June 30th, 2009 - o rly

Still trying to get a programmer to actually fix the crashing and slowdown issues. Back to doing this myself again.

MEANWHILE, some cool cats managed to get their hands on two separate leaks of our code and then put them in a centrifuge with some fairy dust and ITG/PIU Linux code to turn the Pump It Up machine in their local arcade into a Neon FM 2009 machine! They also added a bunch of songs and changed a few things here and there to fit PIU's pad setup.

I'm in touch with these gentlemen and supplying them with in-game videos and other goodies. The arcade this is located at is:

The Game Zone at The Great Mall Of The Great Plains
20700 W 151st St,
Olathe, Kansas 66061
(913) 390-9993

As the game still isn't stable due to it needing a programmer to look over it and work out the kinks (as well as this being a haxxed copy), you might want to call ahead to see if they have the machine set for Neon FM before you plan any road trips.

The response to the newsletter signup has been outstanding - I'll figure out how to actually wrangle these addresses into a coherent news machine when I have some more news to report. Hopefully sooner than another year from now.

July 18th, 2007 - The Neon FM™ team regroups!

The original three core Neon FM™ team members - Eric Yockey, Eric Ruth, and David Riley - have decided to team up once again! Our goal is to patch up what's left of the unfinished Neon FM™ product and release the game for download, right here on this website!

Details are sketchy at this point, but expect much of the original songlist to remain intact. Animations/video will most likely not be included with the songs, as this was one of the aspects of development that required the most funding.

New, high-quality screenshots and videos of Neon FM™ gameplay are forthcoming. Stay tuned.

December 29th, 2006 - ULTRA IMPORTANT NEON FM™ UPDATE

As some of you may have noticed, Neon FM™ was not released at the planned date. Others might even say that it never was released at all. This is of course true, and due in large part to three things:

1. Betson Enterprises broke contract with us as of June 23rd, 2005, at 9:34 AM (EST).
2. Any and all manufacturers and distributors contacted since then were initially very excited to be on board and then heard from their legal team and decided that a contractual agreement would be too risky for them financially, given the abstract scope of Konami's dance-game-related patents.
3. Without funding, we lost our primary office space. Soon after, the team dissolved.

During the period of April-June '05, we were waiting to hear back from Betson regarding their talks with Konami regarding patent conflicts with our game, which we were told were important but not critical to our game's production via Betson. Some time after this, we were informed as per #1 up there of our contractual seperation. Months later, Betson would reveal that they're producing Konami's newest US arcade dance game, "DDR Supernova", and I believe you can connect the dots from there.

As it stands, Neon FM™ as a piece of software is about 90% complete, missing only animations and a few bits (and I mean literally a few, not a few months' worth) of code. Hardware-wise, we had gotten our sensors to report with about 90% efficiency without shoes on our original circuit boards, though our newer boards arrived after we had to move the prototype out of our then-former office space and into storage and we therefore were unable to test/tweak those. We admittedly had a ways to go in the technology department as most people play dance games with shoes, but given the success we'd had after we finally got the prototype in our offices (two days before our release party), I'm confident that it was only a matter of months before the tech would have been seamless. Long story short, we were almost there.

I'd like to pick the project back up if we can get the funding to do it. And I'm talking serious contractual obligations from someone who can see the potential here and wants to make a sizeable profit. The way I see it, we'd need 6 months in development (as we'd have to throw out the majority of the original tracklist, either because it's dated or because certain composers are no longer on the team) to recreate some content, finish the coding, and perfect the technology. So if you thought this was a cool idea and liked what we had done, please spread the word and provide us some venture capital. We're still available at support@neonfm.com.

I'm going to leave the rest of the site as-is, for historical purposes.

Here's a link to the original Neon FM FAQ.

May 6th, 2005 - Neon FM beta release party!

Thomas Howard arrives from Japan on Monday to shoot music videos for use in Neon FM™ and performs live with Brigit Jackson on Friday the 13th of May at the Neon FM™ Prototype Beta Release Party! The party is invite-only, so if you haven't already received an invitation, make your case to the Neon FM™ team for why you should be a part of this taped event!