Random Crossfire preview Thu Mar 11 20:40:08 PST 2010 Well work continues behind the scenes on a number of projects. Seeing as Dungeons has been received fairly well I thought I would preview one of the upcoming units for the next expansion: The Skitterling Bile Priest is quickly turning into a popular unit. It deals aura damage, which is like range 2 polearm damage except it hurts both sides. Units that deal aura damage are understandably cheaper, and so this has become a nice cheap range 2 option for the skitterlings, who generally were missing out on any sort of range 2 anything. The evil Bile Priests are masters of poison and disease, working to infect all around them. They are both respected and feared within skitterling society. The Bile Priests work on developing many of the poisons used by the Venomblades. Also coming in Crossfire: Heroes are going to be the hero units (of course), a new free army, two more single player campaigns, an expanded dungeon game, multiplayer co-op and more. ~ Random

Random Crossfire: Dungeons tutorial Wed Feb 03 11:16:32 PST 2010 The Tutorial for Crossfire should now be working in the game. The Tutorial only covers the basics of how to play. Advanced features like Block, Dodge, damage over time attacks, damage type, resistances, Aura units, Hero powers, items and more may be covered in an advanced tutorial at a later time. ~ Random

Random Crossfire: Dungeons multiplayer Tue Feb 02 17:47:04 PST 2010 Had fun chatting with several people on Tuesday night. I will try and be on again on Tuesday night next week. Look forward to seeing you there. ~ Random

Random A picture says a thousand words Mon Feb 01 20:40:53 PST 2010 In this case the words include: This game will never be made. This game does not exist. Don't get your hopes up. This game is never going to be finished. Etc. Discuss. ~ Random

Random Multiplayer Fixed Wed Jan 27 08:18:45 PST 2010 The server side socket issue has been resolved. All of our multiplayer features are working again. Thanks for your patience. ~ Random

Sarfin Multiplayer Support Tue Jan 26 12:51:57 PST 2010 Our hosting service recently updated their operating system, and as a result our socket support is temporarily down. Rest assured we are working on the issue, and it will be resolved as soon as possible.

Random Crossfire: Dungeons Sat Jan 23 12:39:35 PST 2010 Hello again Random Thoughts users. We are happy to announce the release of the next Crossfire expansion today, Crossfire Dungeons. There are many new features for this newest incarnation. - Added a new race, the Skitterlings. - Added 11 new units. - Added the Dungeon Game mode - Added terrain to most maps - Added terrain walking abilities to some units. - Added damage types and damage resistances to some units. - Added piece sliding animations to moves. - Added better spark animations to many actions. - Added treasure which can be picked up on the battlefield to increase score. - Added new high score tables for the new modes. - Added the ability to save and load an army from the army management screen. - Added more tips in the "Wait for player" multiplayer screen. - Added four new musical tracks, including a saurian track for their campaign and several new dungeon tracks. - Added sound effects for many actions. - Added Block, Dodge, and Accuracy unit abilities to deepen army building strategy and tactics. - Improved the army logo shields. Each army now has a specific flavor logo. - Improved the pre-built army select screens. - Changed the 15 pre-built armies so the new defaults take better advantage of the new mechanics. - Improved the fog of war art. - Improved the movement area art. - Changed the interface for attacking units. Hand to hand units will now stand and attack if you click on an adjacent enemy, just like ranged units. - Added the ability for units to block enemy unit moving. "Warrior jumping" as a strategy is now over. - Improved the character detail display on the battle screen. - Improved the army thumbnail bar along the bottom of the screen. - Changed the unit thumbnail selection box in the upper right corner of the army builder screen to make it easier to build your army from there. - Added four enemy "boss" characters. These are Heroes for the upcoming Heroes expansion, but you can't use them as players yet. - Changed unit cost on most units. The formula now greatly increases the point cost for range 10 and range 2 units, while slightly discounting range 1 units. + Premium Members - you can now play as the skitterlings in the Dungeon game or in any of the multiplayer modes. There is no pre-built skitterling army, so you will have to build one from scratch in multiplayer. And a few parting notes. First, the Tutorial and Cooperative Multiplayer features are still being tested, and so are currently locked out. Second, for people that complained that undead were simply underpowered in the Northern Campaigns, the army has been re-worked to be more effective. I think you will be pleased. Third, the addition of terrain to the single player campaigns gives them more variety than before, a common complaint I heard. Also, there is more to come. The next expansion, Heroes, is probably about 6 months away and will finally add these powerful units to all armies. I'll try and be around as much as possible over the next few weeks to grab feedback while I work on finishing the design document for the next expansion. Enjoy! ~ Random

Sarfin 30.08.31 Forgotten Planet Update Mon Aug 31 19:22:48 PDT 2009 Targeting is now implemented. Only one final step until we can begin to rid the world of those pesky deer. Step through available targets with tab and shift-tab (as you probably assumed) or by clicking on the desired target from the mini-map. Also, the bug that was causing some 64 bit Vista users to be unable to view the game has been resolved. If you have had trouble loading Forgotten Planet in the past, please try again to make sure it is working for you. Quick link: Forgotten Planet PS: RIP Marvel Comics... ~Sarfin

Random More Crossfire Mon Aug 31 02:17:03 PDT 2009 We were adding so much to the new Crossfire:Heroes expansion that the project was getting out of control. To try and keep each expansion more of a manageable increase in gameplay features we have decided to split the Crossfire:Heroes expansion into two expansions. The first half is nearing completion, and should be done by the end of September (stranger things have happened). I'm really pleased with how the project is shaping up. You can barely recognize the first game in the incarnation I'm playing now. Of course the new expansion will add more units to the game. But there's more! The next expansion will also introduce the Skitterling race. These vile ratmen are masters of poison. They will mostly make an appearance as npc enemies. There will not be a new campaign added, but the old campaigns have undergone some serious improvements. Here is a teaser of one of the new dwarf units that everyone is soon going to love to hate: The stalwart Dwarven Defender is a melee specialist designed to hold the frontline against superior forces just long enough for the damage dealers to win the day. ~ Random

Random Crossfire changes to come Mon Aug 24 00:09:54 PDT 2009 Well, I've gathered a lot of feedback from players of the latest Crossfire expansion. One change being made is to unit cost... every unit had its cost (and/or abilities) altered slightly for the next expansion. I have implemented the Dodge ability, although it is changed a little from the original idea posted in the forums. It will allow a unit out of line of sight to dodge the first enemy range attack per turn. This still ends up being a pretty big deal. Perhaps one of the largest changes though is the addition of terrain. PvP will now take place on a random map. Here is a quick shot of one of the first maps to be finished: The lanes of advance have been shrunk to the two bridges. A great place to stall a superior force. The water is impassable. Each map will present its own gameplay challenge to both sides. ~ Random

Sarfin 30.07.09 Forgotten Planet Update Thu Jul 30 16:24:00 PDT 2009 The groundwork for the Forgotten Planet multiplayer has now been laid, and the chat interface is implemented. Check it out at www.randomthoughts.net/games/forgotten

Sarfin Updates Mon Jul 20 10:45:31 PDT 2009 Memory Issues As of Java version 1.6 update 10 it has finally become possible to increase the Java Virtual Machine heap memory from our end. I have gone through the majority of our games and made the necessary updates throughout the site. - You should now be able to play every game from our library sequentially without memory issues. - Games that occasionally would error out should never do so. (well, when it's a memory issue at any rate) Note that you will need to be running at least java version 1.6.0_10 for this to work. If you are running an older version you will not notice any changes. Forgotten Planet The following updates and changes were made to Forgotten Planet. - Items are now in the game and are equippable from the character screen. - The 'Detail' button was removed. You can now right-click on your character's portrait to pull up the character screen. - Social button was added, but is not yet implemented in the online version. (It's what I'm currently working on) - New keyboard shortcuts 'C' and 'L' were added to give quick access to the character and lore screens.

Random Final Crossfire Tweaks Tue Jul 14 21:19:10 PDT 2009 A few final changes were uploaded for Crossfire: The Northern Campaigns today. - Memory issues should all be fixed. No more java heap space errors. - Reduced the number of AI archers on 22 of the campaign missions. - Greatly reduced the supply penalty for losing a mission. With the following changes the single player should have gotten easier. And the game shouldn't be crashing for anyone. Enjoy, ~ Random

Random Facebook Thu Jul 09 12:38:10 PDT 2009 A couple of updates today. First, the Crossfire expansion was added to our multiplayer games list. Not placing it there was an oversight on my part. Also, we now have a facebook page. Add it and spread word of us around :) We just want millions of fans... Random Thoughts Entertainment on Facebook ~ Random

Random Crossfire: The Northern Campaigns Patch Thu Jul 09 00:25:54 PDT 2009 Hey all. A minor patch to Crossfire: The Northern Campaigns was uploaded today. The changes include: - Fixed a bug where after you turned the sound off the sound would be turned back in when switching between campaigns in single player. - Fixed a bug where choosing to host a 1500 point unlimited game would give both sides 1000 points. - Fixed a problem where long user names would not crop when viewing the fame board. - Lowered overall memory usage slightly. Hopefully this will prevent memory out problems some people have been having in the single player campaigns (where the large map only shows black). - Increased redraw rate. This should have the custom cursor scrolling much more smoothly. Ups frame rate slightly. ++ Premium Only - Added more to the "Sneak Preview" section found in the Premium Campaigns menu. Check out the Crossfire expansion here: Crossfire: The Northern Campaigns ~ Random

Random New Expansion! Fri Jul 03 13:07:56 PDT 2009 Well the first expansion to Crossfire is finally here. Crossfire:The Northern Campaigns does quite a bit to enhance the basic game found in Crossfire. Check out the new expansion here: Here is a list of most of the new features: - Added 15 more units, 3 per side. - Greatly increased HP values from the first game. With units surviving more hits the tactics get more complex. - Reworked all stats and point values on all the original units. - Changed the game size up to 800x600. This means almost all of the artwork is now larger. - Increased the gameboard to 12x12 from 10x10. - Expanded the number of units an army can field from 15 up to 20. - Added 2 new base single player campaigns for a total of 3. - Significantly enhanced the AI's decision making and searching algorithms. - Added 150 new single player missions. I got a lot of feedback that there was not enough to the single player experience in the first game. This expansion is called the "Northern Campaigns" in part because I spent the most time working on enhancing the single player campaign experience. There are 102 missions for everyone, and another bonus 68 missions for Premium Members. - Added 3 endings per campaign, for 15 total. - Added a single player high score. - Added a strategy element to single player where you can build up supply points over the course of several missions. - Added the ability to build a custom army in the single player missions. - Expanded the auto save files for junior and premium members for single player missions. - Added a quick unit select box to the upper right corner of the army customization screen. - Added a Surrender button. - Added time clock to multiplayer matches. - Added ability to host 1500 point games. - Added 15 new pre-built armies for multiplayer. - Improved the graphic interface for the pre-built army screen. - Improved the art for the fog of war. - Improved the art for spaces you can move to. - Improved the unit list bar at the bottom of the game screen. - Improved the character readout on the battle screen. - Added HP bars that display on the units. - Added transparent shadows to the units. - Added spark animations when hitting or killing an enemy. - Improved art renders on several of the original units. - Added two new music tracks to the single player campaigns. - Improved the artwork for most menus. - Added a loading bar for in game loads. - Added 30 more hints to the "Waiting for Player" screen. + Premium Members: Added the ability to host 2000 point games. + Premium Members: Added 1 more locked campaign, for a total of 2. (68 total missions) + Premium Members: Added a small sneak preview link in the Premium Menu. + Premium Members: Added three more undead units. Only premium members can use the undead army in multiplayer. And I'm only calling it an expansion. Also, I KNOW the undead campaign, which is only for premium members, is very difficult. This is by design. It is intended to represent a challenge for veteran players. Enjoy! ~ Random

Sarfin Forgotten Planet Update Sun Jun 21 07:42:46 PDT 2009 Forgotten Planet continues to see updates. There is now a context sensitive action menu that appears when you have anything targeted. You widen of narrow the list of skills that are included in the menu by selecting lorebooks from your bookshelf. I am now working on getting some equipment in the game, along with the ability to target objects other than yourself. This will lead to actual gameplay! Expect a breakdown of the new interface soon...

Random The first expansion is nearly here Thu Jun 18 22:43:29 PDT 2009 While I was hoping for an expansion every three months to our new multiplayer fantasy game crossfire, life interrupted my plans. Now six months later, but the expansion is coming along very nicely. I'm taking a week and driving down to visit Lucky while we put the final touches on this. In any case, he just finished the new title screen, and I thought you would all appreciate this very small sneak peak. I hear there will be another Forgotten Planet update soon, and something resembling a real game is just around the corner for that project. Stay tuned. ~ Random

Random Updates Thu Jun 04 17:04:36 PDT 2009 Hey all. First off, Sarfin has made a lot of updates to Forgotten Planet, and they are online, he just seems to have forgotten to make a news post about it. We've had some behind the scenes turmoil but work continues. Mercs Expansion, the next Crossfire Expansion, Cave Quest, Rex Episode III and Privateer have all been on my work plate the last few months. I hope to have a new game for you next week. ~ Random

Sarfin Updates and other things.. Wed Mar 25 13:53:51 PST 2009 First, the updates. The bug that caused the duplication of select skills in Avatar quest has been fixed. Either RT mail me or send me an email if you have duplicate skills, and I will manually buy them back. Avatar quest turn generation bug fixed. Resizing bugs were fixed in our multiplayer engine. This applies primarily to Red Phoenix: Helix and Crossfire. Red Phoenix: Helix was made easier by adding three hits before the ship is destroyed. You can also replenish lost hull strength by collecting green powerups. (previously were score boosts) I said in my last post that I would talk about the event that delayed Hexagon Conundrum. I think enough time has passed that I can talk about it a bit. In February my Dad suffered a massive heart attack that caused him to go without proper blood circulation for nearly 20 minutes while paramedics tried unsuccessfully to revive him. Although the surgeons at the hospital were able to repair the clogged artery and get his heart beating again, 20 minutes without oxygen to the brain is rather serious. So... after a week in a coma, he passed away. Obviously I was tied up in the regular activities following this event, to say nothing of my emotional state. I am now back to working on Random Thoughts pretty much daily, and I apologize for delayes, but I think you can all understand... ~ Sarfin

Sarfin Hegagon Conundrum Sat Mar 07 15:27:25 PST 2009 My Mother was perusing our website the other day and was complaining about our lack of puzzle games. My initial reaction to this was to respond that we had LOTS of puzzle games and leave it at that. Upon reflection however I realized that Jigsaw Conundrum is a timed game, and therefore appealed to a different crowd. Further, Frog Stones and Frog Cloning are both versus the computer or another player so, being competitive are more strategy games. Horrified, it occurred to me that Orbs also is a versus game. So I began building a puzzle game, and should have been done several weeks ago, but the process was drastically slowed down due to issues which I will talk about in my next post. I am happy to say that Hexagon Conundrum is now complete and has been added to the games page. ~Sarfin

Sarfin Avatar Quest Update Mon Feb 02 17:26:38 PST 2009 A partial update was applied to the Avatar Quest system today. This is listed as a partial update because several changes were made to the underlying mechanics and we need to be sure everything is working properly before we build additional gameplay elements on top of the system. The new updates include: 1) Gradual turn generation, where premium members and junior members receive 1 turn per hour and 1 turn every other hour respectively. 2) Similarly, daily healing occurs gradually over the course of the day. Junior members will heal 100% if 24 hours (as normal) and premium members will heal 100% in 12 hours. 3) Due to the change in turn generation junior members now have 2 more turns per day, and premium members now have 4 more turns per day. 4) Unused turns now carry over to a maximum of 30 turns for junior members and 100 turns for premium members. 5) Passing is no longer an option. The addition of passing to the game broke, not only the artificial intelligence system, but the Sorcerer class as well. It has been removed for the foreseeable future. 6) The skill level threshold to unlock new skills has been dropped to 8. Although we hope there will be no problems, many of these changes required some significant modifications to our server code. You should keep your eye out for aberrant behavior, such as turns not being applied properly, skills not being given, or skills being duplicated. To make error easier to spot, here is a complete skill tree:

Random A new letterhead for the year. Fri Jan 30 22:35:50 PST 2009 As part of our excitement over our tenth year, we decided to change our logo for the year. The "wish you were here..." while still true, has been replaced by "Celebrating Ten Years". We still plan on making this the best year we have ever had. I think we are off to a good start with two games for January. More to come. ~ Random

Sarfin Red Phoenix: Helix Wed Jan 28 20:32:48 PST 2009 A new multiplayer game has been added to our games section. This is a semi-sequel to our classic game, Red Phoenix. The game mechanics have changed a bit to better support a two player mode, but otherwise plays much like the original. There are three gameplay modes: - Solo for practicing. - Cooperative, where the score is split between the two players. - Versus, where winner takes all. In all play modes, if a player dies the game is over. Check it out here.

Random Crossfire Updates Fri Jan 09 02:07:50 PST 2009 Well, the first day of release went well for Crossfire. Still, as always, once the public gets their teeth into something inevitably something is found that was missed. So, after the first day the following changes were made: - Fixed a logic bug where sometimes one or both players would freeze on the "Enemy Deployment" phase. Hopefully this one is gone for good. - Changed 50 turn limit option to 40 turn limit option. - Fixed a rare crash bug when going to the "Retreat!" screen when someone you are playing against disconnects from the game. - Changed it so that enemy units have a red box drawn underneath them on the opponent's turn. When both sides used all of the same unit it could be hard to tell what was going on while the other player moved. - Fixed the Race Counter. From now on the game will track what race you use the most in multiplayer, and display that race next to your fame board listing. Previously this was only listing the race you had last played. - Fixed a bug where the player who wasn't hosting and deployed at the "top" of the map could deploy multiple units to the same square. You are no longer able to "hide" an invincible archer. - Changed several point values to make "archer spam" slightly less effective. Elf Reapers and Saurian Spearmen both went down in value, while Skeleton Bowmen and Saurian Scouts both went up in value. - Changed several "Premade" army selections for both 500 and 1000 point armies to offer more optimized default selections given the new point values. - Added several more "Did you know?" help tips to the "Waiting for Player" screen. Check out Crossfire here: Enjoy, ~ Random

Random New Game! Crossfire. Thu Jan 08 08:31:02 PST 2009 Welcome again to our 10th year. We are kicking 2009 off with a bang. Today we have released Crossfire. Check it out here: This game offers our most stable multiplayer experience yet, as well as an integrated chat. Simple yet addictive game play should give you plenty of options as you customize the fantasy force of your choosing. There is also a fame board, so you can see how you are ranking against other players in the multiplayer. I know its not mercs. But it is a little something to start the year off. We hope to have much more for you in the coming year. Enjoy, ~ Random

Random Happy New Year from Random Thoughts Thu Jan 01 12:00:06 PST 2009 Happy New Year all! Welcome to 2009. I thought it would be great to start the new year with both a look back and a look ahead. In 2008 we ended up releasing 5 games: January 2008 - Avatar Quest February 2008 - Orbs March 2008 - Rex Adventures Episode II October 2008 - Flight of the Frog November 2008 - Fang Arena Along with several "mini-games" in the Lounge. We all wanted to have the Mercenaries Expansion finished, but otherwise not a bad year. Our top year was 2002 when we released 6 titles... including several RPGs. I plan on us surpassing our 2002 record here in 2009. This site started back in 1999, so this is the beginning of our tenth year. Everyone at the team wants to make this the best year ever in our history. Generally we are going to try and offer more titles that offer multiplayer or use our new 3D engine. There are quite a few titles in the works. Our biggest release this year should be the Mercs Expansion, and there is another major update to the demo that is on its way. Also this year I plan on releasing Rex the Red Adventures Episode III, completing the trilogy. I'm hoping we can mostly clear out our Lab this year, but we will have to wait and see how things go. For those of you who have been around since the start, or for those that have found us over the years - thanks for staying with us! We are committed to bringing you the best java games on the internet. Happy New Year! ~ Random

Random Happy Thanksgiving! Thu Nov 27 13:33:13 PST 2008 Hey Random Thoughts fans, We at the team just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Also, another quick preview. Rest assured, not all of our new characters are female. Another new Tier 1 mercenary is the Elven Warrior: Elves had been seen in mercenary parties before, but normally just the apprentice wizards who sought knowledge of the world abroad. But as the ancient magics of the Crobas Jungle have been awakened, the elves are leaving their sleepy homeland of Thalasirmon and venturing into the world in larger numbers. What the larger elven plan is can only be guessed at by the strategists in Calidia, but the growing Tailent threat may be able to bring the old allies together. Elven Warriors are a Tier 1 mercenary available to all players who play the expansion (free and premium). Elven Warriors have access to unique gear. They are frontline fighters, although they come with lower blood and slightly higher stats than the Recruit. Elven Warriors may not be a choice for every party, but they will allow discerning generals to have another option when building that perfect low level party. ~ Random

Random Fang Arena is finished Tue Oct 28 14:47:48 PST 2008 Another happy day where one of our Lab games has graduated to the games page. Fang Arena, which is the very first Java game for one of our newer team members is now finished. I think it compares favorably to Rex the Red 2 (my first) and Fatman (Sarfin's first) for Java game attempts. Check it out on our games page or click on this preview Image: Also, work on the Mercs Expansion continues. It is taking longer than we hoped, but the final product is shaping up nicely. These things happen in development. Sarfin and I talked, and we have decided to split our time for about a month between mercs and a few of our almost finished products, just so that you have some new content to play around with while the long wait for mercs continues. Look for another game or two and an Avatar Quest update in the coming weeks. I'm open to listening to feedback from our users as well. Would you like us to spend more time getting out a few of our other games that are close (like Cave Quest) or would you rather we spend as much time as possible on Mercs with fewer new games in the interim so that Mercs is out quicker? Enjoy, ~ Random

Sarfin A few new items.. Mon Oct 20 11:14:51 PDT 2008 First, as several of you have noticed there is a new "hat colored" rectangle under the "Avatar Quest" button. This is our new multiplayer tracker. If there is anyone logged into one of our multiplayer games the game will appear on the list along with the number of current players. As an added bonus, you can click on the game in the box to quickly link to the game you want to join. The games currently supported are: RT Inn: The Random Thoughts Inn, obviously TK: Treasure Keeper frogstones: Frog Stones FotF: Flight of the Frog Occasionally a game will come up that isn't on the list... this means Random or myself is testing something... either upgrades to the multiplayer system or a new game. Additionally this little Applet opens the door for a more thorough tracking system. Once it is on all of our pages and server side support has been added we will be able to display how many users are online and where they are on the site.... something that has been requested on several occasions. Second, we have updated the user accounts a bit. If you click on the "Members" link, you will see a new "Website Options" button. (Assuming you are logged in) These new options include fullscreen preference (when a game supports it), personal or favorite web page (for random links through our Links section), and upcoming parental controls (not yet implemented). Although this section was done some time ago, I forgot to post a news item. Third, the single player mode of Flight of the Frog has been completed and added to our games page. This version includes a new "competitive cooperative" mode where two players can play the game together but with separate scoring. Although working, the multiplayer has not been tested to my satisfaction yet, so it's listed as still in beta. Permissions for multiplayer work similarly to the Inn, where anyone can play, but a Premium member is required to actually start a game. (being real-time, this game is nasty to our bandwidth) Fourth and lastly, it appears that Avatar Quest is the popular choice for what I should spend my time on. (in addition to the Mercs expansion) There still seems to be some debate on whether there should be an experience reset, however. I will be starting a separate thread to address this. ~ Sarfin

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