Well, it is finally Christmas! And it is still Hanukkah! And the New Year is just around the bend! So click on the Holiday Card above (made especially for you) and have a Happy Everything!

When I first created this casual game as a promo for the launch of answerYES Interactive, I figured it would be popular but I was really surprise how supersonic that popularity grew. Within weeks, visits to the new website went from virtually zero to over 10,000 and the longevity of the campaign would prove to be years, sustaining significant traffic even today (just Google Japanese Supermodels).

answerYES gets lots of client requests to create something similar for their own promotions (which have or will show up here), so, it was time for Japanese Supermodels 2.0. I don’t expect the same viral dividends as before but that’s okay (the game is a labor of love now). Play the Japanese Supermodels Interactive Game at its new home and let me know what you think.

I created this Flash “game” over a long weekend as an experiment in viral seeding. I wanted to track the short-tail curve of traffic to my site from a popular social entertainment site like Newgrounds. For those not familiar, Newgrounds is primarily a Flash portal started in 1995 by Tom Fulp (who still manages the site and regularly contributes content). The site has a rich community of Flash programmers, animators, and gamers. Members get to rate and comment on submissions. And though professional game shops contribute content often, the portal tries to be a platform for the casual content developer. This being the case, content runs the gamut, from kid-friendly cartoons to pornography (there is a “mature” section which requires a login).

I was feeling punchy when I created this (must’ve been all the Red Bull). It is intended to be a joke, the butt of which is the player. If you’re not easily offended then you’ll probably have a good chuckle. If you are easily offended, you should go here.

Though the experiment ran for only 5 days, the initial 12 hours generated over 2,100 unique visits. This was mainly due to the fact Newgrounds posts all new submissions on its frontpage. It dropped off quickly from there but by the time I took it down, I had hit my target of 5,000 uniques.

Aside: the votes I got ranged from 0 (the worst) to 10 (the best). Most of the comments were constructive or encouraging but a surprisingly visceral reaction from a few who clearly did not like being the butt of a joke.

Enhanced version of dynamic photo album slideshow now has a photo preloader and supports any size photo. Like the previous version user places unlimited number of JPEGs inside a photos folder and configs the Flash movie via an XML file.

• View Photo Album Slideshow v2.0
• Download Photo Album Slideshow v2.0 Source Code

A little something for the little ones. No, seriously, an online Christmas Coloring Book. Although, we never really outgrow our love for coloring. Do we?

I created this Flash-based fansite as homage to Krisin Kreuk, the lovely and talented actress and star of the very popular TV show Smallville. But it also served as the framework for the website of my friend and uniquely creative photographer Una Petrino. A bit of a labor of love in both cases but I employed a number of new Flash optimization techniques such a preloading photos from an external XML file.

Now that it is done, I’m not planning to keep up with the content so enjoy it while it lasts.

Converted my Flash 4  jigsaw puzzle to Flash MX 2004 using a multidimensional array to store puzzle pieces.  I also experimented with the little-known swapDepths method to control stacking order (depth) on both buttons and movie clips.

• View Jigsaw Puzzle
• Download Jigsaw Puzzle Source Code

A slight twist on the old drag and drop “dress up” style game using tattoos instead of clothing. In case you are wondering, tatau is the Tahitian word for “mark” from where we get our present day word tattoo.

• View Tatau Artist
• Download Tatau Artist Source Code