Zedlam: Formerly Scandere / Kula
Software's Voluntary Donations
I have been making programs distributed
on the Internet for free for over 23
years now. While most of those programs
also have had registered-only paid
versions, most by orders of (powers
of, factors of) 10, they were
used but never paid for, and usually
they never had to be. I only became
successful at writing software initially
due to an accidental bug in an early
version of ZR FileWorks
which caused it to eventually stop
working, and even reinstalling the
program would not make it work again.
I got orders of
hundreds, and emails from dozens of
people saying, "well I guess I
need to pay for it now. Great program,
BTW." What I mean by saying
this now is that my programs have never
been particularly difficult to steal or
to keep using for free for anyone with
little to no computer knowledge. That is
why I have always been particularly
grateful to those who did register one,
knowing many of them did not have to.
They just wanted to help me out for
making a particular program.
I have a number of
completely free
programs in the works as well
as non-time limited shareware games. I
am even developing smaller versions of
the new 2014 Cubix /
Smash games which people
should be able to play completely free
online right off off any web page, and
most likely they will be hosted here.
But I may pass those pages along too to
whoever might wish to host them.
I never thought of
the games primarily as a way to make
money and relatively speaking, they have
not made back the time and effort to
make them (yet) financially
speaking. These latest versions (the
2014 versions) took probably
literally thousands of hours over many
years (over 6 years) to make.
No real way to get those hours back.
But once on AOL, I came
across a chat room of people playing the
original "Cubix" game many
years ago. I had an early primitive
version of the "type in moves"
feature found in the newer 2014 versions
and I was surprised to see that people
were playing it online. It really sucks
that I was not able to make this new
version a completely play-online version
as planned (using Winsock and IP numbers,
I just ran out of time, and had to cut
that feature at the last minute).
But if enough people register these new
non-Internet integrated versions or instead donate
something at the bottom of this page
though no one really has too, I may be
able to add the online play options back
into these great games (check out the
videos if you think I am making
it up that they really are great
games) or to finish the web
versions to let people play levels
online for free.
I think those who
played the original "Cubix" or "The
Wall" or "Tetrix" games
(2
out of 3 of them can be "spotted" in
the picture above) of even just
a single level and basically only one
game on it, they were a little bit
smarter or had a few more brain synapses
working a little bit better for having
played it, at least if they got good at
it. Because when they looked at the
levels, they did not just see lines and
squares and cubes (or triangles, the
triangular levels were always
cool). They saw 3
dimensional patterns of moves,
strategies, and ways to beat the
computer, or to beat others, in those
visual 3D patterns.
The early games
were, and these new ones are, not
difficult games to play, but you need to
think a bit harder and try see and
understand the patterns, even in 2D, to
do well at it. And it is a hell of lot
harder to see immediately or quickly the
patterns, strategies, or ways, to win in
the 4D levels.
The 3D levels still are probably for
most, just about difficult enough
without having to strain the brain too
much to understand them. But the more
difficult and the easier levels are also
there in some fashion in most other
versions as well. The patterns, the
moves, the strategies, they are there to
be seen. And those people who get good
at playing these games, in addition to
having a little fun hopefully, they need
to make their brains work a bit harder
to master them, and that may help them
out later to think a little bit better,
or to see and understand the patterns
all around us a little bit more easily.
That, or at least
thinking that, is why I continued to
make and improve the games long past
when I got any money from making them.
And maybe why I still might even
continue to do so, as much as I am
financially able to, even if no one pays
for these new games. As I told my sister
just a few days ago about the long hours
I put in making them without knowing if
I would even be able to just finish
making them, if someone pays for them it
will have been worth it. For the reasons
I just stated above, I said even if no
one pays for them and I just get to
finally release them so that people can
play them, I said I still think it would
have been to worth it (though
I am still hoping some people will pay
for ones).
If not, for those
who think even $10 is overpriced but
that the games are nice, or maybe just
don't have the money to buy one now, or
perhaps don't have a Windows computer to
play them on, but would like the other
better planned versions to be released
sooner (or possibly ever, things are
precarious for me right now),
they now too can help out a little if
they wish via a PayPal donate
button below. Mahalo for those
who do or might. Keep getting smarter or
better, or at least never stop trying to
get a little bit smarter, or a little
bit better.
Help
for the new games is here.
You can donate
something to help me by using the
Paypal
button below. And
many thanks to you if you do or did. The
yet-to-be-made versions are always to me
the best even though they technically
don't exist (yet). Much
appreciation for those who helped me or
will, to make them exist, in the past or
hopefully, still in the future.