back aleady, but I'll e-mail you the current engine now that I know you want it.

Mattman
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Posted: 9th Jan 2006 00:27
Just played it. Very well done, although I couldn't seem to get over to the right-most island with the coins and rocket launcher. Intentional?

Don't know what I'm going to do song wise. I defanitly got a relaxed feeling from the game. Will go mess around with it, might even end up with a new song. We'll see.

Why make sense when you could make brownies?
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 9th Jan 2006 00:45
To get over the coin island you need to do a dive... so jump off the other Island and close to the peak of your jump press the down key.

Yeh, the game is pretty relaxed. But I do plan to have it go from being relaxed in parts to hectic in others, like having tons of enemies at once, being chased by a heat seeking missile, and in the levels that are mostly land, there will be a lot of opportunities for stunt like action. But in general I want the players to take their time and platform around the levels. That’s why there's no time limit, a health gage, and many different ways of killing enemies. So yeh, for the most part it will be relaxed like in the current engine.

Good luck with the song, also aside from just the engine, keep in mind the logo in my sig and on the first page...

Mattman
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Posted: 9th Jan 2006 00:50
Alrighty. I'm going on MSN now if you want to chat, I added you.

Why make sense when you could make brownies?
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 12th Jan 2006 02:44 Edited at: 12th Jan 2006 12:24
Whoa, just needed to say I'm still working on this, just really really busy at the moment.

Almost no visual updates, on had small amount of time to program. I've added a lot of stuff that you really won't notice, like the ever slightest slowing down of the character, and I've made it so when you're falling, you can't stop moving and then start moving again. The way things are looking, Old School will not be focused on extremely accurate platform jumping. I have plans to add two more items, which would be a big heart thing which would max out your health (6), and a bag of bombs, which would max out the # of bombs you have (3). I've got five new enemies designed, which need to be draw on the computer and programmed, and I'm going to try and do most of that over the weekend, as well as some more stuff. Visually the only update is this little could of dust, which settles when you hit the ground, switch directions quickly, or hit the ground from a dive. Looks very nice, but it was really hard to get any screenshot of it at all (I’ll have to add the pause button soon).




Bizar Guy
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Posted: 12th Jan 2006 21:08
I'm going to the dark side... Converting to dbpro, 5.8

So far the games seems to have sped up amazingly, and looks cleaner. I've also nocticed that textures aren't reversed when you put them on objects like they were in dbc. There seem to be a few differences that I think I'll be able to smooth over quickly.

one HUGE question. How do you make a color (black) invisable in your textures (it's set object x,1,0,1 in dbc, but has no effect in dbpro)?

Mattman
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Posted: 12th Jan 2006 22:49
Don't know about 3D but for 2D I'm pretty sure it's



So check to see if Set Image Colorkey works with 3D as well.

Why make sense when you could make brownies?
Darkbasic MADPSP
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Posted: 12th Jan 2006 23:08
Coooool now 2d rules just like 3d

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/csimon/spain03/days2_3.htm << where i went for my holiday or www.portaventura.es

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