Apparently a few people were worried that I had died in some firey explosion leaving me unable to work on Element, or had contracted some terrible disease that left me unable to move my fingers to type code, or had just decided to get all depressed and not want to talk to anyone. I'm just here to reassure you, it's none of that. However, I am currently combating with something that very well could kill me soon, and I'll tell you what it is: College. So yes, I'm alive, and no, Element is not dead. This isn't one of those "we're not dead, we're just inactive" news posts we used to see right before Element crashed. I fully intend to get back to Element and continue to make THIS version better. I have plans to add on to it some more this week. Just be aware that I'm very loaded up with work, and have a lot going on that is seriously stressing me out and making it hard for me to motivate myself to do any extra work. Do not give up hope, though, and please continue to check back so that WHEN I release another beta version, there will be some of you still here to play it.

In case you didn't already notice, there is an awards system on the site now. You will be able to earn them through site activity, as well as in-game achievements. Chances are you already have two or three of these. There aren't many of them so far, but there will be more along the way. Currently I'm trying to work out a way to have them added to your profile. My original idea was to have in-game codes, unique to your username, which you could put into an "award code" box on your profile to redeem them. This method has been having some... Complications though... Mainly the fact that PHP and GML are so different, and some of the functions used in the PHP encryption that already exists have no equivelent in Game Maker. Nonetheless, there will be a method for adding them set up before the next release.

(Don't correct me on the title, it's a SBEmail referrence. ;) )

Anyway, I apologize for not getting out any sort of update this week. Because we have no version checker, I used a date checker to make sure the old version wouldn't run on the day of the update, to avoid version conflicts, but of course it assumes that there even IS an update. For those of you desperate to play, there is a workaround: Set your internal clock back to some time before March 5th while playing. Yes, this system was set up rather lazilly. I do plan on having a version checker at some point, but in a pinch, that was the best I could come up with. Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

Also, there is another issue which needs to be adressed: The chatroom. In the past, we've been a community with a very active chatroom, and yet the one we have now is barely used. Why? The answer should be obvious: It stinks. So I'm proposing we get a better chat system in place. We have a few options. Click "READ MORE" to see the proposed choices.