Hey, two days in row, still logged in! I'm using Chrome, and I am indeed logged in on the forums/site and the arcade.

I'm still getting logged out, and I just downloaded two updates with no rep. After the login problem is stabilized, please help us get our 300+ day visit streak back ... I've had Scirra as my home page on my home computer and phone for a year just to make sure I never miss a day, and now it's all gone.

(Most importantly, glad you're back and well, Tom!) Dittos to czar. Several of us lost 320 or higher day consecutive logins because of this. I'd just like to have our consecutive visits records restored and the constant logout problem fixed. Thanks!

It's not just a coincidence ... even though every time I log in, I select "keep me logged in," I'm logged out the very next day. That's a pretty serious bug for people like us who go to great lengths to maintain our activity ...

Me, too! I lost almost exactly that same number of days. I NEVER miss checking in, since I have Scirra as a home tab in Chrome at home, and it's my home page on my cell.

What about trivia games in regards to trademarks? Surely you can use "Microsoft", "Super Mario", etc. as answers in a trivia game without legal repercussion.

I did some digging and the answer appears to be "maybe." There are a few short discussions on the legal advice site Avvo, one of which is here:

Why is it Legal to Create Trivia Games of Other People's Tradmarks?

The crux is whether your game falls under "nominative use," defined as using "the trademark of another as a reference to describe the other product, or to compare it to their own."

This defense was first described in the case of

New Kids on the Block vs News America Publishing, Inc., although it was further developed in later cases. As Wikipedia summarizes, the following three criteria must apply:

1. The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute).

2. The user only uses as much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol).

3. The user does nothing to suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder. This applies even if the nominative use is commercial, and the same test applies for metatags.

I think that in most of the games you mentioned, jayderyu , the player is creating their own story (the story of their struggle and hopefully victory over their opponent), which is also true in chess, although chess would have a much deeper psuedo-narrative relative to Mario Kart. Not every game needs as explicit a story (roulette, for example), whereas some games are almost entirely story and very light on mechanics (recent example, Gone Home).

I think the points about the importance of successful mechanics, though, are also quite true. Think of reading a book like George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones ... simple mechanics, incredible story. You flip a page or press "next" on your Kindle and keep reading. Well, if the book were printed on 12-meter tall iron sheets, virtually no one would get through it.

So, the mechanics DO have to complement and enable the development of the narrative. I think most of the participants on this thread are at least partly right, and even completely right from a certain perspective.

No rep for giving thumbs up right now.

Whiteclaws , that's what he says, too. I wish you the best of luck, and if I ever need a real language, I'll come join you guys =).

One of my best friends is a phenomenal programmer and he uses Java almost exclusively. Personally, I don't need to move beyond scripting, so I'm learning the very-different-yet-similarly-named JavaScript to use with Unity.

Egon

I'll shoot you a PM with an inquiry. =) Maybe we could wind up making a practical parallax tutorial, both the art and science of it.

Egon , this is going back a ways, but about your demo video ... did you use any training or educational resources for developing your parallax effect?

I don't think I've seen a more natural parallax effect here, and your animated sprites bring it to life. I either need to learn from you, or learn from wherever YOU did ... =)