Welcome Developers.

Finally I got this site up! What you can find here will be all the development information you could possibly want for Mercury. Right here I'll be putting various information. Below you can find the latest internal build for download. To the right we have my very own .plan, (which is like a development journal) and to the bottom right are some of the known issues with the current internal build.

The internal builds released below will not necessarily be the very newest in existence. Sometimes I compile versions that are broken or that I just don't need tested, and those won't be here. What you can expect to find is the latest build I need tested. Cool? Cool. :-)

-JHawkZZ

Mercury Audio Player is up to 1.21! Download it below.

Click here to download.

Wow, 1.21 took almost a full year to get released. Too long! I hope to have new versions of Mercury out more frequently when there are known issues. Sorry about the long wait. Like I've always said, there won't be frequent updates with new features, but hopefully refresh builds will still come out to keep Mercury competetive and bug free.

If you're wondering about the status of Metroid, well, it's done! I'm officially calling it Metroid PC, and as I stated on the front page, it and its website will be available soon. I'm REALLY glad to be done with it, because frankly it took 21 months to make, and I was starting to get tired of working on it :). Believe it or not Mercury didn't even take that long to make! I do consider it a greater achievment from a programming standpoint, however, because of the complexity of having to do graphics, sound, AI, gameplay all myself and all in software. Yes Mercury was complex, but it was mainly about using documented APIs and learning them. With Metroid it required a lot of research in order to get the enemies and gameplay correct, and it wasn't always easy. Then there was the aspect of making content! I had to piece together over 150 unique rooms! That's just crazy!! Oh, and I had to write the editor I used to MAKE those rooms! And the exporter I use to put together the game art! Yes, it ended up requiring two tools in addition to the game itself, so I'm just now breathing a sigh of relief over the whole thing.

So what's next you may ask? Well, that's exciting! First, I'd like to revamp this here website to breath some life into it. I LOVE the design, but it's lacking an easy way to post news, a forums section, and an easy way to get skins. How many of you even know about the Skin Vault? Probably the same amount of people that read this :).

I'm also working on Metroid PC's website, which has all the features I'd like this site to have, but looks horrid at the moment. That's the only reason it isn't available yet. Once I get it looking nice it'll be up here. Finally, I'd like to create like a central hub website, where I can post these things, maybe links to my other smaller projects, and then link Metroid and Mercury's sites. That's my dream, anyway. :)

On the programming front, I've already started my next project. It's funny how they all seem to start at the tail end of the previous project. I started Metroid just a couple months before finishing Mercury, and again with this new project it was started just a few weeks before finishing Metroid. So what is this new project? Dare I say? Oh why not!

My next project is a 3D Software Renderer I'm calling Corona. Know two very important things:

1. By Software Renderer I mean I'm doing all the rendering myself. No Direct3D and no OpenGL. Think of it as how Quake 1 was.

2. It's named Corona for a cool Eurodance band of the same name, NOT for a faint ring surrounding a celestial body, NOT for a beer.

So far I have basic models rendering (not textured or clipped, mind you), but it's a great start. That's another reason I'd like that "central hub" website. I could discuss my 3d rendering progress more easily, and post screenshots and demos.

Thanks for reading my little post here. This page has been a great place for the past 2 years, and I'd really like to evolve it into a more prominent and lively place. Hopefully that can happen soon. Either way I'll be updating this a whole lot more now.

I'll see ya!

#1 - A few rare CD-Rs don't seem to work correctly in Mercury. 99% of CD-Rs do.