Journal

There are many different ways to play F-Zero GX, Max Speed, Snaking, Spaceflying, and then sub categories with additional rules and restrictions, but for the most part Max Speed with side attacks and Snaking are the main playstyles for the official time attack ladder. I don't think trying to compare Max Speed and Snaking is useful in the sense that they aren't competing for the same thing, we can analyze what the differences are between the playstyles and on a few courses with shift boost heavy strategies the times can be close and that's fun to compare but overall they are both their own category and most people only main one playstyle, a rare exception was CGN who mastered all playstyles and myself, but I don't really play for the ladders, most of my runs are for the random spreadsheets with different restrictions.

Why did snaking die? I'm not entirely sure besides it's just too different than normal racing and it just didn't appeal to players but for me I loved it. Another factor is intensity of button pressing which if you play too much it will strain your hands, wrists, forearms, and if people want to be top players they most likely will play too much. This is also a factor in side attack spamming for max speed. Certain courses the 1st lap is non-stop MTS into side attack spamming, I made the decision to play no side attacks because of that.

Snaking (sometimes referred to as Dakou) is a technique enabled by playing on a higher acceleration setting. It doesn't have to be set to 0% and varies by machine, which is why the Max Speed category stuck with the 100% setting to ensure snaking couldn't be used for that playstyle. Even then, some controversial snaking speeds occurred with Quick Star-G4, but it's essentially a non-factor. Going deeper into the weeds of GX machine stats, understanding why machines can snake at certain settings requires reviewing how all of the individual machine data factors contribute to overall performance.

The 3 principles of snaking:

• Strides
• Lines
• MT (gas off)

To reach the highest speeds possible you need to do these 3 things in harmony, otherwise your snaking will be inefficient and weak.

Strides are dependent on course design, stride length is restricted in many places because snaking with gas on gets slowed down if the surface isn't flat. For a stride to be good it often requires the full width of the track, wall to wall, or the maximum distance of allowed surface area that can be snaked without dropping speed. On very wide courses you won't be going wall to wall but that's just a few circumstances throughout all the courses. In the early days this is what impressed me with Mitani, such wide and powerful strides, very difficult to snake with that much precision every stride.

Lines can be strict with snaking and they are often so essential to the stride that if your lines are short that your stride won't make it past the corner and you have to do a mini stride to correct your movement, but if you have to do that your time attack run is over and you have to restart. Lines can be counted, it's an invisible pattern only snakers can see, on Mute City Twist Road the opening lines require the third stride to the right to clear the turn and get the hidden shift boost, if you're 1,2,3 strides are too short, your 3rd right will fall short, these strides are measured and have very little room for inefficient strides. Other courses that are less popular in snaking are the courses with not much flat surface snaking and this is where the lines become extremely strict, go outside of the allowed line and your snaking stride will drop speed.

MT is how you bypass the restricted snaking surfaces that aren't flat, and interestingly snaking in the MT state holds the speed retention better than just driving straight, this is utilized throughout many courses. One of the most technical courses to snake is Green Plant Spiral, I personally didn't put enough time into it to maximize my strides, it's a longer learning curve to study and get that muscle memory of stride and line perfection where it's on and off with MT here. BattleStream's snaking run on GPS is a masterpiece of all 3 essential snaking movements perfected, the speeds acquired and held are just outstanding throughout the entire course, if you try snaking it for yourself the course will humble you quickly and you won't even get within 30 seconds of BattleStream.

Snaking strides can also easily be broken with sloppy inputs, this happens to me more than I would like, if you aren't precise with your stride transitions you will get a dud stride that breaks your stride and you lose all momentum.

The snaking ladder had a handful of players early on, at least the first few years but then only a few top players remained snaking, CGN became the champion with insane runs and innovated many strategies, then as years went on BattleStream continued to snake and overtook CGN and now has a full 3lap WR sweep, and my personal opinion these are the best runs in GX, no one will ever beat BattleStream on any course, the runs are so high level and perfected that it's unlikely anyone will even attempt to beat any of those times. I managed to sneak in 1 FLAP WR on LLC because of a lucky explosive finish that is very low odds, but my strides and speeds do not match BattleStream's there and it took a lottery finish to get the FLAP WR.

There is a huge difference between using side attacks and not, side attacks will always be faster and it enables you to build up speed to do things you can't without using side attacks. This was unfortunately something that set back GX ladders early on as there was a split of how players wanted to play the game, side attacks were also seen as a threat to destroy the game with techniques like HSSA but that was so severe that even the Max Speed side attack ladder banned turbo controllers, but could you do it as a human? Kind of but checkpoint skipping is banned in Max Speed ladder so that is another safeguard against its use. I personally didn't want to spam side attacks so I stopped competing on the Max Speed ladder, it took many years but eventually other side ladders were created, why there couldn't be both ladders I have no idea, huge mistake by the community back then, I think it could have been partly due to the infinite ladder problem with GX having so many different ways to play the game, but with additional spreadsheets created over the years now there are spreadsheets for any way you want to play the game so it can be tracked.

Is using side attacks more difficult? This is probably subjective, while both are Max Speed 100% they require different types of skill and techniques. Spamming MTS into side attack is a skilled tech and can put the player into very difficult positions to execute this technique. For no side attacks the opener is about maximum precision and speed acquired with edge of zippers and finesse, this is exemplified on courses like MCSO with Fat Shark, it's the subtle mastering of movements that is the challenge, meanwhile the opener with using side attacks is mayhem of MTS chaining, both are their own challenge. For me personally I enjoy seeing the perfection of non side attack play, Brave's MCSO is controlled perfection, it's become a lost art in GX as the top players now use side attacks for the top times. There are some courses where side attacks aren't used or barely used such as SOLS or pipe tracks, this is Fat Shark territory. On courses like Aeropolis Multiplex I can say for sure side attacks make that course easier on the opener, there is a hidden shift boost after the first zipper which requires an exact speed after an MTS and it's just so difficult to get it, but with side attacks you just use the jump pad and side attack past it and the MTS into shift boost before the drop is also easier with side attacks so sometimes side attacks bypass precise requirements non side attack driving has to perform and in this case get you out of lap 1 jail on Multiplex much easier. On other courses like LLC and LTR side attacks will be your obstacle as it is much easier to drive those without doing MTS side attack chaining.

GX is not a balanced game and I like that it isn't. With the best original machine being Fat Shark, which made GX so much cooler with how op it is on certain courses and then at the bottom are trash tier garbage machines that have almost nothing at all going for them and those are fun to use for that reason. Custom machines have this range as well, you can even create machines that are unable to turn like the special named machine Nightmare, and also gave us the ability to create a lightweight spaceflying machine, Speedy Dragon. For me personally using all of the machines is the most fun way to play the game and come up with new strategies with all of the machines on every course. Machines you thought were bad might have a few courses where it excels because of its attributes, usually being heavy, but sometimes being light has its advantages such as the PTAD shortcut flight, now the light machines can do something the heavy ones can't. The Machines vs Staff Ghosts spreadsheet is getting stronger over time now that runs have been beaten several times over and players like Skivekt have taken original machine runs to the next level, beating staff ghosts with machines you wouldn't think would be possible and innovating new strategies such as the MTRS into aerial glide spiral skip on GPS which is difficult to execute properly but saves so much time. There is still much more to do with all the original machines and every new beaten time will become a greater and greater challenge.

Wild Goose - The superman problem. What happens when you make a character the best at everything and it's invincible, now we have a game of 99 supermans, and if you are not a Goose you pay the price of being glorped. Goose does have kryptonite and it's dead lobbies, it's generally not a good pick for empty lobbies with no skyways and if you join a lobby with all pro Stingrays you will probably lose but that is an edge case. The main lobby people play is the 959 Grand Prix and that's where Goose is the best because of its defense. The interactions between all the players in these races is the most difficult aspect of stacked lobbies and Goose is practically immune to all collisions, it's a rare occasion where you take a hit that impacts Goose. Not only does Goose have the best defense, it also has the faster spin cooldown and essentially the fastest boost, I actually think based on gameplay Goose ends up with the fastest boost because Goose deflects front bump knockbacks really well, while boosting with the other machines you can boost and get pushed backwards a lot. So Goose is the best at defense by infinity, best at boosting in traffic, best energy management system, best at collecting sparks and can hold a skyway easy when needed, so basically it's the best at almost everything once there are other players in a lobby. Goose is probably the most overpowered character I've seen in an online game, like it's day and night between using Goose and any other machine, there is almost no downside to being Goose, and if there are benefits to being a different machine it requires the player to be extremely good to be able to take advantage of those traits, such as Fox and Falcon have better zipper speed so it is useful on MC4 but you still see Geese force their way into the top 10. For these reasons I mostly don't use Goose because it's just more fun for me to struggle using the other machines but sometimes I do need to feel the power of Goose again, it's unreal, completely different game with Goose. Goose op nerf Goose.

Fire Stingray - The king of dead lobbies and Secret GP. I'm personally highly inconsistent with Stingray because of its traits, openers and getting left behind is all too common for me and in a dead lobby the best opener basically wins, unless you have to intentionally bag for skyway, but even then the objective is to be as forward as possible while getting sparks because if you get sparks in the very back the people who got sparks ahead of you will still be ahead of you and there is no 2nd skyway in smaller lobbies. Stingray has a lot going for it but you also have to be crazy good at handling collisions because you can get shoved into a wall and it's gg in one hit, for some reason even in dead lobbies I get super glorped just by a random collision and then there are no other players coming from behind so you have to boost to recover but you already probably lost after that hit. Overall Stingray is good, but I think it has the highest skill requirements to use it well because of its wide turning and lack of agility you have to take angles and do wall bonks and if those get denied you are in big trouble. Stingray does have Stingray specialist courses though, courses with a lot of spark plates or longer courses give Stingray the advantage on those, but you still need to breakaway from the pack to utilize Stingray's top speed.

Golden Fox - There are very few Fox players remaining, mostly in Japan at this point as the rest of them didn't survive Ver 1.3. Fox is highly prone to crashing out, you cannot make errors with fox, you need to RTS very well and somehow avoid bad glorps, get netcode lucky or use steer assist. Fox can perform very well, it is a highly versatile machine that if played perfectly can even be the best on courses but no one is playing at that level to accomplish that consistently. The closest to Fox perfection is Mr. Angelo using steer assist, from what I've seen he has the best overall outcomes I've seen of any Fox player since Ver 1.3 was released and also Netoa who actually did achieve perfection recently with a 1000 point GP so just be the best player in the world then you can use Fox, and even Netoa crashes out and gets screwed a lot while using Fox so you have to deal with the highs and lows of being a Fox and expect many crash outs, but if you can perfect RTS with Fox then you can be deadly.

Blue Falcon - Falcon feels great until you get touched once at all, the front bump knockbacks are jarring, massive slowdown, lose a ton of energy in the pack while not picking up sparks, boost in the pack and still get hammered and barely move, I spin while boosting because the knockback is so bad. Falcon is good at cornering and zipper speed so on paper it's not so bad but once collisions are a factor I feel like I just have to hope I have a good netcode race, I can feel it, for some reason Falcon is fine, other races I get bashed around and my speed drops to under 400 and I can't move. Falcon also has some courses it's considered the worst at and requires a very good performance to place well, typically any course with a lot of spark plates this is a problem. With this machine you can do well still but you need to overcome a lot to do so, it's a flex if you win with Falcon, you have to outplay better machines.

Please note that the following theory is derived from my personal observation of collision behavior and should be treated as an unverified interpretation rather than proven functionality.

There are 4 main states a machine can be in:

• Neutral
• Positive
• Negative
• Boosting

Each of these states determine how interactions will affect your machine while you are in that state.

Neutral - When your machine is uninterrupted by collisions you are in a state of being highly prone to the first impact and that will determine which state your machine will inherit. This is why dead lobby glorps are so severe, isolated collisions have 100% effect on your machine. This is also determined by netcode and if what is happening is even real. Where the impact on your machine occurs determines which state your machine will inherit, front bumps and side collisions put your machine in a negative state, back bumps put your machine in a positive state. Your machine can return to a neutral state once your machine is uninterrupted.

Positive - Once your machine gets back bumped you get put into a positive state and the bump increases your speed, sometimes this isn't indicated on the speedometer, but the machine did get pushed forward. Once the machine is in a positive state its collisions are bypassed and you get a "float" effect where your machine can surf over the other machine without their interactions affecting the machine. While in a positive state your machine cannot transition into a negative state, the machine has to return to a neutral state again to determine which state it will inherit from the next collision. There is a duration of time you exist in a positive state and it can be continuous until it can freely expire and return to a neutral state. You can use spin attacks to increase your hitbox to attempt to get a back bump and enter a positive state, by doing this in a crowded area you can enter a float and surf over the dense pack of players.

Negative - Once your machine gets front bumped you get put into a negative state and you lose speed from the collision, sometimes the amount of speed isn't indicated on the speedometer, there is also displacement from front bumps, if you get front bumped while airborne you will be displaced and it might not show any loss of speed but you lose significant distance. Once your machine is put into a negative state it cannot transition into a positive state, the machine has to return to a neutral state again to determine which state it will inherit from the next collision. There is a duration of time you exist in a negative state and it can be continuous until it can freely expire and return to a neutral state.

Boosting - Using a boost clears whichever state you were in and puts the machine into a boost state which is a continuous state but not positive, the machine can experience front bumps while in a boost state and will be displaced backwards or at least not forward, the movement is halted but your machine will still be in a boost state until the boost expires and then returns to neutral.

Different states and the effects on spark collecting - There is a noticeable reduction in spark collection when in a boost state and dash plate, I am unable to determine if it's because of the state of the machine or the speed. Positive, negative, neutral states also seem to affect spark collecting, positive and neutral are good for spark collecting and negative it's as if you don't exist and all the machines around you steal all the sparks.

Each of the machines will experience these states but it is not equal.

Goose has the best defense and is the least affected by front bumps, you can still be put into a negative state as Goose but it's less likely. Goose responds well to back bumps so it is more likely to be put into a positive state from back bumps.

Stingray has the highest chance of getting put into a positive state float because back bumps project it forward so much, this is sometimes unwanted as you can be turn locked. The back bump into a float can be a critical maneuver at the beginning of the 1st lap, a float is worth more than several boosts and costs nothing.

Falcon is hit very hard by front bumps and it's damning, one of the most difficult aspects of using Falcon is trying to avoid front bumps which causes severe loss of speed, displacement, and potential to be put into negative state and swallowed by the pack. Falcon can be put into a positive state from back bumps, it's not as solid as Goose or Stingray but it can still happen. Falcon has expensive cost per boost so positioning is critical at all times to avoid collisions that could negatively affect the machine and be unable to boost out of it.

Fox mostly relies on being in a boost state and focusing on back bumps in more isolated positions rather than trying to get floats in a pack, which can still happen with Fox but the boost is the main source of Fox's positioning. The benefit of having many boosts is positioning flexibility and not getting trapped in a situation that could potentially put your machine in a negative state.

The meta for 99 has evolved over time with machine balance changes, additional courses, and special modes added to the game. Version 1.0 was most known for Fox being op, but there was a counter to Fox and it was Fox, it became a risk to play Fox if there were too many Foxes so what ended up happening is not a lot of people used Fox so the select few who did ended up getting free wins because there was no counter to the front run, at least at this time there wasn't because everyone was still bad at the game and spread apart so there was no pack of players creating consistent sparks so you would get your early skyway and then have to choose do you want to spend all of your energy trying to take out Fox or do you want to play safe and accept that you're no longer playing to win but to just survive. I personally lost interest in playing with Fox because it was just too easy to win, you didn't even have to play well and you would still win by just front running every time. It took some time but 6 months after the game was released Version 1.3 dropped with a Fox boost nerf that caused a Fox extinction, the funniest part about the nerf was Fox was still good and just needed 1 skyway into a front run now, but that was enough for almost every Fox player to migrate to a Goose. There was a real problem though, with mirror tracks being added in Version 1.3 this added Mirror Death Wind 1 which had spark plates that give speed and sparks which benefited the other machines more than Fox so now Fox for the first time had a course where it was considered the worst at.

Now with Fox extinct and mirror tracks added to the game the meta changed, with more zippers on tracks this meant Goose and Falcon didn't have to burn a boost on some turns and this was a huge benefit for them, and a good Fox could utilize this as well but it solved a different problem for Goose and Falcon, but for Stingray this was actually a nerf, since Stingray has the slowest zipper speed and jump pads don't increase Stingray's speed this left Stingray at a disadvantage on the mirror tracks with these extra features, but then as time went on in a later version 1.4, I don't think this was even listed on patch notes, but the spark plates got a buff and increased speed retention so there was now something Stingray was good at, which would come more into play later on.

Unrelated to the game itself the players were now getting better at the game and this had an impact on the meta, it was always the safest option to use Goose but now with more players on the same pace there was more collisions and sparks which produces more skyways so Goose at this point was best choice for the stacked lobbies and this was always true for the most stacked lobbies since 1.3, especially since Goose got a zipper buff and a spin cool down buff in that update. For people who don't play in the 959 lobbies you wouldn't think much of it but Goose in stacked lobbies is a different story.

Along with all the balance changes and mirror courses being added some other various changes got implemented like the 999 float skyway got removed and eventually so did the 999 yeet off the skyway, so there actually was a brief window where Falcon had some perks because Goose and Stingray couldn't do the 999 float and it was crazy good. Even then, people still used Goose because it's the safest play and the easiest to use, only a select few were Falcon mains because it was clearly an inferior machine in the earliest versions and it required the player to outplay everyone instead of just depending on the machine to win.

On October 1st 2024 a major balance change was made for Stingray giving it a whole list of buffs

• Increased maximum Boost speed
• Increased maximum speed when driving on dash plate
• Decreased amount of power needed for Boost
• Reduced the amount of damage received and the amount of repulsion when colliding with other machines.

This was a game changer for Stingray and the game's meta, Stingray was in a bad place with all the other machines getting benefits which were negatives to Stingray but now Stingray essentially got its own balance patch, also Goose got buffed again with a boost speed increase for some reason. The devs' reasoning was "Made adjustments to WILD GOOSE because, while it performed well in races with more participants, it struggled in races with fewer participants." but this wasn't even a good fix for dead lobbies, it didn't help, the issue with dead lobbies is they are dead and Goose can't get free skyways and defense doesn't come into play. At this point we are playing Goose 99 and have been for quite some time, Goose is clearly the best machine in full lobbies, you "can" win with other machines but it requires a higher level of skill to win with the other machines.

6 months later on April 22nd 2025 Version 1.6 was released with the most controversial game changes, the triple skyway buff.

• The amount of Super Sparks required to trigger the Super Boost has been slightly reduced.
• Increased the minimum amount of time to be on the Skyway from four seconds to five seconds.
• Increased speed when traveling on the Skyway without touching the wall and when using the Skyway dash plate.

This greatly impacted the game and was deemed Skyway 99, it might have been me who called it that because that is how it felt, as well as being Goose 99, it seems every time there is a game change no matter what it is it ends up benefiting Goose the most. We were already in the Goose meta now it's just so ridiculously op that it's becoming near impossible to beat players who are good and use Goose because Goose has almost every advantage in the game. To me this was the wrong balance changes and it would be better if the machines had more uniqueness to their abilities rather than all needing the same amount of sparks for a skyway when it's infinitely easier to get sparks with Goose. Skyway changes are something that needed fine tuning to balance the game and injecting all of these changes at once ended up only making the game more unbalanced which hasn't been corrected for.

The most recent update is Version 1.7 that included the Secret GP which is really cool to get new courses and music but I do think the courses needed to be balanced more. Stingray is good at other GPs in the game but Secret GP is a whole different level of dominance, if Stingray gets out in front it can't be caught, in lobbies with fewer players if Stingray gets a skyway into a front run on the first 3 tracks it will win by several seconds, basically your only chance is to hope the player screws up at some point. In stacked lobbies it's much more difficult to get out of the pack but Stingray does have the highest potential but like always Goose is the safe pick and just has to be consistent and can win, winning with Fox and Falcon in a stacked lobby is a rarity and it's usually because the Stingrays died.

TLDR Goose op

With there being so many different types of lobbies the skill required for each machine to succeed will vary depending on the circumstances. With dead lobbies now that we are in Version 1.7 Stingray is the clear choice as it's the best and easiest to do well with on most courses. Fox is the 2nd best choice as there are Fox courses but the Stingrays will vote against those courses so you might not even get to play them. Fox is a bit more difficult to do well with in dead lobbies when you have to measure out sparks but it's still a solid choice for many courses in dead lobbies. Falcon and Goose are behind in these types of lobbies but on some courses you can still compete so if you play well you do have a chance but this might require a Goose player to master the Nag turn which holds top speed around corners, mastering this technique can make a difference but it still won't be enough to beat a Stingray on a curvy course or out front run a Fox on a Fox course.

Skill and outcome differ in dead lobbies, machine choice and RTS matter more than driving, if you sandbag for a skyway and waste too much time you lose, if you try to front run but it turns out you could have gotten a skyway without sandbagging you lose. This is why Stingray is often the best choice no matter what because you go for the early sparks and skyway anyway unless it's the cross section opener which doesn't produce many sparks and you just front run after 1 skyway, this works on most courses. I personally still make wrong RTS choices on dead lobbies and can get left stranded needing that last spark but often then it's even too late you chose the wrong RTS and you lose. Sometimes in dead lobbies the starting position is enough to determine the outcome, starting positions are not equal and if someone starts ahead of you by enough even if you're better you won't catch up and you'll most likely bonk yourself trying to do so or keep getting front bumped backwards trying to pass them, it's a tough pass to make.

The mid tier lobbies, around 60 to 70 players with varied skill levels kind of feel like the goldilocks zone for lobbies, enough for 2 skyways on early courses and not a shredder lobby where you can't even control your machine with all the collisions. These types of lobbies I feel are the most balanced and you will see a variety of machines winning these lobbies since it's not all about front running or an overwhelming amount of collisions now this opens up more RTS options and allows Falcon and Fox to have more flexibility and less glorp. You're still better off being Goose here because it's just that good at everything but it's also contingent on RTS, if your RTS is off as Goose you will still lose, the other machines now just have a better chance of keeping pace and an easier time with spark management before it gets too crowded. Goose is the easiest and best option, but if you're a true master of your machine then the other 3 machines are strong competitors.

The full stacked lobby, this is where the game isn't even about racing anymore, it turns into skyway 99 and Goose 99. Goose here is so insanely overpowered with its defense that it's not even playing the same game as the other machines. If you're not Goose you get glorped to pieces and you just have to hope your netcode is good so you get back bumps and sparks, those come free with Goose but the other machines have to fight for their life for them. Not having to worry about collisions is a superpower and you can feel it when you switch from other machines to Goose. Not only does Goose have god armor it's also great at everything else as well, it's a rare exception when Goose isn't the best choice and even then you're most likely better off just using Goose because you have to be a top master level player to perform well with the other machines, with Goose you can Goose your way to a good placement. My suggestion is for people who aren't hardcore 99 addicts to use Goose because if you're not at the level of mastering RTS and defense then Goose will be your safeguard. For the players who are in the higher Elite leader board spots, who aren't farming dead lobby ELO with Stingray, to be truly a top player you cannot be Goose, I consider it disqualifying, Goose makes you ineligible to be considered top player no matter what your outcomes are because it's that much easier to play as Goose than any other machine and if you can't win without Goose then clearly you aren't a top player. It's just like any game where you play on casual mode and win but you can't unlock the true ending until you play on a more difficult setting. There can be top Goose players, but I separate Goose outcomes from the other machines, it's been over 2 years of Goose winning everything and being 16 of 20 of the machines in the finale races.

There may only be a small handful of true top master level players who can win or at least compete at a top level performance without Goose in the stacked lobbies. I often see zero Foxes in stacked lobbies or if they are there they're hanging on by a thread, I try to do my part by playing Fox sometimes. Falcon is actually a decent choice in stacked lobbies because of how versatile it is but it also requires you to position extremely well or you get smashed to pieces. How Stingrays ever manage to break out of the pack I don't know, it's my weakness but those who can are the elite Stingrays and it takes a lot of skill to be a ray inside the Goose blender and come out on top. Stingray also requires the highest level of technical skill to use, there are many driving techniques and risky approaches it has to take because of its wide turning and movements, I personally have problems with the non-stop turn locking but the best Stingrays push through it all and it's a huge achievement to fight your way to the top and win.

I've been playing this game on and off since its release in 2009, it's one of my favorite games of all time and I am also the speedrunning champion of this game on Cyberscore. This game has a story mode which is playing through the stages and collecting parts, but you can also play the stages as time attack and not have to collect parts, there is also for some reason a time attack mode with no crystals so you can just fly the goal, this actually became a different challenge against other humans because flights require technique and perfect flight paths in complicated positions. I focus on the crystal collecting time attack and so have a few others and now the runs are so insanely good that you need to play out of your mind to set a new record. The main thing I do now is create custom stages in the level editor, it's a fairly basic set of pieces you get and a limit of how much you can build, these constraints force me to build in certain ways, which can make it interesting but sometimes I just want to go on a building spree and make massive stuff but every piece counts and you have to plan for the limit. I still plan on creating more content for this game but I generally only do it when I have imagined a whole new world I want to create, that way I'm not just staring at the level editor trying to be creative and not producing anything. I make good use of Oblique Strategies for my custom stages, the themes should stand out in a way where you can tell it belongs to a world.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz was released on the Wii in 2006 and is motion controlled with the Wii remote. When this game was first released I loved it, I played it so much and was competing for WR times and trying to find all the shortcuts and stunts. Unfortunately my first youtube channel got zapped and I lost all my Banana Blitz runs, they were very strong for the early days, but people optimized the game much better over the years. One thing I didn't like about time attacking is the first movement of the game the ball drops and you need a frame perfect jump press, otherwise you get a slower first bounce, so a lot of runs are just .01 seconds and retry. The stage design of this game was probably not what the original Super Monkey Ball fans wanted, they were more like a platforming game and not so much balance. The jump ability also changes so much about the game and I liked it but it does make for a different type of game.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble was released in 2024 on the Nintendo Switch. I was really excited to see a new monkey ball game and I was immediately addicted to it. This game feels great and I like the dash tech for extra speed and crazy bounce clips. This type of game is also something I enjoy just to zone out and go for fastest times and it's satisfying when you finally get the perfect run but then you find out it wasn't perfect, or sometimes someone beats it and I have to try to reclaim the WR again. I do wish more people would have played this online because it's kind of fun, there are a variety of games the online mode cycles through and it's simple and enjoyable but you won't find anyone online most likely.

I'm not always an active Starcraft 2 player but I will never retire from this game. Like all games I play as random, I'm capable of playing at a fairly high level with all 3 races but I don't play enough to perfect any of the builds and timings at this point, especially since a new patch came out recently and changed the amount of starting miners, very odd thing to do after 16 years but now builds and timings are different but I'm just playing for fun anyway in team games so it's just something I'll adapt to and still enjoy the game.

This is a MOBA game that I casually play, I don't even tryhard the draft, I just like playing the game and using different heroes. There are 91 heroes in the game and I typically play around 30 of the ones I prefer to use, mainly ETC, Imperius, and Kael'thas but can play about 60 of them competently, other just aren't a good fit for me. Out of the blue there was updates for this game recently and brought back Haunted Mines, which is cool and did some balance changes so game not dead yet despite people saying it was dead 10 years ago.

I'm making a modern version of Ball Revamped because it was my favorite flash game back when it came out in the early internet days. While I am using Rosebud ai for coding, this game will be entirely designed by me, level editing is a passion of mine, every time I've played a game I think to myself how I would have designed the levels, and now with the help of modern ai I can build system that allow me to create levels. The ai I'm using tried to make levels when I started building the game and it was a disaster, I wouldn't have used its pre-made levels anyway because I want it to feel like it's my game. This is going to take me a long time still to not only create 150 unique levels but to also build everything that will make it a good game that the Ball Revamped community can enjoy and play together and share custom levels and compete for fastest times. Also, title pending, I can't just name it the same thing as the original creator but I have to make it first.

For my first game I figured I'd start with the basics of game design and it will be my process of learning. I bet you could pump out a ton of these if you didn't care about the quality of the levels and everything else but that's my part in the creation of this game and it's been tedious with many frustrating setbacks but I continue to move forward and just when I thought I was close to finishing the game more problems occurred and I have to make sure this game is not going to bug out. I started the project in Claude and then I actually moved it to Cursor to test out that program and now I'm adding sound effects to the game which is not my talent and I have so much admiration for the people who make game sound effects and music so good. My goal for this game is just to make a flight game that people can enjoy if they just want to play something for a short while.

I released the trailer for Synth Flight and uploaded the game to https://mengskgx.itch.io/synth-flight. The process of creating this game was fun and became exhausting when I had to work out all the fine details. Designing all the levels and hazards is like bringing something to life, what will the level consist of and look like and how do I want it to effect the player, that part is the best part of creating the game, especially with ai since things can be created and changed without having to waste countless hours. I even enjoyed play testing to make sure every section had a good feel to it and was actually possible to beat, even though I still made it too difficult and had to tone it down. I did run into many bugs, the debugging process is a constant, I think this is one of the main things that humans have to work through diligently since ai wouldn't even see things as a bug and I would consider these type of flaws game ruining and it would compromise the entire game. I ran into a bunch of problems I didn't foresee, like when I created a bunch of custom levels and thought I saved it but it wasn't actually saved to the game itself, countless other things that occur because you didn't prepare for it. It also took me a long time to prepare the sounds for this game, a simple game like this has I think 90 different sound effects and 13 sound tracks. Overall I really enjoyed creating this game and playing it, I hope to find a flash community that also enjoys these type of games.