(Latest) Top 14 Best Highest Paying URL Shortener To Earn Money

1. Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
   It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
   
2. Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
   With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
   
   • Payout for every 1000 views-$5
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
   • Payout options-PayPal and Payza
   
   
3. Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
   The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
   • Minimum payout-$10
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
   • Payment-on the daily basis
   
   
4. LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
   One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
   
   • Payout for 1000 views-$16
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily basis
   
   
5. Cut-win: Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate.
   You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$10
   • Minimum payout-$1
   • Referral commission-22%
   • Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
6. Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
   • Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
   • Minimum Withdrawal: $5
   • Referral Commission: 30%
   • Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
   • Payment Time: Daily
   
   
7. Oke.io: Oke.io provides you an opportunity to earn money online by shortening URLs. Oke.io is a very friendly URL Shortener Service as it enables you to earn money by shortening and sharing URLs easily.
   Oke.io can pay you anywhere from $5 to $10 for your US, UK, and Canada visitors, whereas for the rest of the world the CPM will not be less than $2. You can sign up by using your email. The minimum payout is $5, and the payment is made via PayPal.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$7
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payout options-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
8. Linkrex.net: Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc.
   You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$14
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-25%
   • Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
9. BIT-URL: It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views.
   You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
   • Minimum payout-$3
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
10. Shrinkearn.com: Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites.
    Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment methods-PayPal
    • Payment date-10th day of every month
    
    
11. Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
    It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
    
12. Short.pe: Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere.
    You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-20% for lifetime
    • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
    • Payment time-on daily basis
    
    
13. CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
    You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
    • Payment time-daily
    
    
14. Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
    You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
    
    • Payout for 1000 views-$7
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payout method-Paypal
    • Payout time-daily
    
    

Samba De Amigo Critical Hit

• Good core music-rhythm design: SHAKE, RAPID SHAKES, POSE, DANCE. Between these mechanics, the various rhythm patterns, and the 6 shaking zones Samba De Amigo can create more significant variation than most music-rhythm games.
  
• For single notes, the player can perform a "trick shot" by shaking the two "maracas" in the same position at the same time. This option gives players a way to increase the difficulty of relatively simple sections while scoring more points in the process.
  
• The core design is very similar to the Elite Beat Agents/the Ouendan series for the Nintendo DS. Shakes = TAPS. POSE = DRAG. DANCE = SPIN (where players can put more energy in to this mechanic to earn more points). Furthermore, the game is designed around creating an interactive sound scape of percussion as opposed to an interactive music track like in Guitar Hero. In Samba De Amigo, players aren't making music. Rather, players shake and dance to the beat.
  
• Not enough negative feedback. When a player shakes at the right time but accidentally slips into the wrong position it feels like the game simply didn't receive the SHAKE input when in fact it did. The game only Boo's when your rank drops a letter grade. Otherwise, it's very hard to tell whether the game really missed the input, you didn't SHAKE in the correct zone, or if you just didn't time it right.
  
• There's no penalty for shaking in the times/spaces between notes. Because playing Samba De Amigo involves a lot of movement, it would be frustrating if the game penalized players for every SHAKE that wasn't timed to a note. Often times, I found myself shaking both hands to keep the beat even though only one was necessary. This design decision is key to keeping the game focused considering the nature of the game and the controller input in addition to allowing the player to "free style" developing their own subdivisions as they sync with the rhythm of a song.
  
• The rating system is very old school Japanese with a few convoluted quirks. Unlike Guitar Hero (a Western music-rhythm game) where players receive full credit for a note as long as they hit it within the timing window, in Samba De Amigo playing exactly on the beat is privileged. Landing close to the beat will award the player with points, but only by landing perfectly on beat will the player receive full points while increasing the multiplier. In traditional Japanese music-rhythm games, the developers just don't want you to play, they want you to play perfectly.
  
• On top of the percentage grade based on correct notes played, in Samba De Amigo, Ouendan, and DDR, a letter grade is given as well. On top of this, the letter grade in Samba De Amigo doesn't directly correspond to the percentage of the correct notes played. I once got a score of 96% and ended up with a C rating. While playing players not only build up their multiplier and score, but a meter that determines their letter grade as well. With a few mistakes, the later grade drops. With much correct playing, the letter grade slowly climbs. Though this system is unnecessarily complicated everyone knows how to improve their score in a music-rhythm game. Play all perfect notes without missing one. Do that, and understanding the scoring system won't matter.
  
• The mini games aren't worth the time or the money Gearbox spent making them. They reminded me of some of Boom Blox's worst mini games... distractions from the core design of the game that should be avoided.
  
• The option to play with Wiimote + Nunchuck or double Wiimotes is much appreciated. The calibration options seem to help as well.

• The tri-colored zone display isn't intuitive for those of us who have gotten used to reading music on a linear "tape reel" type system. Sheet Music, Guitar Hero, Donkey Konga, and even Ouendan have a very linear structure to their notation. In Samba De Amigo, the notes spawn and branch out from the center of the display. While this design may be counter intuitive in one regard, it's great for indicating the spatial relationship the notes have to where the player must SHAKE. I found that when I lost track of all the moving dots, I could still hit all of the notes fairly easily by maintaining a soft focus on the colorful display. The effectiveness of this design is also evident when the POSE/DANCE sections come up. Without thinking, I was able to successfully mirror the position indicated on the screen.
  
• Being forced to play through the Normal and then Hard campaign to unlock the Super Hard mode was slightly irritating. I didn't realize how much I've gotten used to the Western design for music-rhythm games thanks to Guitar Hero. I expected that all the difficulty modes would be unlocked. Over all, unlocking songs and modes in Samba De Amigo isn't a big deal.

• There are many nuances and techniques to playing Samba De Amigo that differ with each song just like there is in any quality music-rhythm game. If you don't spend the time to learn it, you shouldn't fault the game. Many claim that the controls simply aren't accurate enough. In my experience, the Nunchuck works best on the normal difficulty. Clearly, playing with two Wiimotes is ideal. They're more accurate. They have a longer grip. And there isn't a cord hanging between them, which frees the arms for pulling off a double "around the world" dance maneuver. I've score 90+% sight reading Hard mode and about 85+% sight reading Super Hard. If I spend the time to work on a few techniques I'm sure I can ace any of the songs.

• Samba De Amigo is a game that I feel would have benefited the most from implementing Wii Motion Plus technology. The current way the game figures out what positions the Wiimotes are in (high, mid, low) is jittery and finicky. If a sequel comes out with Motion Plus controls and maybe even some Balance Board support, I'll be the first in line.
  

New Server For Evlan.Org

My Old Server

So, the server for evlan.org (and fateofio.org, theposse.org, etc.) has been hosted on a cheap-ass FreeBSD dedicated server in Montreal for over five years now.  I need my own machine because the web server is actually written in Evlan, my programming language.  Other than that, there's really no reason the server needs dedicated hosting -- it certainly doesn't get any significant amount of traffic.

Sometime in the last couple months, the machine stopped accepting SSH logins.  The web server was chugging along fine; I just couldn't log in.  I ignored the problem for awhile because I rarely need to log in to my server...  but it is a good idea to make a backup now and then.

Last week, though, my attention was drawn to the server when I noticed that some spammer had registered a few hundred new accounts for the sole purpose of creating spammy profiles for all of them.  WTF?  Why would a spammer take the time to write a script designed specifically to log into *my* server and create dummy profiles?  There are only two servers on the internet running this software.  You'd think it wouldn't be worth their time.  Especially given that it probably took them far longer to write the script than it took me to simply block all profile pages for user IDs over 500 -- so that profiles of original users are still visible, but all the spam users and any new users are gone.

Idiotic Support

So finally I decide that I should probably get the SSH fixed.  The conversation with tech support went something like this...

Me: My server is serving HTTP just fine but won't accept SSH -- it starts the handshake but hangs and then times out before getting to the password prompt. I tried from several different machines on different networks. Rebooting did not help.

Tech support: Did you try rebooting?

Me: ... yeah, that didn't help.

Tech support: What's your root password?

Me: ::grumble:: It's (password1).

Tech support: And the non-root user/password you log in with?

Me: ::sigh:: kentonv/(password2).

Tech support: The login you provided is not working. Is your data backed up? Maybe we should just wipe the machine.

This was obviously going nowhere.

Luckily, my Evlan server happens to feature the ability for me to log in and interactively execute Evlan code.  It doesn't provide any way to execute shell commands, but I was able to read and download all important files from my machine.

In the process, I took a look at /var/log/auth.log, where I saw this:

Jul  9 13:20:13 server013 login: 1 LOGIN FAILURE ON ttyv0
Jul  9 13:20:13 server013 login: 1 LOGIN FAILURE ON ttyv0, kentonv/(password2)

Obviously, auth.log does NOT normally contain plain-text passwords -- only usernames.  The tech guy had actually typed "kentonv/(password2)" as the *username*.

Abandon Ship

So, having rescued my data, I decided to abandon the silly Quebecois server.  Since the thing gets very little traffic anyway, I decided to just move it to my DSL.

One problem:  I didn't have a suitable server machine.  In fact, my main computer is a laptop that sleeps most of the time.  I actually quite like the fact that my electricity bill is $15/mo., not the $50/mo. it was back when I had a big power-hungry alway-on desktop.

So, I headed down to Fry's and picked up:

• Intel Atom CPU/motherboard (D510M0) $79.99
• 2GB PC6400 RAM $42.99
• 30GB SSD $84.99
• Mini-ITX case w/65W PSU $59.90

Total: $267.87

The best part about this little guy is the power supply.  It's 65W.  As in, the machine is not capable of using more than 65 watts.  That's less than a tenth of a modern gaming rig's power supply.  And the machine probably actually uses much less than 65W, given that it doesn't do video, has no peripherals attached, doesn't even have a CD drive, and uses flash storage.

I installed FreeBSD from a USB memory stick prepared using unetbootin, then set up:

• DJB's daemontools for service management.
• DJB's tinydns for my domains' DNS server.
• stunnel, which takes my HTTPS traffic, decrypts it, and forwards it on to Evlan.  I originally tried using the OpenSSL library directly, but its interface was absolutely horrid.
• Evlan, of course.

Despite the low power, the machine performs significantly better than the old one (a 5-year-old Celeron).  Overall I'm pretty impressed by how well it works.

UPDATE: Actual Real Ticket History

We begin right after the support people finally figured out how to log in...

Support:

hello,

even on root access we get permission denied why if im root?

i think ssh was disabled and need to be re-enable

thanks

Me:

What do you mean by this? What did you try to do that was denied?

SSH is not disabled -- it is still accepting connections, it just doesn't complete the handshake.

Support:

when i try some commands on root it says permission denied

now i have enable root access but its still doesn't give me a ssh box

thanks

Support (again):

and also when it reboots it gets stuck at

setting date via ntp?

do you have any idea about this?

thanks

Me:

What commands did you try?

Are you really root, or are are you still kentonv?

Support:

i was root all the time

any commande regarding ssh

thanks

Me:

Please be specific. What exact command did you type that said "permission denied"?

Support:

i don't remember i tried so many did you try to connect with PUTTY?

I can't believe I pay these people! (I'm still trying to log in just so that I can wipe the hard drive myself; I obviously don't trust them to do it.)

About Rick And Morty & Games

One of the best episodes.



#GoGamers
#GetSchwifty
#Wubalubadubdub

Interview With Brian Cody, Co-Creator Of Fooblitzky

By Joe Pranevich

From time to time, it has been our pleasure to not only play and explore the classic games, but to discuss them with their creators. We've spoken to game designers and game illustrators, but I am pleased to have been able to spend some virtual time with someone who was both: Brian Cody, the co-creator of Fooblitzky, Infocom's first and last computer board game. If you missed our coverage of that game, you can find it here. Brian was not only responsible for much of the game design, he also developed the game's unique graphical style.

The following interview has been assembled from a series of emails in January 2019 and edited together for your reading enjoyment.

A fine example of Mike's "textbook"-style illustration

How you got your start at Infocom and what you had been doing prior to that?

I came from a commercial art background, having graduated from Massachusetts College of Art in the mid-seventies, and worked in a variety of art-related jobs: freelance illustrator, TV cartoon animator and art director in children's book publishing. My last position before joining Infocom was as staff graphic designer for Houghton Mifflin's Children's Book Division, a position I found very slow-moving and boring. I was anxious to try something different.

Can you tell us more about the children's books that you illustrated of cartoons that you worked on before Infocom?

Children's book publishing is broken into 2 types:

• Trade books: those big colorful picture books you typically find in all children's book department. Many successful star illustrators have emerged from this category and earn a good living. I was not one of them.
• Educational publishing: huge publishing programs that produce 200-300-page textbooks for grades K-12 and, in the lower grades, are filled with fun, colorful, spot art. Textbook illustrators do not make big money. That was me.

So, consequently, there are no trade books with my name on them. But if you had a grade school child in the late 70's, 80's, 90's or early aughts then they undoubtedly experienced my work; you would have to dig through the back of the textbook to locate the paragraph, invariably set in 6-point mouse type, to find my name listed along with 25 other illustrators. I did thousands of illustrations for all the major textbook publishers: Houghton Mifflin, Brown, Scholastic, Harcourt/Brace, etc.

Just FYI, If you ever travel back in time and need to call Brian, he's extension 61.

As a child of the 80s, I no doubt saw some of your illustrations! Unfortunately, I didn't steal any textbooks to allow me to go back and check now. Can you tell us about the Infocom Graphics group, what was done when you arrived and what was not? How did it get started?

There was never any Infocom Graphics Group per se. Infocom author and interactive text game-designer Mike Berlyn hired Dan Horn, an Atlanta-based, experienced computer gamer, and myself in late 1982 to design Infocom's first graphics game. We were sort of like the company's skunk works; nobody knew what we were doing, least of all us. Mike was our manager and his first assignment was for us to go play computer games for six months so that we could learn what an actual, re-playable game was. We met weekly to discuss learnings. At around the six-month mark Mike decided it was time for Dan and me to produce some graphical game concepts, most probably to justify our existence.

How did development of Fooblitzky get started?

My first idea for a graphics game was of a huge, unwieldy, ill-defined meta game supported by six smaller, simpler games that required solving before gaining access to the big meta-thingie. What ultimately became Fooblitzky was at first one of those six smaller games, a computerized scavenger hunt involving stores and collectable items. During my presentation, composed of just Mike, Dan and myself, Mike allowed me enough rope to hang myself by trying to explain the meta mess. Once I proved I had no idea of the scope of what I was proposing, Mike looked at Dan and me and said, paraphrasing, "See that scavenger hunt? That's your game."

So I had a direction. Using the same blue-lined graph paper we all used in fifth grade science class, I mocked up a crude gameboard showing sidewalks, stores and items to be collected. We rolled Monopoly dice and moved around the board, keeping rough notes on who bought what. It must've shown some potential as a multi-player, family-oriented computer board game, of which there were few on the market at the time. But it had to be more Infocom-weird.

A "Koala Pad", courtesy of Wikimedia commons. Uploaded by Nynexman4464.

What happened next? How did the team come together?

Up until that point in early 1983, I was producing near unintelligible computer graphics on a Koala pad with stylus and no printable output. Then Infocom management showed up with something called a "Macintosh", a pre-release, 128K Apple prototype, intended for use in the development of future Infocom products. Mouse-driven, with both word processing and graphics programs, Mike recognized what it could be and soon appropriated it for my graphical use only. It did not take long to master both MacWord and MacPaint and I was soon producing graphics with supporting text for our weekly meetings, demonstrating what this computerized scavenger hunt might look and play like. It was at this point that one of Infocom's original founders, Marc Blank, began to occasionally join the graphics meetings, most probably at Mike's urging. 

In the meantime, Mike began inviting a couple of different subject experts to our weekly graphics meetings. Poh C. Lim, an MIT graduate and software engineer at Infocom, was added to begin the conversion of my Macintosh graphics files into a format acceptable to Infocom's proprietary, virtual ZIL-machine compiler. Poh soon became an almost full-time member of the still-informal graphics group, providing not only deep technical support but also many different game suggestions and improvements. Brian Moriarty, a former tech editor at ANALOG Computing and combination tech editor/game designer at Infocom, also joined the group for our weekly meetings; while his principal function seemed to be to remind us every week of how stupid we were to be designing a graphics game in an interactive text gaming company, Brian's long background in computer gaming often proved invaluable in keeping the game's design and implementation on track.

If this is composed of reused tiles, I sure can't tell. 

[ Ed Note: You can read about Brian Moriarty's ANALOG career and his first game published in that magazine here. ]

What was Poh Lim's role on the development team?

It was Poh who first understood and articulated the need to establish a limit on the graphics used to produce the scavenger hunt. Otherwise it would grow too large and slow for the mainframe-based ZIL graphical compiler to be able to digest and convert into Apple II, IBM PC and Atari-compatible software. If memory serves me, I was given 240 separate and distinct blocks (8x8 pixels? Not sure.) to use to illustrate, color and animate the entire game. For instance, a single black block could be used a thousand times to outline the four-quadrant gameboard, the multiple iterations of the animated dog, the 18 different store items, the Chanceman and so on and the compiler would still recognize and count all those things as being comprised of only a single, black block. To a degree, that explains the game's blocky look and feel; the entire thing is built on a grid.

As the game took further shape, mid-to-late 1983, and Poh was able to preview online the most basic functions using my Macintosh illustrations – gameboard, stores, spinning game wheel, animated items and animated dog, etc. – weekly graphics meeting became important in fleshing out the actual gameplay. I'd come up with the game's concept and look/feel but the gameplay itself needed more fun, more randomness, maybe even some strategy. Which is where the addition of Marc and Brian to our group of Mike, Dan, Poh and myself became so valuable; the Chanceman, crosswalks, the falling piano, UGH, bumping, lockers, pawn shops and more elements of chance all came careening out of this collective group. Marc came up with the name Fooble to describe the game's coins and eventually named the game Fooblitzky. 

Oh yes. We know all about Cornerstone. *shudder*

How did the development of Cornerstone affect what you were doing and how it was released?

Other internal projects, including Infocom's answer to Lotus Software's groundbreaking 1-2-3 spreadsheet software, named Cornerstone, continued pulling at Mike's time and he began to back out of the babysitting portion of managing Fooblitzky. Jon Palace was hired to project manage the graphics project as well as other ongoing interactive text projects. By this time, I knew what Fooblitzky was and I knew what was required, from a graphics POV, to finish it; just keep drawing. Jon joined our weekly graphics meetings and his scheduling discipline became important to helping keep development on track. 

You've mentioned Mike Berlyn, Marc Blank, and Poh Lim, but there is a fourth person credited for Fooblitzky. How did Paula Maxwell come to join the team?

In very early 1984, I was able to hire Paula Maxwell to help with the game's animation. Her responsibility was to complete animations I'd begun, using a rough style guide for direction. Paula worked in the graphics group for about six months and then decided to return to her native California.

By mid/late-1984 we had a fingers-crossed finish date for development of Fooblitzky of December 1984. I'd mocked-up a prototype of the game box and worksheets, shown them to Mike, Marc and the group and, with their approval released it to Carl Genatossio, Infocom's Creative Director, for production. A rough cut of the game was in Testing for debugging and it had been previewed with Public Relations and the senior interactive writer's group. "Doubtful" was the word I think best described their puzzled reaction. In late 1984 I was unexpectedly laid off. Graphical work on Fooblitzky stopped. 

That is unexpected! Do you know how the game was finished?

In 1985, I was hired back as an independent contractor to finish the remaining Fooblitzky graphics and animations. January and February are what it took I believe. Mike had, at that point I think, left the company.

Original Fooblitzky box for the PC

The launch of Fooblitzky was strange-- mail order-only for the first six month. Leaked sales records suggest it may have sold only sold 500 copies that way. (It sold more later.) Do you know anything else about the release?

I had no input into the game's production, release, and distribution. It would not strike me as silly to find that Carl had 500 boxes printed and management put minimum effort into trying to sell them in order to clear warehouse shelf space.

I later heard anecdotally through Infocom friends that the development of Cornerstone had far outgrown anyone's estimate for time, budget, and headcount required to finish. And that all non-mission-critical internal projects had to end in order to get Cornerstone out the door. Just company gossip.

What have you been up to since then?

I returned to my core expertise in late 1985, what was once called "commercial art". I held a variety of positions involving illustration, graphic design and art direction. Eventually I moved into management, spending 10 years at Digital Equipment and culminating in five years as Director of Marketing Services at relational database manufacturer Sybase, then one of the 10 largest software manufacturers in the U.S.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful 43-year marriage to my wife Joel. We have 2 great kids and are starstruck daily by our four granddaughters, two of whom live in Seattle and two locally in Ipswich; the latter pair I fruitlessly attempt to provide daycare for. Fooblitzky was a breeze compared to these two. 

This is amazing! Thank you for sharing your story.

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Brian really does find unique character in his art.

I want to thank Brian for spending as much time as he did talking with us. Reading over our conversation for the first time was like turning on a light into an otherwise unknown portion of Infocom history. There is a lot here to digest, but it's clear that Brian had a much larger role in the development of the game than is popularly understood. Perhaps we can have a follow-up interview with Mike Berlyn in a few months, if he is interested, especially as we have now played all of his adventure games except 1997's Zork: The Undiscovered Underground.
You can find (and purchase!) Brian's work at his website, BrianCody.com as well as his Zazzle store.

Up next for me will be Dave Lebling's Spellbreaker, our last Infocom game of 1985. That should be a lot of fun.

Winter Blues: StormBringer, SurfMonkey, And A Whole Lotta Keyforge!

The winter months have been good for gaming this year. Deep Space D6, Dungeons & Dragons, Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu,  Cardfight! Vanguard, Guardians, and so much Keyforge! Great friends and family: Applesaurus Rex, Capt. Starrex, SurfMonkey, KatoKatonian, Dr. Q, and the incredible StormBringer!! I am one happy gamer!

Supplement Your Earnings With Rewarded Products

Posted by Patrick Davis, Product Manager, Google Play

Developers are increasingly using multiple methods to monetize their apps and games. One trend has been to reward users for a monetizable action, like watching a video, with in-game currency or other benefits. This gives users more choice in how they experience the app or game, and has been an effective way to monetize non-paying users.

To support this monetization method, Google Play is excited to announce rewarded products, a new product type now available in open beta in the Play Console.

Rewarded products make it easy for Google Play developers to increase their monetized user base. Our first rewarded product offering will be in a video format. Users can elect to watch a video advertisement and upon completion be rewarded with virtual goods or in-game currency. In the example below, the user selects "watch ad", views the video, and then is granted 100 coins.

Rewarded products can be added to any app using the Google Play Billing Library or AIDL interface with only a few additional API calls. No extra SDK integration is required. This significantly reduces the work required to implement compared to other offerings. Rewarded products are powered by AdMob technology to give access to the broad range of content from advertisers currently working with Google.

Get started with rewarded products.

For developers interested in best practices on how to diversify revenue and how rewarded products fit in, please visit us at Google's Mobile Developer day at GDC or watch via the livestream.

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