Alex Knowles

Alex Knowles (also known as Tid) has been a user of the McLeodGaming Forums, since 2009, and an SSF2 Developer since 2010. He is known for his contributions to Super Smash Flash 2 in the Stage Design, Stage Art, Character Programming, and Character Design/Balance departments, as well as his own independent video game development.

History
Alex Knowles joined Mcleodgaming under the handle Tid on the 3rd of January, 2009 to contribute to the repair of the Smash Flash DOJO!! website, which was unavailable due to maintenance problems at the time. He created his own Dojo!!! website in the downtime, notable for being the most popular version of the website that was created by a fan of the game rather than a developer. Tid deleted the website shortly after the official website became functional again, but was immediately added to a new team that had been created exclusively for the purpose of maintaining and writing for the new updated version of the Dojo!!!, due to his extensive work maintaining his own. Later in the same year, he joined the SSF2 Balancer team where he remained for several months before a promotion to full SSF2 Developer due to his Stage Art work.

Alex remained an active developer of the game who worked on a wide range of areas for several years. In the buildup to v0.8, Tid posted two Dev Blogs. The first was about tweaks and features being added to existing characters, and the second was dedicated to Lloyd's new Linked Artes gameplay mechanic. Alex attended Apex 2013 and Apex 2014 to assist in the hosting of the Super Smash Flash 2 booth and the livestream.

Starting in early 2013, Alex has become less prominent as an SSF2 Developer in order to work on his own independent project, Deep, which is as of yet unreleased.

As a Spriter and Developer
While his earlier attempts at spriting were ultimately rejected, Alex continued to practice his artistic skill in order to reach a point where he could contribute to the creation of Super Smash Flash 2, eventually deciding to focus exclusively on Stage art. It was after 3 original stages (Castle Entrance, Dream Den, End of Time) had been showcased that Tid became an SSF2 Developer. After this, Tid branched out and worked on many different aspects of the game, while continuing his Stage work.

Alex is currently listed in the credits under Character Programmers, Character Design and Balancing, Stage Concept Design, Stage Art/Creation, Graphical Effect Design, Audio Work and Introduction Video.

As a DOJO!!! Operative
Alex's first contribution to SSF2 was to create a temporary DOJO!! website while the official one was unusable due to maintenance issues. It was updated regularly for several months, and during that time became more popular than any previous iteration of the website. It is notable for being the only fan-made SSF2 DOJO!!! website that had official Developer information. When the official website returned to usable condition, a new dedicated team was created by the SSF2 Developers to write updates and maintain the website, to prevent any further hiatuses. Tid was added to this team in recognition of his work on his own DOJO!!!, which he at this point deleted to prevent it from detracting from the official website.

Dev Blogs
The Dev Blogs were a series of informational posts by the Developers regarding the at-the-time-newest version of Super Smash Flash 2 (v0.8).

Alex contributed two of these. The first was entitled Character Upgrades, a large post encompassing many of the changes and new features that had been added to the cast of playable characters. The second was specific to Lloyd, and provided detailed information about Lloyd's playstyle changes and and overview of his new 'Linked Artes' gameplay mechanic.

Deep
Alex is also working on an independent video game, completely separate from Mcleodgaming and Super Smash Flash 2, called  'Deep' , an exploration-based platformer in which you play as a robot stranded alone on an unknown alien world. The official website is located at www.deepthegame.wordpress.com