From the little games to even bigger games GameMaker always simplifies the process of creating the vision you desire. The more you use it the more you love it as a game developer. It’s one of those engines that does the work of creating level editors for you.
The simple drag and drop features are great for a novice developer while the scripting language GML is great for the more advanced developer. I personally enjoy GML as it’s very flexible on what you can do in your game even though it takes some getting used to.
The Sprite and tile editors are very intuitive and making graphics in gms is simpler than a program like paint.net or Photoshop. Honestly gms is my go to for 2D game development and I would love to hear your opinions on it.
Overall I give GMS a solid 4.5 out of 5. Mostly due to how simple it is, and the immense amount of features it holds, along with the flexibility of said features.
Welcome back to Aclevo! During our inactivity, we have been working hard on restructuring and re-branding ourselves, to ensure our viewers get the best quality content possible. Therefore, with all of the changes we’ve made, we have a ton of updates to share with you. Today we’ll be discussing our new branding, some renovations we’ve made to the channel, a major improvement to our staff implementation, and finally a few spoilers of some new content ideas that you can expect from us.
New Branding
Aclevo’s New Simplified Logo – Finalized in May 2019
As you may have noticed, we have updated our branding to be simpler and more elegant. These branding changes included modifications to the logo, and the banner, with updates to the thumbnails (where possible), intro, outro, mascot, fonts, and other branding material coming later on in 2019 and possibly 2020. We have also updated parts of the website to fit the new branding. In the end, the goal is for our branding to be simple and efficient in a way that is enjoyable for everyone. Our inspiration for this idea came from a viewpoint in design known as KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), as well as feedback form our fans and our staff.
To help everyone, including our graphics team, to understand how to design using the new branding, here is a list of some specifications to help you make your designs:
Primary Color: Material Blue (#2196f3) – from 2014 Material Design Standards (More information about Material Design’s Color System can be found here.)
Secondary Color: White (#ffffff)
Heading Font: Ostrich Sans (Heavy) – View & Download (Free for Commercial Use)
Screenshot of Our YouTube Channel after Branding Update
Another part of our renovations include a cleanup of our YouTube Channel. Some videos no longer met our quality expectations, due to the updated standards of Aclevo Videos, and therefore had to be removed from the public eyes of our channel. These old videos also had ex-members that no longer want to associate with us, and by privatizing these videos we are honoring their request. They also contained old jokes and references that new fans would not entirely understand, These videos will later be archived and we will be announcing more details about this in the future.
Here is a list of series and videos, including archives of past live streams, that will no longer be hosted on our YouTube Channel due to our updated standards, and were therefore made private:
As one of the biggest renovations to Aclevo, we are excited to announce that Reasonably Selenium is no longer the sole owner of Aclevo. As part of a way to improve the Executive Function, in order to create a better community for everyone, we have decided to add two more Owners. TheCodingGuy and Dottanarus now hold some of the ownership of the community, leaving there three official Owners, with each having 33.34% ownership. Both of them have been around since we were founded, and are proud to serve and improve our team. Here is Dottanarus with more information on the new Three Owner Arrangement:
Dottanarus here to explain the three-owner system. Basically, this is an effort to make things more fair for our members within Aclevo. In a standard dictatorship, an entire community will be essentially owned by one person. This one person could oversee a board who makes decisions on their behalf, or they could cut out the middle man and do everything themselves. Believe it or not, this is how most Discord servers are governed. This might keep things simple, but this also reduces the options that a server member has. Any problems that you have? You better hope that the owner cares. The idea of “my way or the highway” springs to mind.
Even then, this system of government has another issue. What if the owner needs to leave, even temporarily? Well then, nobody would be in charge of the server. If anybody had an emergency situation, there would be nobody to respond, except for other server members. We at Aclevo have had many of these moments occur at one point or another, and they’ve been particularly difficult to handle for everybody. With three owners, if any one of us needs to take a leave, or if any member has an issue with one of us, there’s two more of us that are there to help.
This also gives us more flexibility. You want 24/7 operations? How about faster, better, more efficient service? Better memes involving more explosions? More ambitious projects? We couldn’t manage all of these great things without the support of our owners, as well as everybody on our executive team, stepping in when we need things done. Without them, Aclevo wouldn’t even exist, let alone be as big as it is now. Thank you, and with that, I’m out.
Anyways… With our quarterly election process and cycle, the time has come for the Board to refresh itself with some new faces. Along with them, FairPlay137 has been re-elected President leading at eleven votes. Lemon was also elected Vice President, ringing himself him at four votes. Finally, with the introduction of the Second Vice President Role, Logan Swallows takes on the role with three votes. We are happy to see what these new team members have to contribute to make our community great.
Here is a list of the new members of our Board Team that were elected in:
We are pleased to announce that we have some new content we are planning to roll out. Here is Vice President Logan Swallows for more information on what is to come:
Hello there! I am Logan Swallows, one of the Vice Presidents of Aclevo along with Lemon. As part of my duties, I make sure content gets produced and published on time and profesionally. Here is some information about some new content we are working on:
Manjaro: The Arch Way
This series will be about attempting to install Manjaro Linux in a virtual machine using the Arch Linux Installation Wiki and the Manjaro Architect ISO. We will be attempting to install it manually, using all the commands listed on the wiki.
Data On The Waves
In this series, Reasonably Selenium showcases RAW Data as sound and video waves at 4000 Hz using a program to convert it. The audio is approximately what you would hear if you listened to dial-up back in the 1990s. The video is a surprise.
Let’s Play Quiplash Together
A group of friends will be playing rounds of Quiplash and having fun. This will replace one of the old series that had to be taken down from our YouTube Channel due to the reasons listed above.
More Blog Posts
We will start to publish more blog posts to our blog in order to keep it alive and active. We are not spoiling these because we want them to remain a surprise for our viewers.
Portal 1-2 Playthroughs
The Portal 1-2 Playthrough will be on hiatus for some time as we work on the other series. However, Reasonably Selenium will be working on these playthroughs again if there is enough support when he is ready.
Untitled 2D Platformer Game???
We are currently planning on working on a new 2D Platformer Game. Details will be announced once we have enough content to show off. The game will possibly be similar to Super Mario Bros.
Untitled Visual Novel Game???
We are also planning on making a new visual novel game. Again, details will be announced when we have enough content to show to our fans. There is no additional information at this time.
Conclusion: The Future Of Aclevo
We can not thank everyone enough for being part of the Aclevo Community. We have had many adventures together, and these renovations are just the beginning to what is coming for all of us. We can not wait to release the new content we have been working on. We promise everybody that these changes that we have made are worth it, and the new content that we are working on will be worth the wait. Let us know down in the comments section about your ideas and we may make a project based on it, and don’t forget to hit the favorite button to let us know how we are doing. Thank you for reading this blog post, and we will see you soon.
This is Reasonably Selenium, one of the owners of Aclevo, signing out.
In the modern age, we are experienced in using blogging platforms like WordPress, Ghost, Blogger, Tumblr, and many other dynamic website generators. However, a new trend has been moving users as they are deciding to host their websites statically instead of using their dynamic counterparts. But why are people deciding to move forward with this new trend? Is it any better to use a static website as opposed to a dynamic one in web development? Why should I consider one of these over the other?
The What and the Why
A static website is defined as a website that does not rely on a web-server to build your website. All pages stored are displayed to the user “as-is”, without any further modification by the host. There are no databases required to make them, as they simply do not use them. External components (such as an application that displays comments – ex. Disqus) can be rendered on their servers instead of having to use your own server to do so. While this idea technically existed for a century or two, there are differences between the classic version and the modern version of static websites.
Publishing on GeoCities
A Classic Static Web-host: NeoCities – Screenshot of NeoCities Home Page
In the 90s and possibly early 2000s, GeoCities was a great example of static web-hosting. The browser reads the content you write: HTML files. Geocities, for instance, hosts your files to everyone can read them. They do not modify your content whatsoever! While they are no longer around, the community has spun up a new reincarnation of it, known as NeoCities.
Modern Solutions: Generators
In the modern age, programmers don’t want to have to type all that code manually in order to make a decent website. Use a static website generator to help with this problem. The additional features besides the capabilities of HTML are crazy! These generators take dynamic code that programmers use and turn them into static ones by rendering everything on the programmer’s side, outputting HTML files. Examples of these include Jekyll, Hugo, Hexo, Nuxt.js, Next.js, Middleman, Gatsby, and Buster*.
*Buster takes a snapshot of your Ghost files and spits out static content.
Static websites are cool, but those who are not web-developers take one look at the programming and either never look back or try to understand what’s going on. It may be easy enough to read, but some people simply do not like the idea of editing text files in order to make their content, especially those who strive on visuals. Consider alternative options for making your editing workflow as breezy as WordPress with headless CMSes. These are vital for those who work in teams to work together to make making blog posts fun again.
There are tons of options out there available for those who are looking for this solution. While there are free options available, each one has it’s pros and it’s cons. Some are very limiting when you only use the free version, and may require payment for a better outcome. Others may also require a good amount of programming experience to integrate into the website. It is important to discuss with your team which solution is right for everyone on your team. Below is an example of a headless CMS.
There are multiple solutions for hosting modern static websites. Soalternative to WordPressme even embed features into the website to make them more dynamic. The static web-host that we use is Netlify. They allow us to deploy a website in seconds by pushing our website onto GitHub and taking over from there. With free SSL (which makes the website secure) and custom features such as Form handling, we decided to use Netlify even though we only use their static hosting and not the extra features.
It’s time to stop thinking with databases and tables, and time to start thinking about content and design. Unlock your heart from WordPress and experience the choices! With static web hosting, there are many options available to you to create the website of your dreams. With the benefits of static web hosting being so cheap and fun to share across the web, why not try it out and see how it works for you.
Why should you consider LateralGM? Let’s face it, Game Maker (the one by YoYo Games) can cost a bit of money if you want to remove their branding when you publish a game. Some people are okay with having their branding on the game. Others may wish to remove it without having to spend a fortune doing so. However, why pay for the software when there’s an open source alternative already available that looks almost exactly like the original software. But why would you consider an open source alternative adequate?
Why LateralGM? Is it Stable?
With LateralGM, you get all of the features that Game Maker for free. On top of that, all of the code is public on GitHub. You can find all the code available here. Clone the repository there to install the software. It’s the best way to use the software. It basically works just like Game Maker (8) would, however there are some takeaways from using this over YoYo Game’s version. Some differences include:
Some bugs need to be worked out. For instance, the built-in editor for working with in-game sprites doesn’t function well. A workaround is to use an external program to work with the game’s objects.
The code will be compiled using C++ and Make. You can even read the output to make sure your game is not executing any bad code. This however will cost you some time to compile.
The user interface will look a little different to what you are expecting, as the front-end uses JDK (Java Development Kit) to display the User Interface. While you can customize it a little, they are apparently working on a new solution that uses QT, the same framework that powers KDE (a desktop for Linux).
Conclusion
Whether to decide between open source software and paying for a commercial product is always a debate. Consumers should this alternative first before going to pick up YoYo Game’s version of Game Maker. This version might just save a few hundred dollars depending on your use case. You get to see all the code you are compiling before you release your project to the open world, which may get more users’ trust.
When I first started listening to the song that would later be used in this video, I already had an idea on what kind of video I was going to make. Even the title of the song is called “At The Farm”, which gave me this idea of recording a trailer of a farm.
A bit of time later when I played Minecraft, I met someone on the Railway Craft Server known as Landy, who would often give me in-game food to help me with my travels. Curious to see what was behind the action, I asked him about how he would get all of this food, and he said he grew it as this very barn.
After getting a consent to record this awesomeness, I took out my in-game camera and recorded what would be known as the Landy’s Farm Trailer. Please enjoy this short!
One day I was talking to a friend, who later would become an Aclevo Member, who suggested I come on a Minecraft Server and check out his town. I decided it would make a nice video to record, so I loaded up OBS and hopped on to check it out. I was amazed by this work, and recorded what would become the “Bayland Trailer”. As one of the only videos I worked on using LightWorks Video Editor, the results were very nice. Check out the results in the video above and let us know what you think.
As of this blog post, today is January 1st, 2019. Aclevo is going to be taking a huge turn to good this year. I, as your new Co-Owner & Secretary, will strive to make Aclevo take a huge turn this year. My goal for Aclevo is to make Aclevo run, even after Reasonably Selenium decides to step down.
Aclevo’s 2019 will be the best year for Aclevo. This year, we will be assigning more fun and just-right tasks for our members. We accept anyone who is willing to join our awesome group (Reminder: We aren’t a company and we don’t plan to become one anytime soon).
In other news, let me not get blown away by leftover fireworks people are shooting for World War 3 here, and continue on Aclevo’s legacy!
Well, before too many people make me look like a bumhole, I want to say that Smash Bros is a really fun and generally accepted Video Game series. The latest addition to the series is one of the best of the best at this time!
With a campaign mode where you go around the world, collecting spirits and saving the fighters of Smash Bros. There is a fun multi-player mode where you can face off against the computer or play with your friends in local play to also an online mode. I haven’t even checked it out yet due to not having a Switch Online membership.
Nevertheless the game is one of the best titles that I have played in a long time. It’s just the game my mind has been craving and wanting for several long years yet to come! The light sensation that I get with this game makes me feel a lot better compared to the heavy sensation I get with most every other game. This means that the game doesn’t trigger my stress as much.
The character roster for Smash Bros of course brings back every character from Smash History. It also brings along with some new faces as well, such as King K Rool. I’m still working on unlocking all the characters myself. I love it when I finally get one of them unlocked. The satisfying feeling is just so good!
Anyway, I would rate Smash Ultimate a very solid 10 out of 10! I’ve never had so much fun in a very long time.
For the past years we’ve been recorded in public on security cameras, police bodycams, livestreams, other people’s social media posts, and so on. But even if there’s a camera in our face, there has always been a slight assurance that strangers wouldn’t really be able to do anything that affects us with the footage. The time and effort it would take for someone to browse through months of security footage to find a specific person, or search the internet on the off-chance they’ll find you is just unrealistic. But not for AI.
Long possible in Hollywood thrillers, the tools for identifying who someone is and what they’re doing across video and images are taking shape. Companies like Facebook, Google and Baidu have been working on such artificial intelligence-powered technology for years.
But the increasing rate of success and widening availability of these systems foretell a near future when every video is analyzed to identify the people, objects, and actions inside. Artificial intelligence researchers have struggled for years to build algorithms that could look at a picture and tell what it depicts. The complexity of images, each containing millions of pixels that form unique patterns, was just too complicated for hand-coded algorithms to reliably work.
Since then the systems have grown in complexity and scale. Researchers began making larger networks of “neurons,” while hardware manufacturers like NVIDIA began engineering specialty processors to make the networks exponentially faster. The result has been a nearly unbelievable rise in what the systems can accomplish. Given a large dataset of images or video, these systems can be trained to learn what a person’s face looks like, and reliably identify it again and again.
Facebook has also showed interest in this technology to understand who are in livestreams on the site and what they’re doing. In an interview last year, director of Applied Machine Learning Joaquin Quiñonero Candela said that, ideally, Facebook would understand what’s happening in every live video, in order to be able to curate a personalised video channel for users. Facial recognition in still images and video is already seeping into the real world.
Baidu is starting a project where facial recognition is used instead of tickets for events. The venue knows who you are, possibly from a picture you upload or your social media profile, sees your face when you show up and knows if you’re allowed in. Paris tested a similar feature at its Charles de Gaulle airport for a three-month stint this year, following Japan’s pilot program in 2016, though neither organizations have released results of the programs.
US governments are already starting to use the technology in a limited capacity. Last week the New York department of motor vehicles announced that it had made more than 4000 arrests using facial recognition technology. Instead of scanning police footage, the software is used to compare new drivers’ license application photos to images already in the database, making it tougher for fraudsters to steal someone’s identity.
If state or federal governments expand into deploying facial recognition and AI in public, they will already have a database of more than 50% of American adults from repositories like DMVs. And again, the bigger the dataset, the better the AI.
Security cameras are also getting a dose of AI. Intel announced in April that it had developed hardware for security cameras capable of “crowd density monitoring, stereoscopic vision, facial recognition, people counting,” and “behavior analysis.”
Another camera, called the DNNCam, is a deep learning camera that’s waterproof, self-sufficient, and claims to be virtually indestructible, meaning it can be set to work in remote environments away from internet connections or behind a cash register for “regular customer recognition,” according to the website.
So what has a privacy-minded, law-abiding citizen to do when surveillance becomes the norm? Not much. Early research has identified ways to trick facial recognition software, either by specially-made glasses to fool the algorithms or face paint that throws off the AI. But these often require knowledge on how the facial recognition algorithm works. This is just a heads up.
If you’re reading this article you may have considered deleting your Facebook account before, but you’re worried. Worried about missing out, struggling to stay connected, or getting left behind by the almost 2 billion users on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s platform.
Don’t be.
It has never before been easier to completely remove Facebook from your life — not missing a single social beat in the process. And when you finally do, you’ll wonder what took you so long in the first place. In case you’re wondering why you should delete your Facebook, here’s a list of all the bad things Facebook has done since 2007.
First things first: Hitting “delete”
If you’re going to live without Facebook, your first step should be actually deleting your account. Thankfully, it’s not that tricky. Kick off the liberating process by logging into your account. Savor the knowledge that this will be the last time you ever need to do this.
Next, instead of navigating your way through a bunch of random menus, simply go to the Delete Account Page. Select “Delete My Account,” follow the steps, and you’re good to go.
Wasn’t that easy?
Your social life after Facebook
So you’re free. What next?
This is where it gets interesting. Zuckerberg likes to talk about making the world “a more open and connected place,” and if Facebook does indeed do that, then deleting your account might theoretically make your personal world less open and less connected. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead, a Facebook-free life has the potential to be just the opposite. Sure, you may not be “friends” with two thousand people any more, but were you ever really in the first place?
Dropping Facebook gives you the time and space to actually go plumb those relationship depths. No more checking up on an old friend by doing a quick profile flyby. Instead, if you want to know how the birth of their first-born child went, you’ll ask them directly. And they’ll respond.
Still not convinced you won’t be missing out? Here’s how the first few days of your Facebook-free life will go down: A friend or family member will try to scope on your vacation pics or invite you to an event. They will, of course, not be able to find your account. What happens next is magical. That same friend or family member will hit you up directly.
In other words, Facebook is a chore, and one that you don’t have to do. Because I’m telling you from experience, living a post-Facebook life is easy if you make it happen.
