A lot of the fun that comes with doing MelloPanther is just working on the creative processes.  In other words, the brainstorming, the molding and the building of things, whether it’s panels or game shows or any sort of programming.  Presenting is fun, too, but it’s getting to that point that tends to excite me the most.  I have folders full of mock-ups and drafts and layouts for just about anything as well as projects that serve mainly as tutorials, unlikely to see the light of day.  Not only is it good practice to hone my skills in design and coding, it keeps the flow of ideas free.  In a way, it’s sort of my version of a doodle pad.

I bring all this up because I recently got into a conversation about the tech I use for my games.  My weapons of choice are currently Flash and buzzers from Buzz! The Mega Quiz.  Flash, because it’s fairly easy to work with and the buzzers because it’s a 20-button joystick which can be mapped to a keyboard.  During that conversation, we fell down a bit of a proverbial rabbit hole.  At the bottom of this hole was the idea for a whole new buzzer system, able to be constructed on the relatively cheap.  If done properly, this new system could drastically change if not revolutionize the way I do game shows.  I can’t say much about it right now, primarily because most of it is above my head (I’m a software guy, not a hardware guy–luckily the other people in this conversation were the latter) but I’m very excited and I hope to get the ball running on this soon because I can’t wait to tell you all about it!