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Zanzlanz
Game developer and music producer! I made the Mine Blocks game(s).

Age 27, Male

Game Developer

Computer Scientist, 2018

Detroit

Joined on 9/9/11

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Zanzlanz's News

Posted by Zanzlanz - 2 weeks ago


Welcome to my 10th annual gamedev plan! 10 years, gosh.

This year, I'm bringing back some games, releasing an audio tool, and adding texture packs n other stuff.


Watch the video below for my plan and to see how my previous year's plan turned out.

Spoilers: it turned out great! :D



If I can get Rogue Among Robots in a finished state, it'll be my first Newgrounds game release in 9 YEARS!? holy


So what are your 2024 goals? What are you excited about this year?


Btw, you rock. :D

Zanz


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3

Posted by Zanzlanz - January 4th, 2024


I released Mine Blocks 1.31!

Introducing: Scavenger Hunt! In Scavenger Hunt, you spawn in a new world, and have 8 minutes to find 10 items before your friends do (or you can play solo)! YES, it's multiplayer in Mine Blocks!


Watch the fun announcement video! And see below for a link to the game.


This update also includes 5 new NG medals and a new leaderboard for Scavenger Hunt. Good luck!


Play the update below. It's an HTML5 game now, no longer a Flash game :)

If you're looking for people to play with, definitely drop an invite in the Mine Blocks Discord.


This was such a big moment for me. This is my first multiplayer game ever, and for the first time in 13 years, I can actually play Mine Blocks alongside my community. It's been a lot of fun!


I did work on a bunch of other stuff in 2023 - I documented all of it in my yearly recap post here. Soon I'll talk about what I'm working on this year in my 2024 Projects video - I expect that to come in late February.


Happy 2024!!

Zanz


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6

Posted by Zanzlanz - October 28th, 2023


To celebrate "Secret Box" reaching 1,000,000 views on YouTube, I've released a brand new track - "Howl With Me" (Leedle Leedle Leedle Lee) -- and an overly edited music video! Just in time for Halloween! I hope you enjoy! :D



I've been working on this since 2015, so it feels great to finally have it out there!


But now that it's out, I'm going straight back to making game updates! :)

I hope everyone has a scary good Howl-ween! hohoho 🎃


Zanz


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Before you ask, no this track will not be on Newgrounds. Sorry! My previous remix, Secret Box, was unlisted by a moderator, so I've taken the hint, haha. Transformative copyright laws are confusing, and I respect that it's best for NG that I don't upload content like this here.


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4

Posted by Zanzlanz - May 7th, 2022


Wowee I spent too long on this video! BUT IT'S DONE. I'm excited for my projects this year!


This new video presents what I've been up to with my games, music, and other projects. And it even includes an animated segment to boot. Enjoy!



Have an awesome day!

- Zanz


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4

Posted by Zanzlanz - November 25th, 2021


Woop!

After 2 years of making a small game engine in Haxe, and 2 more years porting over 44,000 lines of game code, I've finally re-released Mine Blocks as an HTML5 game!


My 10-year old game now has a second life beyond Flash. <3

Watch the update video below:


After a small break to chill for once lol, I'll post a bugfix update or two, then start porting Mine Blocks 2, posting my annual general projects video, and finally getting back to working of my unfinished projects, which is exciting. :) Lots to come, stay tuned!


Hope you're doing great! Happy Thanksgiving <3

- Zanz


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11

Posted by Zanzlanz - August 28th, 2021


G-bot let me know I'm user of the day today! :D WOO!!

What an awesome early birthday present (it's on Friday)!


iu_402588_3880797.png


I wanted to take this opportunity to update on everything - what I do, what I'm up to, and why I haven't released another game on Newgrounds in 6 years... yet.


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What's been up?

So I've been working on my ol' 2D Minecraft fan game for over 10 years now! Check out my previous post about its 10 year anniversary.


The past 2 years I've been recreating the whole game in HTML5 so it can be played in browsers again. And currently I'm at 92% done! It's literally ~42000 lines of code right now. But it's really close - I'm just working on the pause and main menus.


iu_402589_3880797.webp


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Before then, I also recreated 11 of my other Flash games for HTML5, ALL of which are now available on Newgrounds again! I organized them in a Newgrounds playlist. Plus, I actually released it as a desktop bundle. If collecting achievements interests you, check out the other post about that!


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Plus, since my 6-year "haitus" here, I've actually published 2 albums worth of music. Here's the most recent one.



​

So I have been quite active really, just in a different way than some may be used to!


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What's next?

First, I'm still chugging along on the Mine Blocks port. I've been releasing weekly Friday updates consistently for 41 weeks straight on the Beta site. Very soon it'll be done, Mine Blocks will be back on Newgrounds, and I'll be working on big updates again!


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Secondly, I have a bunch of new and old projects waiting for me. They need to be converted to HTML5 as well though, so that's why I haven't talked much about them lately. A good number of them will be on Newgrounds some day!


Here's an incomplete list of the first 5 that come to mind:

  1. Spike Tower (website)
  2. Frisbio (website)
  3. Fynnland (website)
  4. Lab Lights 2 (indiedb)
  5. Mine Blocks 2 (indiedb)


iu_402591_3880797.gif


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Once the Mine Blocks port is done, I'll be working on all of this stuff. Mine Blocks 2 first, then Spike Tower, Frisbio, Fynnland, etc. It'll be great!


I'm really excited to get back to sharing new games - it's been so long, and these projects aren't mere weekend projects anymore (to be honest, I've been burned out of jamming for while - I'd rather keep focused on the above instead)! That said, I do have a full-time job as a QA Developer, so I can only go so fast with my personal projects.


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Also, as for music - as always, I am just noodling around, but there is no releases set in stone right now. Been trying to poke away at some nearly-finished stuff, but it's one of those things that just happens when it's meant to happen (i.e. when I'm procrastinating on other projects). ^^


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Thanks!

Alright that's good enough for now! Hey I hope you like my profile and consider following along with my journey! I appreciate you reading through this update post <3


Have a fantastic day!

- Zanz


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11

Posted by Zanzlanz - June 28th, 2021


It's been 10 years since I first released Mine Blocks on June 27th, 2011!

To celebrate, I made a video documenting the history of Mine Blocks. I hope you find it interesting!



I also released an archive of older versions that you can play in your browser (using Ruffle):

https://mineblocks.com/1/classic


Many thanks to Newgrounds and its amazing community for being a major part of Mine Blocks all these years :)

I met my best friend here, connected with such talented folks at Pico Day parties, and turned a hobby into a career thanks to the resources Newgrounds provided us all for free.


Btw... coming later this year, I will have a fully ported HTML5 version of Mine Blocks on Newgrounds. And more fun stuff to come afterwards.


Until then, thanks for sticking around and for being a source of happiness to me all these years :)

- Zanz


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14

Posted by Zanzlanz - January 16th, 2021


Hi!


Over the past 4 years I've been working on a tiny game engine in Haxe, and using it to preserve my Flash games.

On Newgrounds, you can find 11 Flash games faithfully ported to HTML5 -- medals and leaderboards intact!


And now, my games are available for Windows in Zanzlanz's Collector's Bundle!

This is a collection of 11 games, with a launcher that tracks all 100 achievements:



When you get all 100 achievements, you land a spot on the winners leaderboard.

The first 10 people to do so are auto-congratulated on my Twitter. :D



I hope you like achievement hunting!


Have fun and GOOD LUCK! :D

- Zanz


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Posted by Zanzlanz - November 14th, 2020


It's a bit nuts that I'm updating a Flash game in mid-November, 2020, with less than 50 days left before Flash is gone.

But hey, here we are anyway!


Introducing: Mine Blocks 1.30 - The Hardcore Update!


Here's the update video:



Here are some of the fancy new features:

  • Hardcore mode and spectator mode
  • Updated slime block physics
  • Armored zombies & hostile spawnskins
  • New shift-click inventory shortcuts
  • Bamboo stairs, slabs, and backdrops
  • Wear mobheads and... a mustache?
  • Over 57 bug fixes and tweaks! And still more!


Play Mine Blocks on Newgrounds:


Next up: HTML5!

To live past the end of Flash, Mine Blocks is currently being ported to an HTML5 game!

While it's still very very unfinished, you can check out the progress at:

mineblocks.com/beta


I hope everyone is doing really well! More soon :)

- Zanz


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6

Posted by Zanzlanz - October 17th, 2020


Hey! I'll keep it short and sweet:


I released new music and a new music video!

Check it out below! I hope you enjoy:



The video was made using my game framework - something I've been cooking up for a while. It's the same framework that I'm porting my Flash games to. I learned a lot making this video, like how to do reflections, antialiasing, and bloom.


I wasn't sure if it made sense to upload this video as a Newgrounds animation; I've never seen something like it here before, so for now I'm just making a post. Let me know if this is something that should be on NG too!



Listen to Mirror Road on: Spotify - Bandcamp - SoundCloud


Also, m̶y̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶i̶c̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶t̶u̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶N̶G̶ (omg nevermind, Tom thanks a ton haha!), so if you haven't heard my stuff yet and like what you hear, please do check out my other work. It helps a lot!


Hope you all have a great weekend!

- Zanz


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