Category: ‘Announcements’

Happy New Year! Let’s Talk Goals

January 1, 2022 Posted by zachary

As we close out 2021 and look forward to 2022, I wanted to put some goals for the coming year down. These last few years have been crazy, but there is no reason that we can’t put some control into 2022. I want to put some goals down that will focus on several key aspects of my life: Professional, Personal. and Spiritual.

Professional Goals

For professional goals, I think it is pretty easy. I started up a project to convert the code examples in some programming books I have to HaxeFlixel. The purpose of that is to help me more familiarize myself with the game engine, and to provide some example code that people can use in their own projects. I started off strong and managed to finish 6 chapters before taking a long break. For my first goal, I will finish this project this year. (hopefully it won’t take that long).

My second goal in my professional life is to finish and release a full game this year. As I work on the above goal, I will be making more games that are like toys and less like massive games. I have a tendency to overthink and over plan game projects and get burned out. So instead, I want to create one game that is more about a narrow game loop with a lot of replayability. This doesn’t mean I won’t put time into larger projects, but my main focus will be on completing one fun replayable game.

Personal Goals

For my personal goals, I am focusing on what will improve my self. I am currently overweight by a lot. I get worn out pretty quickly. I am just not too healthy. So my first goal here is to start exercising. I am not planning on joining any gyms or subscribing to any weight loss program. Instead, I just want to take it simple with what I can do at home. I want to take daily walks with my wife. When I have time, I will do some simple exercises using my pull-up bar and some free weights I have. Just enough to get me into a mindset of taking care of myself.

But it isn’t going to be all exercise. I also want to have some fun. I have a number of books I want to read and will be doing that. I also want to play several games from my back catalog that have been staring at me for a while. No pressure here, just pick a book and read it. Pick a game and play it. I am not saying I will read or play X number of things. Just do more of it.

Spiritual Goals

For spiritual goals, this is pretty simple. I will read my scriptures daily and pray daily. I have been lacking in this aspect of my life for a while and need to make it a habit. Even just a little reading or saying some quick prayers will help. So that is what I am focusing on. My wife has bought some study aids that I hope will help and she would be happy to see me use them.

So there you have it. My goals for the coming year. I don’t to pressure myself, so I won’t be making regular evaluations etc. But I might revisit this later and provide an update. The only real updates that will happen regularly will be about the programming projects I work on.

New Game Development Training Program

September 3, 2021 Posted by zachary

Hey Game Development Fans,

My name is Zachary Knight, I am one of the Co-Founders of Divine Knight Gaming. A long while back, we found and fell in love with Flixel, an Actionscript engine for creating 2d sprite based games for Flash. When that engine got ported to the cross platform language Haxe, becoming HaxeFlixel, we couldn’t be more excited about the possibilities. While I have made a lot of progress in learning this engine, there is still much more to learn. That is why I am taking up this new challenge.

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Why I am A Libertarian Who Is Leaving the Libertarian Party

June 22, 2021 Posted by zachary

Ever since I was a kid, I knew I wasn’t a Republican or a Democrat. My first real exposure to the idea of parties outside the dominant parties was Ross Perot and his Reform Party in 1992. As a kid I was excited to see what a three candidate race for President was like. Even though I expressed preferences based on what my parents felt, I still thought his run was history in my lifetime. I had no idea why when it came to the Clinton/Dole election in 1996 that we only had two candidates. This dulled my interest in elections. It wasn’t until the Bush/Kerry election in 2004 that I took interest in elections again. This came about in my college years and I felt I had an obligation to at least see who was running, but I didn’t take much interest at that time. I don’t even remember who I ended up voting for aside from that it wasn’t Kerry.

During all this time, I never really felt at home in the two dominate parties in the US. When I started voting, I registered Independent and stuck with it until 2012.

Because of that lack of home, I was always curious about what other parties were out there. I read about the rise and fall of political parties with keen interest and thought I might one day start a party. In 2006, I returned to Oklahoma and looked up the procedures in state law to find out what it would take. I was astounded by the high signature count needed to form and even higher electoral burden to stay recognized. I read about how few parties formed in Oklahoma and how none ever survived their first year on the ballot.

Around 2010, I found a group of like minded people at Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform who were fighting to make it easier to form a new political party. I learned that prior to 1968, all it took to form a new party was 5000 signatures. But due to the success of a third party presidential candidate Oklahoma, a Democratic stronghold at the time, the election ended up with Nixon as the winner of the state’s electoral votes. So the Democratic majority in the state legislature increased the petition to 5% of the last vote for President or Governor, and increased the percentage of the vote that a party would need to stay recognized to 10% of the vote. Ridiculous.

I immediately got to work in the fight to change these laws. I worked every legislative session, calling legislators, visiting them in their offices, writing emails and letter campaigns, and writing a ballot access brief. 4 years I worked to get a bill passed to reduce that petition burden. Finally in 2014, we succeeded. After nearly 50 years, Oklahoma’s laws for forming a new party was eased. While not the 5,000 signatures it once was, the new 3% of the last vote for Governor was a huge improvement.

During this time, I worked on other efforts to expand electoral options for Oklahoma voters. In 2012, the American Elect party spent considerable money and effort to get on the ballot under Oklahoma’s old law. But when it came time to follow through with that ballot access success, they failed to organize and nominate a candidate for President. So a small group of American Elect supporters convinced me and others to join in nominating Gary Johnson for the Americans Elect position on the Oklahoma ballot. So I joined the party and registered to be an official Elector for Gary Johnson. We filed the necessary paperwork and immediately the Republican controlled state government challenged the nomination and sued to remove Gary Johnson from the ballot. They were successful in making up law on the spot and convincing the Oklahoma Supreme Court to rule in their favor and Gary Johnson was no longer a candidate for President in Oklahoma in 2012.

Back to 2014, during my time at Oklahoman’s for Ballot Access Reform, I met many people who were members of the Libertarian Party. As I learned more about that party, I was sure that I finally found a political home. Even before we were successful in getting the laws changed in Oklahoma, I joined the Libertarian Party and was elected as Secretary for the OKLP in 2012. Once the laws to form a new party were changed in 2014, I joined the effort to petition for party recognition. That petition was successful in time for the 2016 Presidential election.

Even during that time, I was still working to ease Oklahoma’s laws regarding the recognition of political parties. I knew that even if a party was successful in petitioning to form, they would have a severe uphill battle meeting the 10% vote requirement to stay recognized. So I convinced a handful of legislators to introduce a bill to lower that vote test to 2.5% of the vote for Governor or President. That bill passed in time for the 2016 election. That year Gary Johnson won 5.76% of the vote in Oklahoma, surpassing the new 2.5% requirement. Had that 10% requirement stayed, the Libertarian party would have failed to stay recognized and they would have had to petition all over again.

I wasn’t done yet. In 2017, I wrote a new bill that changed the vote test so that it applied to any statewide elected office as well as allow for a party to remain recognized for 4 years rather than 2. I convinced legislators to introduce this bill and pass it in 2018. This new bill again helped the Libertarian Party to stay recognized in Oklahoma. At that same time, I wrote and succeeded in getting passed a law that reduced the signatures needed to get an Independent Presidential candidate on the ballot as well as provide for an optional filing fee. Because of this, 3 Independent presidential candidates were on the 2020 ballot along with the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian nominees.

During this time, I maintained some activity in the Oklahoma Libertarian Party. I still felt that they would be a home for me. However, due to the actions of some members of the party and the way they treated founding members of the modern OKLP, people who I considered to be friends, I reduced my activity to casual observer. I maintained my voter registration but stopped paying dues and attending conventions.

One aspect of Oklahoma election law that I like is the option for recognized political parties to invite voters registered as independents to vote in a party’s primaries. In 2016, the newly formed party invited independent voters to vote in the one primary election we had, for US Senate. While the primary results were not the ones the party, and even the candidates themselves preferred, I still felt it was a major reason why the party went from roughly 700 members at founding to several thousand after the 2016 election. But in 2017, the new Executive Committee chose not to allow Independent voters to vote in the OKLP’s primaries. This was primarily due to concern they had that independent supporters of Joe Exotic would nominate him for the LP place in the Governor Race. These concerns manifested themselves more broadly in 2019 and the primaries were once again closed. I felt this was a betrayal of the ideals of freedom and liberty that the Libertarian Party was meant to exemplify.

This wasn’t my only concerns with the party. For years, the Libertarian Party has had a provision in the Party Platform that allows for all sorts of restrictions on immigration so long as anyone claims that they are “reasonable”. And there are a lot of people claiming to be libertarian who believe that locking children in cages and destroying life saving supplies in the desert are “reasonable” restrictions. Despite many efforts to simply strike the word “reasonable” from that platform statement, it has failed every time. This isn’t my only concerns with libertarians. There are also many who believe that the government should be allowed to deny marriages to LGBTQ+ people. There are Libertarians who do not support civil rights in general. There are libertarians who glorify the Confederacy and hold that defenders of slavery were righteous warriors of freedom. Many libertarians also expressed solidarity with police who murder innocent civilians and who also violently break up protests against those police abuses. Not to mention the libertarians who express support or apathy towards pedophilia. It is frankly disturbing that people in the party of freedom for all would support so many anti-freedom beliefs.

Then the 2016 election came and boy was I not prepared. Trump won that election and the ensuing avalanche of support from supposed libertarians for him was mind boggling. Throughout his presidency with all his increasing of taxes, wall building, cracking down on immigration and asylum seekers and refugees; despite his effort to escalate the wars in the Middle East and start a new war with Iran; despite his terrible handling of the Covid pandemic, and so many efforts to destroy liberty and freedom in the US, libertarians flocked to him as if he was the epitome of libertarian ideals.

During his Presidency, Republican Congressman Justin Amash expressed disdain for the cult of Trump and changed his registration to Libertarian, becoming the first sitting Libertarian Congressman. He even made movements that indicated his intent to seek the Libertarian nomination for President. The 2020 nominating convention scared him off before he could even make an official announcement. Despite a deadly virus outbreak, some in charge of the convention refused to allow an online convention to take place. They fought to death to prevent it because they knew that if an in person convention was held, that their anti-immigration anti-freedom candidates would be nominated because only their Covid denying supporters would show up in person. Thankfully they failed and an online convention was held, but that whole fiasco scared off the best potential candidate since Gary Johnson.

It became quite clear to me that many active members of the OKLP and those seeking leadership roles in the party supporters were people who held the beliefs above. They fought against efforts to reject bigotry. They made it quite clear that bigots were welcome and the victims of bigotry are not. Then came the January 6 assault on the US Capitol that disrupted the counting and certifying of the 2020 Electoral votes. The OKLP refused to take a stand against it stating that it wasn’t an Oklahoma problem.

These kinds of libertarians were gaining extensive traction all over the country, but none so blatant as those in New Hampshire. The series of tweets that came from the official LPNH Twitter account were quite appalling and nary a word from the OKLP. When the national party decided to take action against New Hampshire, those in leadership and influence in the OKLP spoke out against the national party and in support of the edgelord messaging of LPNH.

All of this to say that at one time, I felt like I might have found a political home. There were so many aspects of libertarian ideology that rang true to me and influenced my line of thinking. But there are severe ideological differences between me and those who seek to control the messaging and direction of the Libertarian Party. Over the last week, so many people I admire have resigned from their roles in the party. Many people who started the Oklahoma Libertarian Party have long ago left the public spotlight. I feel it is my time as well.

I am moving soon. I will need to re-register to vote. When I do, I plan on once again registering as an Independent voter. However, I will continue to work toward a world set free. I will work for liberty and justice that is truly for all. I will be renewing my efforts with Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform. There are still so many areas of Oklahoma election law that needs reform. I feel that is where I can be of most help toward a world set free. Perhaps one day a new political party will emerge from those efforts and it will truly reflect the ideals that make up who I am.

-E. Zachary Knight

Announcing The Simple Game Site Builder

May 3, 2017 Posted by zachary

Simple Game Site BuilderIt has been a long time everyone. I have been working on a few things over the last few months, and I am finally ready to announce one of them. So here goes. Announcing the Simple Game Site Builder. This simple tool will help you get a clean and professional looking game site up and running in a matter of minutes.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a great article by Justin Carroll about the need to have a clean and well structured site to sell your game. Inspired by this article, I set out to make an easy to use tool that will give you a great looking site to sell your game. All you have to do is update the included game_info.xml file, put your images into the images directory, upload everything to your web server and the site takes care of itself.

See Simple Game Site Builder In Action

See Simple Game Site Builder In Action

There are some great features for this too.

  • Use either a link to the location you are selling your game, or use the embed code from your store of choice.
  • Include your trailer from whatever site is hosting it using their embed code.
  • Display any number of images and features.
  • Build a subscriber list for your company by including code from services like Mail Chimp.
  • Point people to all your social media locations.
  • Easy linking to your presskit()
  • Include analytics tracking code.

We have also made the Simple Game Site Builder available to you under the MIT license for open source software. You can use and modify this code for any need you have. We have also made the code available on Github. If you want to contribute to the project, you can do so there. You can also see this tool in action over at the ManlyBoy site.

Simple Game Site Builder Github RepoDownload Simple Game Site Builder Zip

A Moment Of Solidarity And A Promise

June 14, 2016 Posted by zachary

This past weekend, a horrible tragedy occurred. A shooter in Orlando, Florida targeted a nightclub which caters to the LGBT community. The shooter entered this nightclub and killed 49 innocent people and wounded many more. This shooter will not have to face the people and their families as he was killed by officers on the scene.

I express my sincere sorrow for this tragedy and my sympathies for those killed or harmed and their loved ones. No one should have to go through the pain they have experienced and will continue to experience as they deal with the fallout of this heinous action.

It is times of tragedy, such as this, that many politicians seeks to push their personal political agendas. On the side of Democrats, they have already started pushing their anti-second amendment agenda. On the side of Republicans, they have already begun their push to further expand the war on terror and its expansion of anti-fourth amendment agenda as well as their vilification of all people of Islamic faith. But times of tragedy and emotion are not the time to make policy changes.

It is times of tragedy and high emotion that politicians are willing and capable to pass laws that violate our basic human rights and drive the US deeper into damaging domestic and foreign polices. It was in a time of high emotion that lead the US to invade and destabilize Iraq. It was a time of high emotion that led to the US passing the PATRIOT Act, one of the largest violation of our constitutionally protected rights. It was a time of high emotion that led the US to develop and drop atomic weaponry on innocent people in Japan as well as imprison innocent Japanese Americans and immigrants.

Humans make poor decisions when emotion is the driving force behind them. That is why I vow to not make rash decisions during times of tragedy. We need to let our heads cool before we respond to tragedy via legislation. We need to use facts and real world data as a basis for policy changes, not high emotions. It is why in this time of tragedy and high emotion that I make this promise.

Johnson/Weld Is The Only Serious Choice For LP Presidential Ticket

May 26, 2016 Posted by zachary

This weekend is the Libertarian Party National Convention. At this event, delegates from around the US will convene and nominate our candidates for President and Vice President. There are a lot of people running for the LP nomination for President and Vice President, but I feel there is only one ticket that makes sense for the growth and strength of this party.

There are currently three front runners for President. Each one has picked their preferred running mate. They all bring something interesting to the table and express some good and some bad elements to the table.

Out of all these candidates, there is only one ticket that I feel works best for the LP and the US. That ticket is former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and his chosen running mate, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Why these two? Because they bring something no other candidate for the LP nominations have, experience and name recognition.

Both of these men are successful Republican governors who served with Democratic controlled legislatures. Even with the law writers stacked against them, they managed to cut taxes, the size of government and overall spending. They managed to do the impossible, work peacefully and compromise with political opponents to pass liberty expanding laws in their respective states.

Are they perfect Libertarians? Absolutely not. Neither am I and neither are you. They made mistakes and hold some opinions that many Libertarians have a hard time swallowing. Both Gary Johnson and William Weld have done and said things in the past that I don’t agree with. However, they have both apologized for and explained their decisions and how they have changed. That to me shows wisdom and strength. Things that can only come from real experience in a political landscape.

I feel that people can change as they are given new information. I feel that Johnson and Weld have done that and continue to do it. That is the important thing. I don’t think I can ever trust someone that claims to be a perfect Libertarian.

They also bring name recognition. Both are successful two term Governors. Gary Johnson ran as the LP nominee in 2012. This experience has already led to Johnson being included in several national polls, something that no other LP candidate can claim. These polls show Johnson already polling in the double digits against the presumed Republican and Democratic nominees. This polling is incredibly necessary for a serious LP ticket. Without the ability to poll well, the LP will not have a chance this election.

The Presidential Debates, run by the R and D controlled Commission on Presidential Debates, are an important part of running for President. If the LP nominee does not get into those debates, there is no chance that we will actually make a difference this year. With Johnson already polling just a few points away from the 15% requirement by the CPD, they have a chance to get in those debates and spread our message.

It is with all this, that I feel we will have the best chance of reaching out to disenchanted Democratic and Republican voters who want anyone else besides Trump and Clinton. With the insanity on display by the Republican and Democratic parties, a breath of fresh air and seriousness is the only way to compete. There is no way we can out crazy those two and expect to make a difference. We have to compete on experience and leadership.

Taking all this into account, Johnson/Weld is the only ticket I see that results in the most successful LP run for President to date. Honestly, I have no aspirations to a Libertarian being elected to President this year. However, if that were to happen, it will only be with a Johnson/Weld ticket.

Zachary Knight Launches Campaign For US Congressional District 5

March 18, 2016 Posted by zachary

March 18, 2016: Libertarian Zachary Knight publicly launched his campaign to run for US Congressional District 5 against Republican incumbent Rep. Steve Russel.

Zachary feels that the US is in sore need of people in DC who support freedom and peace. The current crop of politicians in DC feel too welcoming of policies that harm both the peace and freedom of American people as well as the peace and freedom of our allies and potential allies.

The US needs to end all of its wars, this includes foreign entanglements and military action as well as the domestic war on drugs and “terror”. By advocating for the end of these wars, we can establish a policy of peace and freedom. For more information on his positions and policies, please refer to his Platform.

Zachary will be running as the Libertarian option for the people of District 5. He has asked that those who wish to see a pro-peace, pro-freedom Libertarian option on the ballot in November support his campaign by donating to his IndieGogo fundraiser. He also asks that you follow his campaign on both Facebook and Twitter.