Emptyeye

Recently, Twitch.TV switched to a new layout that utilizes a language called Markdown in lieu of HTML. What this means is that my previous post on this topic is now outdated. I’ll leave it up for archival purposes, but obviously some things have changed with Twitch’s newest update.

Note that this update applies only to Twitch.TV specifically. Justin.TV may well work the same as before, but as I’ve moved over to Twitch.TV, I can’t say for sure (Both sites are owned by the same company, but are now effectively two different services outside of their chat servers).

The good news is that actually getting the button to work is quite easy with the new Twitch layout.

With that, let’s get started.

First, log into your paypal and actually get your Paypal donation link. To do this, log into PayPal, then go to Merchants and Services. Under “Create Buttons”, select the button of your choice. NOTE: Since I wrote the previous version of this guide, Paypal has since added a clause basically saying “If you use a donation button, you’d better be ready to verify that you’re putting your money toward a cause.” In light of that, you probably don’t want to use the “Donation” option anymore. Go through all the options, presumably using the “Customize Text or Appearance” option (If you’re not using a custom image, you’re probably better off just using ChipIn), and save the button at the end.

This will yield something like this (Replace all square brackets with braces):
[form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"]
[input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick"]
[input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="ABCDEFGHIJKLM"]
[input type="image" src="http://photobucket.com/miscellaneous/Donate%20Button%20Test.png" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!"]
[img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1"]
[/form]

I’ve bolded the first three lines of the above because those are the tags we’re concerned with.

Next, go to your Twitch.TV Administration page by clicking “Admin” near the top of your stream, then “Edit”. Click the giant plus sign to add a panel. In the title, put whatever you want the title of the panel to be–I simply use “Donate!” Select whatever image you want to use as your donation button–Twitch now lets you simply pull these from your computer, which is nice.

Now is when we’ll use those three pieces of information I bolded. Where it says “Image links to”, put the following: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ABCDEFGHIJKLM

As you can see, what we did was join those first three elements. We joined elements 1 and 2 with a question mark, elements 2 and 3 with an &, and within each element, we joined the variable name with its value via an equal sign.

Now just click “Submit” below the panel and that’s it, you now have a donation button!

Note that you may want to have a text link to the donation URL in another panel. You should have the basic idea of Twitch panel creation now, but the specific way to create a link that has text is [displayed text](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ABCDEFGHIJKLM) . Don’t look at me, Markdown is wacky.

Hopefully that helps you with donation button creation!

-EE

That’s right, once again you get to help me decide the fate of my streams.

I’m thinking of adding a fourth day to my schedule. This would be a short, one-to-two-hour stream, brought on by my plan to eventually fill in a major hole in my gaming knowledge by playing through the Playstation 2 Grand Theft Auto trilogy. I figure just playing it once a week will take me years to get through, so you get to help me decide, if I were to add another short streaming day, what day it should be. I don’t know exactly when I’ll end this poll, but it’ll be up for the next several weeks at least.

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As I’ve mentioned previously, I recently downloaded Gamemaker Studio and was playing around with it, intending to make a Sylvia-centered Kung Fu remake (A Kung Fu Remix, if you will).

Well, today I can present the first proof-of-concept of this idea, for Windows users. As I get more into how Gamemaker Studio actually works, a Mac version will be made available as well. Sylvia’s Excellent Time Usurping Pugilists (Or “S.E.T.U.P.”, fulfilling a years-old SDA marathon-related joke that “Setup” on the schedules should really be an actual game) is a game in which you control Sylvia, wife of A-Kung-Fu-Master-Thomas (I decided this is his full name in tribute to the arcade version, Kung-Fu Master, in which almost every time Thomas is referred to, the game insists on reminding us he is “A Kung-Fu Master, Thomas…”). After Sylvia realizes that her captors don’t know the difference between “tied on a chair” and “tied to a chair”, she decides to take her rescue into her own hands. As a Taekwondo master herself, free use of her legs is the only thing she needs to get herself out of the temple she’s being held hostage in.

This was an interesting project to start. When I embarked on it, this was basically my first big “milestone” goal, to get one working level out and see if I was still interested in it. Right now, I am, and I want to have it done by Summer Games Done Quick 2013 in the hopes that someone will pick it up and run it. Getting it to this point has been an experience, since I’ve had to do pretty much everything for it, from music (Which I’m actually okay at), to sprite editing (Which, as of yet, I am very much NOT okay at, although I hope to eventually use all original sprites in the game), to whatever programming is required (Which I’m all right at as well, although I didn’t take into account a much easier way of resolving attacks).

Additionally, there’s still a lot of work to do, besides just finishing the levels/enemies/bosses/etc. Because Gamemaker Studio dropped MIDI support for whatever reason, I was forced, for this proof-of-concept, to take the route forged before me by The D (Who, whatever else you want to say about him, has completed three more games than I have as of this writing), and use .WAV-converted-from-MIDIs; for the final music, I’ll either actually record what parts I can or, at the very least, see about using either VST or trying to hook my wife’s cheap keyboard to my computer and get what instruments I need that way. I also need to make the actual intro (For now, selecting “View Intro” just gives you a text synopsis of the plot), and come up with a proper ending and Game Over screen as well.

For now, though, hopefully you’ll enjoy what I have. The proof-of-concept contains one level, a proper title screen, and four songs. There’s also a pre-boss cutscene that can be skipped. Hopefully I’m on the right track to creating something, if not masterpiece-esque, at least fun and playable.

You can download the installer for Windows here.

EDIT: Some notes…If you use Avast! Antivirus (Or Norton, or another Antivirus program), you can ignore it if it tries to put the file into a sandbox or get rid of it. I’m not trying to obliterate your computer. Also, please do read the changelog–it’s less than a page, and it details some of the stuff that has changed and been fixed since the previous version (Mainly, there are now two levels, and the game, or at least the main portion, should now work on Windows XP.).
-EE

As I write this, I have 955 Twitch.tv followers. What this means is that it’s time to start thinking about what I want to do for a thousand-follower appreciation stream. I have a number of options, and you can vote for up to three. I figure the top three or four vote-getters will win the day if and when I reach 1000 followers. The poll will be open until I realize I’ve hit 1000 followers (EDIT: the end of January). Get to votin’!

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