European Chess Update

[From the Forums]

Summer has begun, so let me briefly summarize the facts about the European Chess project:

- A patent could cost upward of $10,000, although this cost may be reduced if Fienberg's uncle helps us. We still don't know about the necessity of a patent.
- We have until February 2008 to file a provisional patent (about $300 I believe), which would extend the patenting deadline by a year, giving us until February 2009 to file a full patent.
- We still don't know if a Euro Chess patent would be approved or not, due to its similarity to Chaturanji, which admittedly is a public-domain game.
- Peter Olotka, designer of Cosmic Encounter (off of which Euro Chess is partly based), could offer some help, so I'm trying to get in touch with him.
- I know nothing about what the commercial possibilities of Euro Chess. Would it sell? I have no idea.
- We still have not come up with a good name - I don't like Euro Chess much. A name design competition is a possibility.
- I am not sure about the possible legal issues that could arise from the Design Competition.
- An online game is a possibility. Do not ask me about it - if I do decide to make one it will be a surprise, but I guarantee nothing.

Spring Break!

Yes, Spring Break is here. But it won't be all parties for me, thanks to, you guessed it, Euro AP! As I mentioned in my previous entry, we are picking up the pace in Euro, but I never expected it to reach this level: over Spring Break we have to (1) write a 20-30 page report on the Cold War, (2) read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and write a 5 page review, and (3) reread 700 pages of our Euro textbook. All in one week! Ugh.

As if that weren't enough, it turns out that I qualified for the USAMO, something I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it's quite an accomplishment to make it there, but on the other hand, now I have to start practicing, so that I won't embarrass myself with a zero (which seems to be the median score on the USAMO >.<). So that's something like 5 hours Euro, 1 hour math already partitioned out each day. I'm losing almost half of my waking, non-eating hours!

The good news is that I still have half of spring break to call my own. ^_^ Some stuff that I'm working on:

- My site. I'm hoping to finish my new website by the end of Spring Break. I'm almost done already, so it shouldn't be too tough.

- European Chess. Ah, there's a lot of stuff going on here. First, Round 2 of the Design Competition just ended, so I have to add 3 countries, and edit a few more (people started complaining about Iraq and Mafia being too strong, and Prussia and Gaul too weak, so I'll have to balance them). Also, John wants to start a European Chess tournament next week, and although he promised to organize it himself, it'll still be a lot of work to keep up-to-date results on the website (a job that, of course, falls to me).

Now that European Chess is out and about on the Internet (a forum spam campaign on my part did a fairly good job of spreading the word), our biggest concern now is obtaining a patent. Apparently, we have less than a year to apply for a patent, or else European Chess falls into the public domain. Unfortunately, patent costs are monstrous (literally in the 5-digits), and being high school students we have nowhere near that kind of money. Our best bet is to somehow get Fienberg's uncle to provide us legal aid for free and then apply for a provisional patent, using our extra year to obtain the ~$3,000 we'll need outside of legal fees. Either that or give up, which I admit is an appealing option.

- One last item of the day: During Spring Break, and pretty much until mid-May, I have very little free time, so naturally I don't really have time to play most games, but there is one online game that takes very little time (~10 min. a day) and is incredibly addictive. I'm talking, of course, of Diplomacy, the board-game sensation that, thanks to phpDiplomacy.net, is now invading the Internet. After playing a game online with a few of my friends, I took the next step and formed what may be the first online Diplomacy league: "Donkeys United". Blatant ad: Have you got what it takes to join? Make an account on my forum and PM me for an invitation! Heh, just had to put that in.

Well, that concludes my first (and perhaps last) post during Spring Break. Ciao!

European Chess

ChessVariants.org : European Chess

As you may know, I am vice president of my school's Chess Club. And one of my duties as VP is researching new chess variants (ok, maybe it isn't my duty, but I do it anyway). This is the story of how I (not quite singlehandedly) designed a chess variant so popular that nobody in our Chess Club plays regular chess anymore.

"Chatanooga"

I was researching four-player chess games, because I felt that our club needed a multiplayer game. Bughouse isn't bad, but the players are rather detached, because you can only play one opponent at a time. I immediately dismissed all of the variants that required a special board; all we have in our club are the standard 8x8 boards. Bastardo looked interesting, but I felt that it started out too cluttered, with not enough wiggle room for your pieces. Finally, I noticed Chaturanga for four, and immediately was captivated by its elegance and fun. However, some of the rules were ancient, and in need of revision; I took a Chaturanga modification - ZM Machiavellian Chess - and played around with it a bit, and created ... Chatanooga.

Ok, maybe it wasn't as heroic as that. The real story was something along the lines of: I read about both Chaturanga and ZM Machiavellian Chess, but by the next day it was all mixed up in my head. The game I showed to the club that day was an odd mixture of both games, with a name as mixed up (unintentionally of course, you can see how mixed up my brain was, for me to mistake Chaturanga for Chatanooga. But I have a REALLY bad memory >.<). The club loved it. Well, the four people that played it loved it, the rest was too busy playing standard chess.

What exactly are the rules of "Chatanooga"? It's a sort of a mix of Chaturanga and ZM, closer to ZM, but with some differences: Play always goes clockwise with no exceptions (this occasionally enables players to prevent another player's checkmate), there is no king promotion, castling, or en passant, and captured armies are merged into one.

But Chatanooga is unimportant at this point, merely a stepping stone to much more exciting game that was to come ... European Chess.

The First Design Sessions

After a week or two of Chatanooga, we were getting a bit bored: because you only have 8 pieces, you eventually get tired of having the same arrangement: King, Rook, Bishop, Knight. One day, my friend John and I were experimenting with different rearrangements of the starting position. We finally agreed that the current one was the strongest.

But then I had an idea: "What if there were several different arrangements and you could pick yours? And because some are stronger than others, why don't we give special powers to the weaker ones to make it fair?" The first army I made was, I believe, an early form of Russia, with a queen, but pawns that can run away from you given the chance. John made up Austria, with three knights that automatically destroy any piece they flank. Early forms of Britain, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Prussia also made their appearance at that first design session: those, I believe, were our first six, and all underwent significant changes, except for Austria, which has stayed the same for the history of the game.

That evening, I thought long and hard, and finally typed up the original 13 armies: Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Russia, and the Ottomans. These, with the addition of Poland, which was to come later, constituted our first "block": 18th century Europe. At the next chess club meeting, these powers were a hit, with different players developing strategies for different powers (my favorite among these were Switzerland and the Netherlands). It should be noted that some of these powers were very different from their modern incarnations, particularly France and Spain, who had very wimpy powers at that point (they revolved around protecting the king).

European Chess Expands

About a week later, John single-handedly created 12 new armies and created a second "block": "Classical Chess". And a few days after that, I created our third and last block, "Modern Chess". At this point, we had 36 armies, 12 in each block. We later added three new ones - Poland to European Chess, and Canada and Law Enforcement Agents to Modern Chess - to obtain the 39 we have today.

However, we ran into a problem: the powers in Modern Chess, such as Iraq, North Korea, and Terrorists, seemed much too powerful compared to those in European Chess and especially Classical Chess. Rather than weaken the Modern powers, we decided to make the game slightly crazier by instead strengthening the others, and so came the period of "The Great Tweaking" - over the next month, we went and attempted to balance the game out more, completely changing several powers in the process.

This post-tweaking set proved incredibly popular in our chess club, more so than any other set, and so this is the version of European Chess we play today. It is also the version that we submitted to ChessVariants.org.

Where Are We Headed?

What's next on our agenda? Quite a few things, actually.

We're thinking about publishing European Chess, although we haven't quite decided on the specifics (our best plan would probably be to publish online, as this gives us the most control over the process). Fortunately, Michael's uncle is a patent lawyer, so I hope we won't have any legal difficulties in the future.

Also, we've got to work on changing the name: the game is not very European anymore, with the addition of the Classical and Modern blocks. However, the best we've been able to come up with is "Global War Chess" - we have to work a little harder on this.

Meanwhile, we've decided to have a little fun by starting a design competition for creating new European Chess armies. The submissions need not be historically accurate, and I'm very happy with the 16 very creative armies that we've received so far. The competition is open to anyone, so feel free to participate!

After the design competition, we plan to have two separate groups of armies: core and expansion. The core armies are the base 39, the first three blocks. The expansion armies are the design competition winners, and guess where they can be used - in expansions! ^_^

How can you help? Show European Chess to all your friends and family! :P

Links and Goodies

Man, that was a long post, and those who trudged through it should be rewarded. Here are some never-before-seen early European Chess designs that I just found after two hours of searching through three computers. Prior to this day, they have only been seen by a few chess club members; this is the first time that I'm posting them online.

• - 11/28/06: The very first draft, only 11 armies. Note that the early Spain concept would later be recycled into Terrorists.
  
• - 11/29/06: The second draft, after one day of playtesting. 13 armies (added Portugal and Sweden), and changed a few others. Also added a rather unwieldy two pages summarizing the rules of Chaturanga.
  
• - 12/1/06: The first draft after John gave me Classical Chess. 25 armies. Note that the Classical armies are very unbalanced at this point - some are very strong, others are very weak.
  
• - 12/5/06: The first draft after I added Modern Chess. 37 armies (added Poland and 11 modern). The Modern armies are quite unbalanced at this point - they are much stronger than the European and Classical armies.
  
• - 12/6/06 and 12/8/06: Same as the previous one, but with some tweaking.
  
• - 01/21/07: The first version that I submitted to ChessVariants.org. The armies are almost at their present state. 38 armies (added Law Enforcement Agents; Canada was to come later).
  

The very latest rules can be found here. Also, be sure to check out our design competition!

LF2.5 Annoyance

My Little Fighter 2 mod, LF2.5, is doing great. It's been downloaded over 100,000 (!!!) times, and is consistenly in the top 3 at WinSite.com, sometimes peaking at #1. I estimate it's made me around $100 from Google Adsense.

But this popularity comes at a price. Several times a day now, by email, AIM, MSN, or Meebo, I get pestered with questions. Now, I don't have anything against asking questions, but most of these are ... well, I can't call them stupid, but ... ok fine, stupid. Questions like:

"Where can I download LF3 and 4?" Where they got the idea that LF3 (and up) exists, I don't know.

"What are the controls?" Maybe it helps to read the so-called README before wasting Alex's time!

"How do I change the characters?" This one in itself is not a bad question, but usually involves at least 15 minutes of trying to explain how to get to the data/data.txt file ("Go to the LF2.5 directory" "How do I do that?"), then another 15 trying to explain the syntax, and usually involves me finally giving up.

"Can I play as [insert character from random videogame] in LF2?" This is one of the worst. But the prize for the most hated question of them all goes to...

"Where can I get Electro/Mario/LF3 Firen/etc. ?" OK, one thing I can't comprehend is that although people seem incapable of finding the controls to the game, they are still able to find out which characters were taken out from previous versions. And then when I explain that these guys were scrapped, they still want them! OK people, if a character was removed, doesn't it make you stop and think, "Hmm why was he removed?" Ooh, I know, maybe because THEY SUCK!!

Of course, the fact that the majority of these questions come from people less than 10 years old, and judging from their spelling, non-native English speakers, does not help matters at all. Al Harberg writes, no "customers" are idiots, but I'm finding that hard to believe. I try to be as polite and helpful as I can to each and every LF2.5 user, but sometimes it just doesn't help.

I wish every person with a question about LF2.5 could read this post before asking me...

Click Click! - version 0.2

Click Here to play Click Click!

My focus for this version was smoother movement, which I achieved using a bit of math, as shown in the diagram below:




I also decided to play around with it, and made a few cheats (Ctrl, Shift, Z, Num Pad + and -). ^_^

Next on my agenda: a title screen!

Oh no! Not another hobby!

I've rediscovered Macromedia Flash, and decided to try game design. But unlike most of my hobbies, I actually have a rationale for this one. See, if I have a resume consisting of a lot of games, be they freeware or commercial, I will have a good chance of being hired by a video game company. And looking at my list of dream jobs:

Guitar hero
Game designer
Web entrepreneur

As you can see, game designer is above web entrepreneur, though still below guitar hero.

Anyways, 30 minutes of playing around with flash give me the start of my second flash game (the first, an ambitious fighting game, was sadly never completed), which I aptly named "Click Click!". The object of the game is to make the ball pass to green line at the top, but not the red line at the bottom. You can move the ball up by clicking near the bottom of the ball, move it down by clicking near the top, left by clicking near the right, and right by clicking near the left (at the moment you only have to go up, but suppose I add more levels...)

At the moment, the game is rather simple - some 40 lines of code. However, there are numerous improvements I can make:

I. Making it more professional
- Game start screen, and similar stuff
- Levels
- More features (obstacles, mazes, bumpers, and gravity shifters, oh my!)
II. Changing the core (a.k.a. Physics)
- More advanced movement (right now the player can only move the ball in 4 directions, he/she should be able to move it in any direction)
- Better collision detection (at the moment it's adequate, but if I want to add bumpers and stuff, I'll have to make it frame-independent)
- Adding Forces (again, at the moment I only have two forces - gravity and the player's motion, so it's adequate, but to support extra features I should change this)
III. Prettying it up
- Better graphics
- Backgrounds
- Sounds and music

Why do I keep starting new projects? WHY????

You know what the gaming world really needs?

A complete RTS / FPS crossover game. Like, one of those games, where it starts out as a regular RTS, but at any time you can choose to play as any of your units, at which point the game becomes an FPS.

Let's take a look at existing games that call themselves "RTS / FPS hybrids". These fall into two categories, the first being normal FPSes with some RTS attributes. Examples are the Half-Life mod Natural Selection and the free standalone game Tremolous (shown at right).



No, that's not what we want at all! It's about 90% FPS, 10% RTS - a very bad mix. But what else do we have that's even remotely similar to what we want? Ah, we have squad-based RTS / FPS shooters, such as Urban Assault and Field Ops (shown at left). Better, but as roemin points out, the emphasis is still on the FPS.

The best way to make an RTS / FPS hybrid would be to make it about 20% FPS and 80% RTS. That is, the RTS mode is the most important, but certain aspects of the game require FPS mode. Just one example: money (and perhaps items and weapons) must be stored in a bank. You can destroy an enemy bank, which would make your opponent lose all the money and items
in it, but you still won't get any of those items/cash. If you want to get it, you must first get one of your units to sneak inside of the bank (possibly through a diversion or some other RTS tactic, or by using a special item, such as a camo suit), and then get into te vault and out, without running into the security system - stealing items from a bank would require both RTS and FPS gameplay.

This is the kind of game that I would want to see. Of course, it would take up a ton of space and require a fast proccessor - everything in the 2.5D RTS view must also have an analogue in the 3D FPS view, and vice versa. This type of game has been impossible ... until now.

Unveiling ... the 8^8 ELO Calculator!

>>> 8^8 ELO Calculator <<<

This is the first result of a collaboration between Mgccl and myself, to make an LF2 ladder system. What is it? It is an extension of the ELO ranking system (used primarily in chess) to allow for up to eight teams, of up to eight players each. Simply type in each player's ranking, and the team's result (see Scoring, below), and click SUBMIT. Each player's new ELO will be revealed.

Instructions

• Fill in team 1 before team 2, etc. If team 1 is blank, team 2 is assumed to be blank as well, and so on.
• Fill in player 1 before player 2, etc. If player 1 is blank, player 2 is assumed to be blank as well, and so on.
• For players, 0 and blank are different. 0 means a 0 ELO player, blank means no player.
• Negative players will cause errors.
• Players should be between 0 and 10,000. Otherwise, errors may occur.

Scoring

Win: 1
Tie: 1/n (with n teams)
Loss: 0

So for a match with 4 teams, if a team scores one win, 3 ties, and 2 losses, its score is 1.75 .

Little Fighter 2.5 Released!!

Gah... forgot to post this yesterday...


Little Fighter 2.5 has been released!!! See this topic for details.

LF2.5: Volt

Today I added a new character: Volt. He replaces my old electric char (Electro).

Here's some screenshots I took (JackieRabbit - the creator of Volt - put the second one on his site =) ) :



Don't know why I took the third one ^_^

LF2.5: It's Very Near the End!

Title says it all!

Tomorrow I'll give you some screenshots. I promise. =)

LF2.5: Racing Towards a Release

I am almost done with LF2.5. Over the past few days I have skinned, hacked, and modified every aspect of the game.

However, I still have a few things on my agenda:

- Figure out which extra (non LF2/CE) characters to add. There are currently 20 open slots and I want to fill them with the best characters possible.
- Work a little on backgrounds and items.
- Edit the stages. I'm working on making two stages of my own: a 1-vs-1 Mortal Kombat style stage, and a medieval stage with knights and dragons.
- Skin it up a little more. Some aspects of the game do not look so good.
- Rewrite the readme. I want to be especially careful to give credits to everyone who contributed characters/items/backgrounds/skins/support.
- Test, test, test.

Basically, I want the game to be perfect. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am giving a release date!! I don't want to rush, but I don't want this to take up my whole summer either, so the date I am giving is JULY 25. Mark your calendars! =)

And lemme post some pics of how the game's going:

The new skin (courtesy of LF2 NS)












Stickman's hair (courtesy of his buddy Electro)







Uhhhh what?

Yet Another LF2.5 Post

Marshall, the developer of LF2 CE, has notified me that he will be encrypting the much-anticipated next version of CE, so that the source code cannot be copied. Guess that all that waiting was for nothing.

One problem that has to be addressed is how my mod will be different from LF2 CE. Well,

* My mod includes all LF2 characters that do not have CE equivalents, so that it's possible to play Stage, Battle, etc. I'm not sure if this feature is available in CE.
* LF2.5 will have several (5+ is my goal) characters that are neither from LF2 nor CE.
* Guns. 'Nuff said.

But seriously, my game is becoming a little too similar to CE. So, I think it's probably a good thing that I won't be able to use the final version of CE in LF 2.5 - this gives me room to be creative (the non-encrypted version of CE only has about 10 characters).

At the moment I'm trying to find some fun and unique characters. You can help! Simply follow this link, find the character download section, try out some characters, and tell me what you like - if I accept your character(s) of choice you'll be listed in the credits!

Happy Fourth of July?

Let's just say that my Fourth of July was not the best I've ever had.

The day got off to a not-so-good start when it turned out that the Hamachi client that I installed on my dad's computer to try out Network Games in LF2.5 had opened the door to a score of viruses. The computer got so screwed up that we had to restore it from a backup. Fortunately, our weekly backups take place on Monday evenings, so we didn't lose anything. In retrospect, we were incredibly lucky - we didn't lose any data at all. However, we still have a lot of work ahead of us, in restoring all the files - the backup wasn't complete, so we have to carefully copy files from the old hard drive to the new one.

That's the last time I use Hamachi.

After this uhh ... incident ... I had a doctor's appointment, due to some neck pain I've been having. Doctor says: physical therapy for eight weeks, and twelve Advils a day. Doctor, isn't this taking it a little too seriously?? It's just a little neck pain, and you're prescribing twice the recommended daily dose of Ibuprofen. Side effects here I come...

Afterwards, there was a party, where my friends and I entertained ourselves by making homemade videos on my cellphone. I'd post them here, but messaging is not included in my plan, and I imagine emailing a video to myself would be rather costly.

So yeah, that was my Fourth of July.

LF2.5: Networking Issues

I didn't work on LF2.5 too much today, but what I did work on is Network Games.

There were two problems:

1. Connection issues, usually caused by private domains. To fix this, one must get a public IP address (using Hamachi will give you a public address)

2. Synchronization issues, which were very common. I couldn't find any fix other than to reinstall the game (which only takes about a minute, so it's not much of a problem).

In addition, Bob has playtested the game (partly by playing network games with me), and I'm working to use his comments. Most importantly, I like his idea of taking out the duplicate LF2 characters entirely and replacing them with CE characters, since CE characters retain all the abilities of LF2 characters.

Down to 82 objects now, after removing the last of the LF3 characters (guess LF3 wasn't such a great mod after all), and following Bob's suggestion, I think I won't be pressed for space any time soon! =)

LF2.5 Day Seven - The Boring Stuff

Now that I have just about everything done with LF2.5, I only need to do a few more things:

1. Add the rest of LF2 CE (still waiting for Marshall to finish this one).
2. Perhaps a few more characters and backgrounds.
3. Rewrite the readme.
4. Playtesting, playtesting, playtesting!
5. Fix all the bugs discovered by #4.

Today I worked on #3, #4, and yes, even a little of #5.

Still waiting for Marshall...

LF 2.5 Modding: Days 3-5

On Day 3, I ran into my first obstacle: LF2 only supports 100 objects (data files), and I had gone over. I then spent the next few days optimizing the game: removing all unnecessary characters and objects. I am now down to 92 objects, a safe number. To get there I had to remove several characters: I took out almost all the LF3 characters, leaving only LF3 Firen and LF3 Freeze. The reason for this is that the rest of the characters were just graphical changes, without actually changing the code.

When I first made LF 2.5 a year ago, I meant it to be a combination of LF2 and LF3 (a popular mod at the time). However, I have now realized that it is downright stupid to just restrict myself to this, and now I have a new goal in mind - to make this game as fun as I possibly can! If I have to remove some (or maybe even all, in the end) LF3 characters, then so be it.

However, I still managed to get some work done. I have added a new character, Electro, made by Marshall, the same guy who compiled LF2 CE. He works fine, but the only problem is that he takes up a whopping seven data files! In the end, I may have to remove him because of this. I don't want to, but I may have no choice.

In the above screenshot, Electro shows off his Julian-esque D^J combo.


I also added a little known mod called Gun-LF2. I know what you're thinking - Little Fighter with guns???? However, I can assure you that the game is still well balanced. In addition, now there's several ways to kill an enemy: 1) With your fists and close-range weapons, 2) Using your combos, 3) Shooting him to death, or 4) Using an explosive crate. Although there were explosive crates earlier, there are many more ways to use them now - for example, you can throw an explosive crate at your enemy, then pick up a shotgun, shoot the crate, and watch it go nuclear! ^_^ Hopefully, this wide array of ways to dispatch an enemy will make LF 2.5 more fun!

Finally, I added a new map, Bunker, which looks especially nice with guns - see the above screenshot.

One more thing I have to add: ENGLAND LOST????? >.<

LF 2.5 Modding, Day Two

Marshall, the deveoper of LF2 CE, has informed me that he is working on a new version of his mod, that is much better. Since a lot of characters I'm adding to LF2.5 are from CE, I have two choices now: I could push ahead, or I could wait for Marshall to finish.

I dislike waiting, but I don't like unnecessary work either, so I chose the middle path: for now I'm not adding CE characters, just characters from other mods, and backgrounds.

Today I worked on backgrounds. I added five that i liked, three from CE and two independent backgrounds. Enjoy!

LF 2.5 Modding, Day One

After working on the PrestoSoft site, and doing a bit of Euro work, I decided to see what I can do with Little Fighter (note that it is now going to be called Little Fighter, not Little Fighters, Little Fighter being the correct name) 2.5.

The first thing I did was remove some characters. With Bob's help (Bob is my playtester =) ) I managed to find the ten least used characters (duplicates for the most part), and removed them. The reason for this is that the original LF2.5 had an overwhelming array of characters, and this way I'll be able to add some more characters without overcomplicating the game. Some characters removed included LF2_Template (accidentaly inserted twice in the last version), LF3_Louis (a carbon copy of LF2_Louis), and LF3_VanderTower (a very screwed-up character to say the least, his only moves involved committing suicide apparently).

I then proceeded to add a few characters. I'll start by adding all (or at least most) of the characters in LF2 CE, as I mentioned in a previous entry. Today I started by adding CE_John and CE_Deep, the first two characters in LF2 CE. I haven't modded LF2 for over a year, so I have forgotten how to use the Data Changer for the most part, and it took me a while to fix some simple bugs, but I finally got both characters to work perfectly.

CE_John demonstrates his new Electro Zap move


CE_Deep uses a Sword Demon to knock Freeze back a fair distance

Competition in a Small Niche

I made Little Fighters 2.5 a little over a year ago, as a standalone compilation of different modifications of LF2, a popular freeware fighting game. The reason I made it was actually to have some fun in computer class (LF2 itself was starting to get boring), but it's become much more popular than I dared imagine, with over 60,000 downloads at last count. I've profitted from it as well, making a bit of money off Google ads.

However, competition has arrived in the form of Little Fighter CE, a modification with the same premise as my own. It has become rather popular among the LF2 community.

Now I am faced with several choices:

1. Ignore it. After all, I have superior marketing (for now at least), and besides, I haven't edited LF2.5 for a year - I've probably forgotten how to do it after all this time.
2. Release a new version of LF2.5. Hey, I have some free time. And there''s plenty of content I can add.
3. Combine LF2.5 and CE into one game. The original LF2.5 is simply a combination of several mods. All CE is is one big mod. So the logical next step would be to literally absorb the competition. It's perfectly legal as well.

I'm working on a lot of things right now (my fledgling web network, the Prestosoft site, AP summer work, math), but if I have time I might try releasing a new version of LF2.5!