Been busy.

I personally have been working hard on some player skins, I plan to release these all at once (as well as some from previous posts) in one big happy skin-fest! so keep your eyes peeled for that,

In other news, my contest to try to find a new default texture pack has completed entry stage now, and the entries can all be seen HERE.

Thanks to the people that entered I wish you all the best of luck! and I hope we the player community can come together to decide on which if any should be used in future releases of the game.

Let's hope that with new textures we can see a new dawn on the progress of Manic Digger

Hello, Hallo, Zdravei, Hola, Saluton, Salut and Privet! to all.

In no so many words I'd like togive a special hello to all those that read this, I've been doing some poking around on my stats and info, It would seem that a LOT of Germans are visiting!!

A special Screenshot for you folk over the way..

I'm really happy that you spend the time and effort to come and read my English language blog! If anyone has any links to a German blog about manic digger, I'd be happy to link to it, just send a message to Maniacal.Digerer via the forums (or just post it for me to see)

To all the other international readers, Hello to you all! I dont have flags for everyone, but here's another that I'd seen on exe creative 5... 'hallo' to any Dutch players.

On a side note, my antipodean counterpart; Tacobuilder help me link up the 'statue of liberty' with a rail-line... for which he built a rather excelent bridge!

The other thing which I couldnt help but notice was a HUGE tree complete with hollow top with a room in! oh and the 'green' cubey thing next to it.. a bouncy castle!! (which I confess to having had a go in)

News time!

Hi to anyone silly enough to read this, here's some headlines...

• My 'new default texture' contest has been extended until the weekend (sat 26th final date for entry)
• I've come across some interesting finds

• A game called 'blokked' which apparently used the manic digger engine, I'm yet to see this game, or actually find information about it, all I have to go on so far is an 'offline' live stream which was supposedly showing 'blokked'
• On Sourceforge I found 'Manicdigger2' and am going to have a nose and see what it is...

Other than that, hello to everyone that was playing on exe creative a few nights ago, had a great time finishing off the statue of liberty which is now open for visitors!! there is a rail link that leads directly to it... I'll have to create some kind of signposting for people...

here's a rather so-so skin I've done for Dr House.. its not the best, but it's passable [to save it, click it to link to the proper picture of it... then right click that picture and choose save as]

Shh I'm resting...

Been on the back-burner recently, as well as doing some work on 'skins'

Other than that, nothing much from me, the forums have been a little quiet except for a few crash reports and a resurgence of Mincraft fanboys once again letting the Manic Digger community know just how shoddy the game we play is and the fact it is 'nothing more than a direct rip-off' of their much loved game.. ho hum.

My skinning / texture contest only has 4 days more and as yet, no entry's (other than my own)

Just to remind folk, the main aim of this contest is to replace the default (comes with the game...) terrain.png in doing so we will be one step further away from the 'Minecraft' that we are so called copying in exact detail, so come on folks! step up, grind a couple hours in your chosen picture editor and enter your own !!!

La... .. ...ag

Been getting some bad lag recently, so while I can't connect to MP I've been busy doing more skins,

On a related note..

here is the Mario skin.. I forgot t add it to the Mario post!

(remember: use the right click / save 'target' as ... to save these skins!)


And here is the Mario style tileset ... warning! its quite bright!

The Russians are coming!

well there has been more and more activity from our Eastern European counterparts, and in some small celebration of this, and in part because of this nifty flash video that Weeble had made, and which I happen to enjoy ...

I went ahead and made a 'russian dancing men' skin

feel free to download this (or any other skin/texture on my blog..)

Nothing like watching a beautiful sunset...

Well I'm blown away by this little sudden and unexpected update!!! nite and day was a great step, now there is a sun and a moon which fly accross the sky, and SO many updates it's silly!!

to name a few:

• persistant settings
• server side graphics
• more options in the ingame menu

And much more besides, not only that but this all comes from exe!!! he's still a one man band and is playing a tune that I like!

Once I catch my breath.. I'll make a proper post about this turn of events, until then

you know what to do people >>

Catch up..

Here's some pictures I'd found which I'd forgotten to share! mostly from Sonidarc's Server, and the Giant 'hour-glass' build which I did only the other day on exe creative 5

It'sa me Mario!

In keeping with my currently ongoing 'texture competition' I have been tinkering more than ever with textures, and skins..

here's a little taster of one I have brewing, like a spaghetti meat-a-balla..

I'm just working out the 'mine-cart tracks' .. but I'm very happy with this homage to 8-bit greatness!

Home of the brave and the land of the free (game!!)

Some serious renovation on the castle, and an all new 'feature' (you'll have to visit to find out what...) I helped out Tacobuilder on a joint effort build.. and not a small one..

Here's a view from the 'foot' looking up, just for scale!!

Well.. that's that for today.. watch this space for more insanity :-)

Contest time!

To help the project forward a little I'm holding a contest, the end result (with exe's blessing...) will be a new default texture pack that is distributed with the game.

Enter now! Have your work take pride of place!!!

so, If you are graphically inclined, or just fancy having a go, step up to the mark and show us what you have!!!

Happy times.

Some things that are unmissable if you ever visit the 'exe creative' server...

I did a little work to finish the Awesome! face ... but I'm unsure who did the mineplayer build (complete with a house in the head) but whoever sis that, well done!

It's all Spooky-like!

Hello to HumbleDigger and MynameisChan, both great people to have on the 'allowed' side of the wall. Here is a video I took to show off the new night time and 'shadows' It just happens to focus on a castle that someone that also writes a blo.. oh hell who am I kidding.. I built it!! (Tacobuilder helped with the walls)

So .. enjoy that while I work more on the following

• organising some screen-shots of peoples builds..
• re-edit my spongebob skin .. needs some serious fixing
• new spartan skin!! (Arrooogh Arroogh!)
• new texture pack (submission for 'default' textures)
• some more messing about building things!!!

Other than that, see you on the forums!

This just in..

And lo exe spake unto the blocky world and he said unto them... "let there be night!" and lo' t'was night...

Grab your torches folks, exe has seen fit to code in a 'night time' server rotation, meaning that if you are prone to spending a fair amount of time in game, it will at some point go spooky dark!

For this you will need:

• The latest download version (02.02.2011) which I for sake of continuity will call version 0.3d.. (for want of the correct version name...)
• You will need to go to the options in game and set "shadows" to "on"

Do that and then (unless your screen just goes black..) wait for night to fall!!!

Get it NOW!!!
>>

No skin off my back...

here's a couple of other's I'd neglected to share

Floating 'companion cube'

[EDIT: removed the jack skin for re-editing... some silly mistakes I need to take out / correct]

a 'jack' skin

Gimme some skin bro!

while I contemplate the server being up or down:

here's is an as yet unreleased Peter Griffin Skin

be sure to 'save target as' (or just open the picture in a new tab/window to right click - save as)
drop it in place and rename it as needed

enjoy.. eh-heheheh

oh, here is my 'nearly complete' Hi-res texture pack ... lets call this version 1 of the texture pack.

Still not 100% happy with this, and I've not even started to re-work the track, bust its pretty good as it stands.