Many of you - especially those of you who, like myself, are from Australia - will have heard by now of the devastating bushfires which have been raging in the Australian states of Victoria (especially) and New South Wales since late last week. As of this writing, the fires in Victoria alone are known to have killed more than 180 people, with the death toll expected to rise and possibly top 300. Last I heard about 500 people had been treated for burns, and 100 of them had been hospitalised. Over 330,000 hectares have been burnt out and nearly 1000 homes destroyed. In some cases entire towns have been levelled. These are officially the worst bushfires in Australia's history, which is no mean feat considering that Australia is claimed to be the most fire-prone country in the world.

At times like these, it is up to the rest of us Aussies to help, knowing that the people affected would do the same if our positions were reversed. That's why I'm pledging 50% of Inventive Dingo's proceeds towards helping bushfire victims, dating back from the day the fires took hold (7th February) and lasting until the end of this month.

<a href="http://www.inventivedingo.com/news/2009/02/11/50-of-proceeds-from-sales-of-mayhem-intergalactic-to-be-donated-to-australian-bushfire-victims/">More details...</a>

Many of you - especially those of you who, like myself, are from Australia - will have heard by now of the devastating bushfires which have been raging in the Australian states of Victoria (especially) and New South Wales since late last week. As of this writing, the fires in Victoria alone are known to have killed more than 180 people, with the death toll expected to rise and possibly top 300. Last I heard about 500 people had been treated for burns, and 100 of them had been hospitalised. Over 330,000 hectares have been burnt out and nearly 1000 homes destroyed. In some cases entire towns have been levelled. These are officially the worst bushfires in Australia's history, which is no mean feat considering that Australia is claimed to be the most fire-prone country in the world.

At times like these, it is up to the rest of us Aussies to help, knowing that the people affected would do the same if our positions were reversed. That's why I'm pledging 50% of Inventive Dingo's proceeds towards helping bushfire victims, dating back from the day the fires took hold (7th February) and lasting until the end of this month.

More details...

Version 1.2.3 introduces a new feature and fixes a number of bugs and annoyances:

<h4>New/changed features</h4><ul><li>Private chat. To send a private chat message to a player called Bob, type <tt>/msg bob Hi Bob!</tt>. Names can be abbreviated. /whisper or /tell can be used instead of /msg.</li><li>The message log on the information bar (click the button at the top-left or press Tab) now features improved formatting and scroll buttons.</li><li>Chat box will now stay open permanently during the multiplayer pre-game settings screen. If it's empty when the game starts, then it closes itself automatically.</li><li>Chat messages now have a partially-transparent black background to aid readability.</li><li>You can now see your own ping.</li><li>If only AIs are left in a multiplayer game (including if all human players are in disconnected state), end the game.</li></ul><h4>Bugs fixed</h4><ul><li>Fixed: Rifts sometimes weren't visible to remote clients.</li><li>Fixed: Observers were being assigned starting planets on custom maps, and could attempt to send orders to the ships on those planets (without success).</li><li>Fixed: Players in disconnected state didn't get sent to newly-connecting observers.</li><li>Fixed: /ban command was crashing server in presence of non-networked players.</li><li>Fixed: /kick command could be used on oneself.</li><li>Fixed: Removed ghostly grey "e" near End Turn button.</li><li>Fixed: A mistyped console command showed up as chat.</li><li>Fixed: Some bugs in internationalisation support.</li><li>Fixed: Invalid map errors no longer crash the game.</li><li>Fixed: mayhemig.exe would sometimes hang around using 100% of the CPU after game exit.</li></ul>

This update will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. Your old savefiles will still work.

Version 1.2.3 introduces a new feature and fixes a number of bugs and annoyances:

• Private chat. To send a private chat message to a player called Bob, type <tt>/msg bob Hi Bob!</tt>. Names can be abbreviated. /whisper or /tell can be used instead of /msg.
• The message log on the information bar (click the button at the top-left or press Tab) now features improved formatting and scroll buttons.
• Chat box will now stay open permanently during the multiplayer pre-game settings screen. If it's empty when the game starts, then it closes itself automatically.
• Chat messages now have a partially-transparent black background to aid readability.
• You can now see your own ping.
• If only AIs are left in a multiplayer game (including if all human players are in disconnected state), end the game.

• Fixed: Rifts sometimes weren't visible to remote clients.
• Fixed: Observers were being assigned starting planets on custom maps, and could attempt to send orders to the ships on those planets (without success).
• Fixed: Players in disconnected state didn't get sent to newly-connecting observers.
• Fixed: /ban command was crashing server in presence of non-networked players.
• Fixed: /kick command could be used on oneself.
• Fixed: Removed ghostly grey "e" near End Turn button.
• Fixed: A mistyped console command showed up as chat.
• Fixed: Some bugs in internationalisation support.
• Fixed: Invalid map errors no longer crash the game.
• Fixed: mayhemig.exe would sometimes hang around using 100% of the CPU after game exit.

This update will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. Your old savefiles will still work.

Version 1.2.2 is a minor bug-fix release. It is compatible with savefiles from version 1.2.1 (but not from version 1.2.0 or earlier). Similarly, version 1.2.2 clients can play on version 1.2.1 servers and vice versa.

<h4>New/changed features</h4><ul><li>Increased maximum length of player name from 15 to 50. (Name will be truncated back to 15 on v1.2.1 servers.)</li><li>Font size of chat text and battle messages reduced by 20%.</li></ul><h4>Bugs fixed</h4><ul><li>Significantly reduced achievement progress spam</li><li>Fixed: Numlock capability was permanently disabled regardless of actual numlock state after a window focus change (alt-tab out and then in).</li><li>Fixed: When someone in a multiplayer server obtained one of the "kill X enemy ships" achievements, everyone else in the server would too, even observers.</li><li>Fixed: Typing a ^ character as the first character in a textbox would crash the game.</li><li>Attempted to handle some networking errors more gracefully</li><li>Accessing the Options screen during a multiplayer game would crash under certain circumstances.</li><li>Observers joining multiplayer games could cause the server to forget that players had ended their turn, and hence not progress to the next round (until the turn timer expired).</li><li>Fixed dodgy game timer (was displaying additional hours when set to upwards of 6 minutes).</li><li>Fixed: The game would crash under certain circumstances when Steam was in offline mode.</li></ul>
Please note that the game will still mistakenly report itself to be v1.2.1. This is normal. If you think you haven't received the update, try restarting your Steam client and running the game again.

Version 1.2.2 is a minor bug-fix release. It is compatible with savefiles from version 1.2.1 (but not from version 1.2.0 or earlier). Similarly, version 1.2.2 clients can play on version 1.2.1 servers and vice versa.

• Increased maximum length of player name from 15 to 50. (Name will be truncated back to 15 on v1.2.1 servers.)
• Font size of chat text and battle messages reduced by 20%.

• Significantly reduced achievement progress spam
• Fixed: Numlock capability was permanently disabled regardless of actual numlock state after a window focus change (alt-tab out and then in).
• Fixed: When someone in a multiplayer server obtained one of the "kill X enemy ships" achievements, everyone else in the server would too, even observers.
• Fixed: Typing a ^ character as the first character in a textbox would crash the game.
• Attempted to handle some networking errors more gracefully
• Accessing the Options screen during a multiplayer game would crash under certain circumstances.
• Observers joining multiplayer games could cause the server to forget that players had ended their turn, and hence not progress to the next round (until the turn timer expired).
• Fixed dodgy game timer (was displaying additional hours when set to upwards of 6 minutes).
• Fixed: The game would crash under certain circumstances when Steam was in offline mode.

Please note that the game will still mistakenly report itself to be v1.2.1. This is normal. If you think you haven't received the update, try restarting your Steam client and running the game again.

<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/18600/"><i>Mayhem Intergalactic</i></a> is now available on Steam! To celebrate, this fast-paced, turn-based strategy game is available for half-price for the first week! Conquer the universe playing against the computer or play against your friends online. As if that weren't enough incentive, buy the full version and get a free 5 day guest pass to give to a friend.

Mayhem Intergalactic is now available on Steam! To celebrate, this fast-paced, turn-based strategy game is available for half-price for the first week! Conquer the universe playing against the computer or play against your friends online. As if that weren't enough incentive, buy the full version and get a free 5 day guest pass to give to a friend.