Themagical's 2012 in review

 

Hey Everybody!

Hope you enjoyed your holiday festivities and holiday foods as well!  Themagical Team are taking a short break to be with our families during this holiday season. Don't worry, we'll be starting back up again with our current (and upcoming projects).

Let's start off with our review of our greatest milestones of the 2012 year!

 

Themagical's 2012 in review:

January: 

Late Nite With Randy: Radio Show Launch!

A new radio show premiere was launch with Magic 24.7 on Live 365.com . With the new partnership came along a new connection with the mix was "Dapsmagic.com".

Mr. Daps and Johnny 5 created the show's theme intro and outro. Along other sound bits segments as well to make a complete show experience.

Sadly, the show ended prematurely in February but there's talks with Dapsmagic.com of the show returning to the air waves. More details will be coming later of possible next year 2013! (Previous show only aired 15 shows total.)

You can follow on twitter for the latest updates: Twitter.com/latenitewrandy

Official hash tag when you are listening/tweeting in: #latenitewithrandy

APRIL:  Steel Force Simulation OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED! (April 29, 2012)

The longest wait for a simulation to be released! But in the long run, Steel Force Simulation was finally revealed to the general public on 'Dorneyonline.com' website.

Of course, the simulation got great rave reviews from community members and as well a nod from the officials over at Dorney Park Operational Staff too!

Here's some quotes of some members from dorneyonline.com saying about the simulation:


- "The simulator turned out great, it is really fun to play." -Yoshi


-"That was actually fun! Thanks for the hard work you guys put into that!" - HK36


-"That is really cool! Glad to see it up and running finally." - Kozmo 1

With the great partnership along side dorneyonline.com & Themagical.nl , Mike over at Newsplusnotes.com helped us too with providing extra details of the ride too. We both appreciate his time over the summer by providing materials during his visits to the local amusement park: Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom.

May: Themagical's Blog Celebrated 4 Years!

Talk about time flying by to lose track of the years its been since I've started blogging for Themagical's website. It's been an interesting 4 years of blogging I must say since many readers around the world read this to see what's cooking up at Themagical website.
 

May 1, 2009 is when this blog went LIVE for the first time. The purpose of the blog was to bring the latest sneak peeks of the latest projects we are working on at Themagical.  From that it helps us show our readers what's it takes to bring a simulation to life and how's its made.
 

The vision of the blog is basically I had in mind is to bring 'relevant news, important updates, behind the scenes look, beta testings, and as well readers feedback'.  I can say that I've been pushing out posts on what's hot and as well on the time schedule that I can write when I'm free from my busy work schedule.

Not only writing has made me to be open-communication on the internet with our readers, it has also made us to bring a faster way to bring new content: NEW PROJECTS!

From keeping the magic continuing for the site and community to enjoy new stuff was to bring fun and exciting new projects for Themagical.

New Projects we've revealed on here was: Expedition Everest Simulation, Reighard's Live Show, Cosmic Reid's/Magic 24.7 Radio Partnership, Dorneyonline.com Partnership, Test Track Announcement, Steel Force Simulation, and so much more.....

This allows to share our excitement to our devoted followers and readers of the blog to also be excited as well! From this helped us to bring more energy to the site and as well opening new opportunities partnership as well!

June: RideSims.com -- Interview with John Burton

I was happy to share with you guys the news with a close friend of Themagical Team to give us some insight on his latest projects and as well get to know who makes them.

We got John Burton (aka ImagineerJohn as most of you know of him as) who is the founder of 'Ride Sims' website and as well a user of our community at Themagical.

We are happy to give you this nice special interview with John for our readers and community to enjoy!

We want to say "Thank You" to John Burton for taking his time getting back to us with this small interview for our readers to enjoy.

You can read it's entirety by clicking here!

July - November: Themagical's Soarin HTML5 Simulation Updates

The 4 month passed by without hardly any news or postings to report on the blog. Though, we kept on giving you the latest updates on the current HTML5 FIRST EVER SIMULATION OF IT'S KIND!

Josh has been working his tail off by whatever free time he had during this summer/fall season. The work he has put into this simulation is completely mind blowing to put into perspective of future upcoming simulations/major possible projects.

This pushes the envelop of creativity where not only you will be playing "FIRST OF IT'S KIND SIMULATION" online but this will reach out to more audience who uses smartphone devices mobility.

Below is a recap of the status updates that Josh posted on the progress of Soarin:

"Soarin' update! For the past two months I've been trying to resolve a roadblock I hit in my code related to getting people to sit down in their seats. After a lot of thought and adjustment, I think I have finally resolved the issue. Hopefully this means I can finally start moving forward again!" - Josh (August 19, 2012)

"It should work on iOS, but I don't have an iOS device to test with. I do have a Windows 8 virtual machine though. Once we start getting ready for beta testing we will be looking for people who have as many different browsers available to test as possible. " - Josh (October 5, 2012)

"Code for audio playback (background music and sound effects) is complete, and finally working on Firefox. Running the sim (queuing a peep, loading, preshow, and the ride) are all finished. Currently I am working on fixing a performance issue with the peep engine, simplifying code and adding the ride "break downs". The good news is after some initial testing on my two year old Android phone, the performance of this version of the sim is much improved. I shouldn't have to "reboot" the code any more." - Josh (October 31, 2012)

"I last mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working to fix a bug in Soarin's peep/visitor code. As usual, this has turned into a complex task. The good news is that the updated peep engine should be extremely flexible and intelligent. In fact, it could easily be useful not only in future ride sims, but also much bigger projects, like a whole park for example. I have a pretty big idea brewing for the future, and all the code I write for Soarin' is done with the future in mind. This is why it is so important for me to get it all right the first time." - Josh (November 1, 2012)

 (© Themagical / © Disney)

SOARIN:

 
Should Work with: (*Still in 'Beta Phase, testing results will confirm which will work properly.)

- * Safari
- * Firefox
- * Chrome 
- * Internet Explorer 9 
- * Internet Explorer 10 (Windows 7 / Windows 8 OS) 


*Here's Josh in his own words from the creation of this simulation and how he brought a high popular ride to the online world:

"As the first HTML5 simulation, there was a steep learning curve to find the best ways to make the sim work. The end result should be something that will run great on whatever device you may be using." - Josh Stauffer 


November:  Themagical's Future??

We feel that from this first of its kind HTML5 simulation, this will not only put us on the map of having this kind of interactivity but to help usher new and faster simulation content to Themagical.nl and Dorneyonline.com respectively.

From the development of Josh, this will bring newer content and interactive to all type of devices! This type could bring not only to PC's but to smartphones as well.  Even by developing expanded code to allow larger projects into the future under one roof!

You can read more of the posting by clicking here.

December: New Member of DAPs Network

The DAPs Network is a collection of websites that have joined together to promote a positive, family friendly, network of websites.
DAPs Network Mission Statement: To be a network family friendly website offering positive information, news, and activities  promoting mutual respect to all who visit member websites. 

DAPs Network Core Values:

1. Positivity – Websites will be positive and not cynical. Critical thinking and critical coverage is acceptable.  Put downs of any kind are not acceptable. If it isn’t nice, it shouldn’t be said or published.
2. Magic – All actions should both promote Disney magic and also maintain the integrity of the Disney magic (if Disney related).
3. Respect – All people should be treated with respect. This includes respecting people’s dignity along with their privacy. This also applies to celebrities.
4. Family Friendly – All coverage and/or publications of any kind should be family friendly and G-Rated.
5. Quality – Coverage should be current, accurate, and meet journalistic standards.
6. Integrity – DAPs Network websites will strive to maintain the highest level of integrity in the way it runs every aspect of its website. This includes both honesty in any publication and also ethical and honest behavior by member websites’ staff.

 We both feel that we are these things mentioned above and as well this will not only bring traffic to both websites, but to bring our networks together in a way both communities benefit.

You can check them out at: http://www.dapsmagic.com/

::Closing Thoughts::

Though this may have been the 'slowest' blog writings I've ever writing other than counting the first year of posting.

Since the simulation developments have been slow pace, I'm hoping to bring more newer content as the upcoming year arrives.  I know I'm eager to announce when we'll be beta testing for Soarin & as well other newer projects.

The staff at Themagical thanks you for your continual support by reading our posts and playing our simulations. Your kind emails helps us through your encouragements and feedback by what we can do better overall at Themagical.

We couldn't do this without you!  I personally want to thank you all for reading!

Have a blessed and healthy new year 2013!

Until Then, 

Reighard

Co-Administrator at Themagical / Simulation Development Team

Email: sdt@themagical.nl