I made a dev blog post about this, but figured that since I finally got it looking right, I'd make a regular front-page post. One of the features that will (hopefully) be in Angel's first release, is the ability to include heatmaps on the reports based on 3D/2D game coordinates send from the game to the Angel web services. The following heatmap was completely programmatically generated, with the exception of the background image (which has nothing to do with Venom Game Labs or its games, just a picture of a map I had laying around):

So, what would this be used for you ask? If you're a mapper, you probably already see the benefit here. It allows the game developer to view kill and death locations, or any other game coordinate data that might be usefull in the on-going development of the video game. An example would be making sure that a map doesn't have any serious choke points and the players are dying where they are "supposed" to be dying or killing where they are "supposed" to be killing. 

In other news, Penguin Smash has spun off into its own website. We will be posting PSmash updates on http://www.penguinsmash.net instead of here on the VGL front page. We should have some new media soon! And it will be pretty flippin sweet. The new site was Dan's idea, so I'm going to publically throw him under the bus here... I have no idea what his plans are. Perhaps he plans on mutany? Stay tuned.

Yep, I've started a community project aimed at game programmers and hobbyists. It is simply called "VGL Math". It is a 2D/3D math library written in C++, and I want you, yes YOU, yeah... you behind the monitor, to contribute to it. It is hosted on Google code at http://code.google.com/p/vglmath/. If you feel like contributing, drop me a line at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it so I can add you to the project members list. Don't forget to have your Google account handy! The project is licensed under the GNU GPL v3. Anybody can use it, and anybody can contribute to it; no catch, no gimmick, completely free.

If you're not sure what a math library is, and how it pertains to games and the development thereof, a math library is what handles the complex 2D/3D math in games. Things like translation, rotation, scaling, vectors, points, distance calculations, velocity, speed, and collision detection are just a few things that that math library plays a big role in.

 In other news, I've put down Angel for a little while to take a step in the Penguin Smash direction again. We've all had a lot of irons in the fire, and not just for Venom Game Labs. The majority of the team works on other Half-Life 2 mods as well so we've been trying to balance the time out between that and VGL. Right now we're working on a really neat idea for some added asthetics and overall sense of immersion for the player. When we get it finalized, we'll definitely post a video.

I've put together a 20min demonstration video of how the Angel subscriber interface works and the types of reports that can be created from Angel. If you're interested in checking it out, head on over to the forums and view the post to check it out.

And now the first little bit of news about Penguin Smash in quite some time. We should be getting some concept art pretty soon regarding some new penguin designs. Once we decided on a new penguin design, we'll get some of that artwork posted so you can check it out. I know I am anxious to see them. We should have more on that next week.

Since Angel is very close to being complete, I'm asking any and all mod developers out there who are interested in participating in a beta test to email me ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) for details on how to add Angel into your game and how to use the administrative sections of the application. Implementation time for Source-based games is around a week (compared to almost a month for others). Please let me know what phase of development your mod is in, the name of your mod, and a website where I can check it out. If you already have ideas on how you'd like to use Angel, please make me aware of that too. Otherwise I can try to give you some tips.

Now, some of you might be asking "Whats with Penguin Smash?" Well, PSmash is a dual-purpose mod. The first purpose is to develop something out of the norm and have fun doing it--the community is pretty flooded with war mods, so we wanted something a little lighter. The second purpose is to show everyone what Angel can do. Think of it like a product demo disguised as a game 

Angel exists in three flavors: ANSI C, .NET, and Java (JAR). So if you're developing a .NET game, C/C++ game, or Java game, you can use Angel very easily with the client libraries we have written. Or if you feel frisky, you can use our WSDL to write your own client library if you think it could be done better.

In the next few weeks, I will begin writing an implementation and programming guide along with a users guide to the website. On top of that, we will be finishing the Angel implementation in Penguin Smash.