Julia Sherred's Geeky Pleasures

Geek Of The Week May 25, 2012

Jules — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:33 +0000

This week’s Geek of the Week is another thing that was brought to my attention while I was on staycation. There is a good chance you may have already seen it, but again, it is one of those things you cannot see enough! It was brought to my attention by past Geeky Pleasures Radio Show guest, Patrick Hester (@atfmb). When he brought it to my attention, he made some comment about hoping it appears on Geeky Pleasures. So I made it so. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have a great weekend!

New Screens and Confirmed Launch Dates for Digital Reality’s Bang Bang Racing!

Jules — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:00:56 +0000

Get Ready To Start Your Engines With Bang Bang Racing, Coming to Xbox LIVE®Arcade and PlayStation®Network on June 6, 2012!

Budapest, Hungary – May 25, 2012 — Digital Reality gears up for the ultimate ride with Bang Bang Racing, a fast-paced family-friendly racing game, skidding past the finish line and onto PlayStation®Network in America June 5, Xbox LIVE®Arcade for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft June 6, PC and Steam June 8 and PlayStation®Network in Europe June 13, 2012! Maneuver your way around every twist and turn of the course and burn rubber while fine tuning your driving skills in an effort and take home the championship trophy!

Check out this new batch of Bang Bang Racing screenshots here:

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Get a complete racing experience with Bang Bang Racing as it delivers white-knuckle excitement down every straight and brings guaranteed fun for the whole family with great visuals, exciting gameplay and competitive multiplayer action on every thrilling track. Choose from the 20 unique vehicles and eight colourful skins, all spread across four distinct classes, including racing muscle cars (like N-Dura), stock car series (like Evo GT), world endurance championship (like Protech) and formula one open-wheel cars (like Apex). Drive high-speed, pumped-up racing cars through cones, tires and exploding barrels! Look for shortcuts, beat the clock while you repair your car in the pitlane and face the ultimate challenge against your competitors to see who will take first place. With a distinct style and an unforgettable racing experience, Bang Bang Racing is sure to bring the entire family together.

For more information please visit the official website (www.bangbangracing.com), our YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/bangbangracing), like our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/bangbangracing) and follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/bangbangracing).

GeekGirlCon Passes Increase On June 1

Jules — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:05 +0000

Just a friendly reminder that the cost of passes for GeekGirlCon will increase by $10 USD on June 1, 2012. Passes are currently $35 USD for the weekend, or $20 USD for a day pass.

With an incredible special guests, including TV writer and producer Jane Espenson; comic book authors Greg Rucka, Jen Van Meter, and Gail Simone; herstorian Trina Robbins; Halo game engine architect Corrinne Yu; local superhero Purple Reign; and local media, including M.J. McDermott, meteorologist for Q13 FOX News This Morning, and KUOW reporter and producer Jamala Henderson, there is a lot to entertain you for the weekend.

But that is not all! There will be an entire floor dedicated to gaming, from console games to table top games, and additional soon-to-be-announced programming.

More information is available on their press release page.

Funcom Partners With NVIDIA To Bring ‘The Secret World’ Graphics To The Next Level

Jules — Thu, 24 May 2012 22:00:01 +0000

– Funcom combines engineering forces with NVIDIA to break new ground for graphics in massively multiplayer online games –

Durham, N.C., USA – May 24, 2012 – Funcom, a world-leading independent developer of online games, is thrilled to announce that it is working closely with NVIDIA for Funcom’s upcoming modern-day massively multiplayer online game ‘The Secret World’.

Funcom’s and NVIDIA’s engineering teams have been working together to make ‘The Secret World’ the most graphically advanced massively multiplayer online game ever to launch on the PC platform. ‘The Secret World’ will feature several cutting-edge DirectX 11 features, such as ground and object tessellation, which makes flat textures appear three-dimensional, thus bringing ordinary objects and surfaces to extraordinarily detailed life. ‘The Secret World’ will also feature full support for NVIDIA 3D Vision® technology for further gaming immersion and increased performance for gamers running dual-GPU configurations utilizing NVIDIA SLI® technology.

NVIDIA will also be launching its online “GPU Analyzer” tool specifically for ‘The Secret World’, which will allow gamers to quickly test their gaming rigs and confirm they have the right hardware for the best possible gaming experience. Funcom and NVIDIA are collaborating on additional virtual events, such as an upcoming Beta Weekend that will potentially allow every registered NVIDIA customer to try out ‘The Secret World’ before launch. With promotion across the NVIDIA.com website, social media channels, newsletters, YouTube and more, Funcom is expecting coverage of the game to exceed more than 100 million impressions.

“We are truly excited to again be working with NVIDIA like we did with our previous title, ‘Age of Conan,’” says Funcom CTO Rui Casais. “By collaborating with NVIDIA engineers, we are making sure we get the absolute most out of our game engine in terms of performance and visual splendor, both of which are tremendously beneficial to anyone playing ‘The Secret World’ with NVIDIA GeForce® GPUs.”

‘The Secret World’ is developed by Funcom and co-published by EA Partners, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), and is consistently mentioned as one of the most anticipated MMOs in development. Funcom has previously reported that over 1,000,000 gamers are registered for the ongoing beta test for ‘The Secret World’. For more information about the game or how to register for the beta, please visit www.thesecretworld.com.

Engage and Reverb Bring PR and Marketing to Gaming and Cloud Providers

Jules — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:00:10 +0000

ENGAGE AND REVERB COMMUNICATIONS BRING PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING TO GAMING COMPANIES AND CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDERS

Unique Partnership Offers In-Depth Understanding of Both Markets as Cloud Rapidly Becomes Preferred Platform for Video Games

TWAIN HARTE AND ALAMEDA, CALIF., May 23, 2012 –Reverb Communications, a veteran public relations, marketing and publishing digital entertainment agency, and Engage, a full-service communications agency specializing in the cloud, mobile and telecom markets, today announced a partnership providing public relations and marketing services to gaming companies and to cloud providers that are now delivering video games and gaming applications.

The cloud is changing the gaming business, bringing new players into the industry. Broadband access and availability means that cloud hosting and traditional service providers are increasingly important for the distribution and quality of the gaming experience. The Engage and Reverb Communications relationship is the only agency partnership that brings together knowledge and experience of the cloud, mobile, and telecom markets and all of the gaming platforms under one unified infrastructure.

“The partnership between Engage and Reverb Communications provides the collective resources to drive our clients’ business forward in a fast-paced gaming market,“ said Doug Kennedy, president and CEO of Reverb Communications. “Our gaming clients want to be in the cloud space, while cloud providers want gaming customers. The combination of Reverb and Engage brings together business-to-business and consumer marketing and PR, giving our customers the best of both worlds.”

“Many of our mobile and telecom clients want to understand how to market to the consumer market,” said Jeannette Bitz, president of Engage. “They realize that consumer apps and their infrastructure are coming together in the cloud, and they need PR and marketing initiatives that respond to this trend. Our partnership with Reverb gives clients access to our deep expertise in both the consumer and telecom fields.”

Strong growth in the gaming market is driving the need for a new approach to consumer and corporate communications. Gartner estimated that in 2011 the market for mobile and cloud-based gaming accounted for 15 percent ($11.9 billion) of the $74 billion worldwide gaming market. The analyst company predicts that in 2015 online gaming will account for the bulk of gaming market growth, with 20 percent ($28.3 billion) of total market sales of $112 billion.

Partnership Offers Wealth of Experience

The collective market experience of Engage and Reverb enables the agency partnership to provide clients with a complete solution incorporating sales, marketing, and public relations support. Clients no longer need to put up with segmented solutions from multiple agencies. Reverb and Engage work together to translate a client’s unique message across all media channels to reach the audiences that matter, whether consumers, developers, carriers, or investors.

For more information about the partnership of Reverb Communications and Engage, email info@reverbinc.com or info@engagepr.com.

About Engage
Engage is an award-winning public relations and communications agency with a passion for results and a reputation for driving highly strategic, creative PR and communications programs for technology companies. The firm’s domain expertise and strong track record enable it to create bold, results-oriented programs that capture the interest and respect of investors, customers, partners, and industry influencers. Engage is based in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley. Engage has been recognized four times as one of the “Best Places to Work in the Bay Area” by the San Francisco Business Times, East Bay Business Times, and the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal.

For more information about Engage, please refer to the agency’s website, www.engagepr.com or visit the agency on YouTube, Twitter, and the Engage blog.

About Reverb Communications:
Reverb Communications, Inc. provides a combination of public relations, marketing and business development programs, creating customized communications campaigns that directly contribute to a client’s bottom line. Reverb specializes in launching videogames on all platforms including Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system Wii, Windows PC, Facebook and iPhone. The agency has worked on recognizable brands like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band, Star Trek, Dungeon Defenders, iSamJackson, Zumba Fitness and many more.

For more information about Reverb Communications, please visit: www.reverbinc.com.

Dungeon Defenders introduces RTS into its Tower Defense with The Summoner Hero Class

Jules — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:00:20 +0000

Dungeon Defenders introduces RTS into its Tower Defense with The Summoner Hero Class

See his minions in action:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Available on PC & MAC for $3.99, the Summoner is now upon us as Dungeon Defenders’ latest hero class. The Summoner changes the pace of battle by introducing a brand new way to play: unit management. Instead of placing defenses, the Summoner can call upon his own personal army to protect the Eternia Crystals. Using Overlord Mode, you can control these minions from a top-down ‘RTS-style’ perspective. Did we mention he can have two pets?

[Show as slideshow]

The DLC is $3.99 on Steam, and can be found here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/208544

The Summoner

A mysterious visitor from the Crystalline dimension, the Summoner has decided to wage his own war across Etheria! With two pets by his side, the Summoner can form minions out of sentient crystal and build an army to follow his every command!

Key Features:

Play Dungeon Defenders like an RTS, summoning and controlling your own minions
Use Overlord Mode to supervise your army from a top-down perspective
Issue a variety of commands to control your troops
Equip two pets simultaneously
Levitate for up to 15 seconds

Abilities:

Phase Shift: Move your ghostly avatar around the physical realm while remaining immaterial and unseen by enemies.
Flash Heal: Cast a spell which instantly heals all allied units and defenses within a radius.

Get Dungeon Defenders on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/65800

Dungeon Defenders is one of the fastest selling downloadable games of all time. Bringing together the best elements of tower defense and action-RPG progression, it allows players to team up and fight across 15 unique maps, 30 challenges and four difficulty settings in all of the game’s loot-raiding, spell-casting, level-up stacking glory. Players control one of several distinct hero classes in an epic bid to fight back an ancient evil. Each character comes with special functions, and players can create and customize/upgrade an armory of weapons and equipment.

Check out the launch trailer for Dungeon Defenders here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dungeon Defenders is rated E10+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board and is available for download now on Steam for $14.99. For more information on the game, visit http://www.dungeondefenders.com/, like the game on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dungeondefenders or follow the Trendy team on Twitter at @TrendyEnt.

NBA Baller Beats Teams with Spalding & Panini

Jules — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:00:11 +0000

Majesco Entertainment’s NBA Baller Beats Teams with Spalding & Panini

NBA Baller Beats Bundled with Spalding® NBA Game Ball Replica; Features Panini America’s 2012 NBA HOOPS Basketball Trading Cards

Edison, NJ—May 24, 2012—Majesco Entertainment Company (NASDAQ: COOL), publisher of the highly anticipated and innovative basketball video game NBA Baller Beats, is teaming up with two world-renowned basketball brands whose products are set to enhance the authentic basketball experience in the game.

Majesco Entertainment today confirmed that NBA Baller Beats, a fun, high-energy and first-of-its kind game that requires players to use a real basketball to play, will come packaged with a full-sized officially-licensed NBA game ball replica from Spalding, the official provider of the NBA game basketball. NBA Baller Beats, which is set to launch this fall exclusively on Kinect™ for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, gets players on their feet mastering ball handling skills while playing to the beat of an electrifying soundtrack. The Kinect motion sensor captures every movement of both player and ball to create an entirely new basketball gaming experience.

“With NBA Baller Beats we’re focused on delivering an innovative game that stays true to the NBA brand so it made perfect sense to bundle the game with the high-quality NBA game ball replica from Spalding,” said Jesse Sutton, Chief Executive Officer, Majesco Entertainment. “Spalding has long been a leader of innovation and quality and has been providing the NBA with the official game ball for nearly 30 years.”

Additionally, Majesco Entertainment today revealed a product integration agreement with sports trading card company Panini America to feature Panini’s 2012 NBA HOOPS basketball trading cards as unlockable in-game rewards. NBA Baller Beats lets players train alongside their favorite NBA franchises unlocking songs, difficulty levels, over 100 posters and Panini’s NBA HOOPS trading cards showcasing NBA players’ greatest moves.

“Panini is the world’s largest sports and entertainment collectibles company and the exclusive trading card of the NBA,” said Christina Glorioso, Chief Marketing Officer, Majesco Entertainment. “As players master their moves in NBA Baller Beats they’ll start to unlock a collection of official Panini NBA HOOPS trading cards featuring NBA players from every franchise.”

NBA Baller Beats will make its debut exclusively on Kinect for Xbox 360 this fall. To view the official NBA Baller Beats teaser trailer and find out more about the game, please visit: www.NBABallerBeats.com. For the latest news and alerts follow us on Twitter @NBABallerBeats and ‘Like’ us on Facebook . For more information about Spalding, please visit http://www.spalding.com/. For more information about Panini America, please visit http://www.paniniamerica.net/.

About Majesco Entertainment Company
Majesco Entertainment Company is a provider of video games for the mass market. Building on more than 20 years of operating history, the company is focused on developing and publishing a wide range of casual and family oriented video games on all leading console and handheld platforms as well as online, social networks and mobile devices. Product highlights include Zumba® Fitness, Cooking MamaTM, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and QUICKHIT NFL Football. The company’s shares are traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol: COOL. Majesco is headquartered in Edison, NJ with offices in San Francisco, CA, Brockhampton, UK, and a social games development studio in Foxboro, MA. More info can be found online at www.majescoentertainment.comor on Twitter at www.twitter.com/majesco.

About Spalding
A Division of Russell Brands, LLC, Spalding is the largest basketball equipment supplier in the world. Spalding is the official basketball of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the official backboard of the NBA and NCAA, the official baseball of the Little League World Series, the official volleyball of the King of the Beach Volleyball Tour and the official football of Pop Warner. The SPALDING® trademark is owned by Russell Brands, LLC. For more information, visit www.spalding.com.

About Panini America
The Panini Group, established almost 50 years ago in Modena, Italy, has subsidiaries throughout Europe, Latin America and the United States. Panini is the world leader in officially licensed collectibles and is the most significant publisher of collectibles in the U.S., with official licenses for NBA, MLBPA, NFL, NHL, FIFA, USA Baseball, Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. and other key properties from many other licensors. Panini has distribution channels in more than 100 countries and employs a staff of over 800. For more information visit us at www.paniniamerica.net, www.paninigroup.com or www.paniniamerica.wordpress.com. You can also follow Panini America on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and on YouTube.

Kinect, Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox LIVE are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

Baller Beats is based on a concept by Curtis R. Smith.

Safe Harbor
Certain statements contained herein are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements may be identified by reference to a future period(s) or by the use of forward-looking terminology, such as “may,” “will,” “intend,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate” or “continue” or the negatives thereof or other comparable terminology. The Company’s actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. These factors include but are not limited to, the demand for our products; our ability to complete and release our products in a timely fashion; competitive factors in the businesses in which we compete; continued consumer acceptance of our products and the gaming platforms on which our products operate; fulfillment of orders preliminarily made by customers; adverse changes in the securities markets and the availability of and costs associated with sources of liquidity. The Company does not undertake, and specifically disclaims any obligation, to release publicly the results of any revisions that may be made to any forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statements.

How To Care For An Introvert and XKCD Fun

Jules — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:29 +0000

The following two videos came to my attention while I was away on staycation. They are awesome! And not just because both of them feature Errol Elumir, who is half of current independent featured band Debs and Errol.

The first of these videos — in case you missed it on Psychology Today among other places — is based on one of my favourite things on the internet: How To Care For An Introvert. The video was scripted by Manda Whitney, and featured both Errol and Manda. It is rather hilarious and I this introvert became exhausted just watch Errol’s extroversion. But, man oh man, how I laughed!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second video — just in case you missed it on Mental Floss among other places — Errol quickly threw together when XKCD published Every Major’s Terrible – a Parody of Modern Major General. Despite Errol claiming he sounds wonky and stuff, THIS IS HARD TO SING, and he did so wonderfully!

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the event you haven’t seen this yet, I hope you enjoyed! For those who have seen it and want to yell REPOST — especially as I’ve already shared this on Google Plus, Twitter, and other places have spread this around — the good things cannot be shared enough.

The Wrath Of Schrodinger’s Cat

Jules — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:17 +0000

After a two week leave of absence, Geeky Pleasures is back with its regularly scheduled programme… or updates… or however you want to put it. To mark this occasion, here is a little video, poorly edited as I was in a hurry after being hit with a lightning bolt of inspiration, so I hurried to complete it. The source of this inspiration was this photo. Immediately upon seeing it, I knew the following had to be created.

I hope you enjoy, despite the poor and hurried edit job!

Click here to view the embedded video.

“From Bedrooms to Billions” – New Documentary Film Telling the Story of the UK Video Games Industry Announced

Jules — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:00:42 +0000

OFFICIAL FILM POSTER

For immediate release: Filmmakers Anthony Caulfield & Nicola Caulfield have announced they have launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund the production of their new 90 minute documentary feature film titled ‘From Bedrooms to Billions’. The film tells the remarkable, true story of the British Video Games Industry between 1979 – 1996 and how the creativity and vision of a relatively small number of individuals allowed the UK to play a key, pioneering role in the shaping of the billion dollar video games industry which today, dominates the modern world’s entertainment landscape. Featuring interviews with key contributors to the UK story in video game development, publishing and journalism from over the last 40 years, combined with compelling archive, ‘From Bedrooms to Billions’ is the first to attempt to bring this fascinating story together starting in the late 70′s, spanning ‘Thatcher’s Britain’ of the 80′s and culminating in the dramatic shift of fortunes for the UK Video Games Industry by the late 90′s. The film celebrates the importance of this era and why it has become such a landmark period in the history of British invention, creativity and industry.

Producer, Anthony Caulfield said “From Bedrooms to Billions has been a very personal project for us since June 2008. Having completed many documentaries we have always wanted to document the rise of the British video games industry and the incredible story that went with it. What’s so fascinating is how the UK computer scene was originally nothing more than a scientific curiosity which snowballed into something so vast. As we started putting this film together we uncovered so many incredible stories, these people had to literally make up an industry as they went, some were very successful, but others were not so, however collectively we felt it a strong story that’s long overdue and should make a wonderful movie”. Fellow Producer Nicola Caulfield said “This film will be a great piece of nostalgic entertainment that documents an important part of UK history. This era is so often overlooked and not known by young British talent looking to enter the games industry, as the vast majority of UK children, school leavers and even students believe that gaming originated mainly from the US and Japan and have little to no knowledge that a British games industry even once existed”.

A teaser trailer as well as further information on the ‘From Bedrooms to Billions’ Indiegogo campaign can be found at http://igg.me/p/78873?a=497112

You can also visit the film’s official website www.frombedroomstobillions.com or by emailing Anthony Caulfield at anthonyc@graciousfilms.com

Also the Facebook page for the film can be visited at http://www.facebook.com/pages/From-Bedrooms-to-Billions/136306856397331?v=photos&ref=ts#!/pages/From-Bedrooms-to-Billions/136306856397331?v=wall

Gracious Film’s own website can be found at www.graciousfilms.com Twitter @FromBedrooms

About the filmmakers

Nicola Caulfield & Anthony Caulfield

Nicola and Anthony began their careers by making film shorts, ‘The Majestic Side’ and ‘Night of your Life’ which won high praise at the 1997 BAFTA Short Film Competition, before going on to make the comedy sketch show ‘Hals Hangover’ in 1999.

They were commissioned by the government of Macau to produce a film on the East Asian Games and have also worked with the rock group ‘Pink Floyd’ to produce a theatrical version of ‘Pink Floyd’s – Pulse’ which was distributed worldwide.

Nicola and Anthony have also written, produced and directed various acclaimed documentaries for both broadcast and commercial release, including ‘The Story of The Young Ones’, ‘Alternative Rebellion: The beginning of Britain’s Alternative Comedy Scene’, ‘Doctor Who – Stripped for Action’ for the BBC, as well as ‘George Michael – FAITH’ and ‘Jeff’s Wayne’s The War of the Worlds’ for Sony Music. They have made two documentaries on gypsy punk group ‘Gogol Bordello’ for Channel 4 and produced the celebrated HD world music TV series ‘Soundcheck at Momo’s’.

2010 saw the release of their first feature film, ‘Immodesty Blaize – Burlesque Undressed’, which had a worldwide theatrical release and then later on DVD and terrestrial broadcast.

In addition to this work they have always had a real passion to produce films that document the video games industry. Some of their work has included short documentary films on legendary 80’s CRASH & ZZAP!64 video game magazine publishers Newsfield Publications (The Newsfield Years), Sandy White – Ant Attack and Virtua Tennis as well as recently completing the official Sonic the Hedgehog 20th Anniversary documentary titled ‘Sonic – The Birth of an Icon’ which was broadcast all over the world.

PAX East 2012 Footage, Including Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm Concert Footage

Jules — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:00:24 +0000

Were you one of the people who were unable to make the journey to Boston this year for PAX East 2012? Were you sad that you missed the concerts? So was I. Many of my friends went. Yet again, Tom Giarrosso (@BoffoYuxDudes) was nice enough to capture video of the concerts with Paul and Storm (@paulandstorm) and Jonathan Coulton (@jonathancoulton), and more.

Behold them embedded below as a handy dandy playlist!

Paul & Storm Playlist

Jonathan Coulton Playlist

Glen Raphael Playlist (Live songs in the hallway, raws, etc.)

Mike Falzone by everyone Tom could find at PAX East

Click here to view the embedded video.

Glen Raphael live singing ‘Gorilla My Dreams’ for the concert line

Click here to view the embedded video.

Two Tribes To Be On The Geeky Pleasures Radio Show, May 25, 2012

Jules — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:00:04 +0000

Next Tuesday (May 22, 2012), I will be sitting down with former featured independent band, Two Tribes (@TwoTribesMusic), to pre-record an interview for the Geeky Pleasures Radio Show. It will air on Friday, May 25, 2012, sometime after at 5 pm PT/ 8 pm ET/ 1 am (Saturday) UK time, but before 9 pm PT/ Midnight ET/ 5 am (Saturday) UK time at The Look 24/7 (@TheLook247). The reason I say “sometime after” is because I have no idea how long we will chat for, therefor I do not know at what time it will air so that my show doesn’t run over into the next time slot. I’m not sure if that made any sense, but there you have it. All I can tell you is to follow me on Twitter or circle me on Google+ so that you’ll see the announcement of what time it will air.

If you have any questions for Two Tribes, please email them to me at jules@thelook247.com, no later than Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 10 am PT/ 1 pm ET/ 6 pm UK time.

Two Tribes is an electro/synthpop duo that combines the innovative style of internationally acclaimed DJ/ producer Alex Nahai and the distinct smokey voice of Seattle singer/songwriter Courtney Fortune. The two met one night in a recording engineering class at the University of Southern California. Alex, who is an accomplished DJ from NY’s CBGB and Ministry Of Sound, was drawn to Courtney’s unique voice which has been recognized by Glamour Magazine, The John Lennon Foundation and MTV. Both share a deft sense for songwriting and joining elements of music, multi-media, fashion and art. Together they create an explosive sound in the realm of electronic pop performance.

Even as a new band, Two Tribes’ secretly released tracks have topped charts on the fan-driven site The Sixty One. Their single “Madly” will be featured as an exclusive game on Rock Band 3 for Microsoft XBox Live this year, as well as part of an upcoming Rock Band Relief campaign. They are currently at work on their debut studio album.

For fans of Oh Land, Daft Punk, Everything But The Girl, Robyn and The Knife.

Geeky Pleasures’ Top Fives Of April 2012

Jules — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:00:07 +0000

And the experiment continues. This experiment is letting Geeky Pleasures readers know what the top five downloads and pageviews were for the previous month. You can read about the top five for February here and the top five for March here.

Without further ado, here are Geeky Pleasures’ Top Five Of April 2012:

Top Five Pageviews:

Two of the top five pages were part of the top five for February 2012 and March 2012. These pages are: 1) Combat Arms Enhances Arsenal With Extensive Weapons Update–moving down to the second most pages viewed; and 2) SpinTunes 3 Round 2 Rankings And Reviews Are Done, Round 3 Challenge Revealed–moving down to the third most pages viewed. I suspect the reason why these pages continue to do well is for the same as last month. They are syndicated on other websites and image searches.

Because 2 of the 5 top pages are repeats, I’ll share with you the next top five most viewed pages:

Board Games Line-Up at GottaCon 2011–This is the result of a variety of this post being syndicated. Why someone would choose to syndicate something that is this outdated is a mystery to me. But there we have it.
Combat Arms Releases Content Update – Operation: Sector 25–This is the result of organic search results, both searches for the Combat Arms logo and searching “Combat Arms”.
Majesco Entertainment Announces Double Dragon: Neon Coming Soon to Xbla and PSN–I’m assuming this is the result of people being interested in this game, as the majority of the traffic came via social media.
Awesomely Geeky Rube Goldberg Machine–”Rube Goldberg” and “Rube Goldberg Machine” are search terms that drive a fair amount of traffic to my site, month after month.
Two Tribes–They were my featured independent musician for the month of April. Again, the majority of that traffic came from social media.

Top Five Interview/Podcast Downloads:

The top five interviews downloaded for April 2012 are:

And in the event that someone is once again curious about the following, the total page views for April 2012 broke just under 370,000, which is a very slight increase in page views. My unique visitors for April 2012 was roughly 19,200, which is a very slight decrease.

Thanks, again, for reading this little website of mine. And, once again, I ask you to tell a friend about Geeky Pleasures!

Enter The LEZ VAMPS Writing Contest

Jules — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:00:15 +0000

Former featured graphic artist, Mark Wheatley, is hosting a writing contest on his Facebook page. The contest is pretty wide open, allowing a lot of creative freedom. The details can be found below.

A CONTEST is WORTH (any number of) WORDS!

LEZ VAMPS by Mark Wheatley

This painting, called LEZ VAMPS, was created by Mark Wheatley for the wildly popular FLESH & BLOOD series of graphic novels by Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes. But any number of stories could be written to explain this scene. With that in mind, we are having a contest. We want you to write something that will blow our minds. If your story is the winner – you will collaborate with Mark Wheatley on an illustrated eBook edition, much like his BRIDE OF THE FOREST story, available from his facebook FAN page.

WIDE OPEN CONTEST RULES

SUBMIT – Anyone who can write, can submit. You can submit stories, poems, songs, haiku, comics or even recipes – as long as you can relate it to Mark Wheatley’s painting. Let your imagination run wild. But please keep the stories in the English language.

JUDGING – Simply put – If we like it – it gets published. This is a very arbitrary selection process – just like the REAL PUBLISHING WORLD! Your work will be judged by a group of writers, editors and artists who all think they know more about writing than the average Joe. And we are still trying to talk Joe into being a judge!

REWARDS – Your most important, winning reward, if selected, is PUBLICATION as an illustrated eBook, designed and illustrated by Mark Wheatley. While the LEZ VAMPS painting will be used in this eBook, Mark will be adding additional art to the package. He might be inspired by your contribution! (But he doesn’t have to!)

Everyone who enters will get SOMETHING.

One GRAND PRIZE Winner (drawn at random from all the published submissions) WINS a SIGNED and REMARQUED giclée print of the contest painting.

THE FINE PRINT (as opposed to the ART print)

1) You must guarantee that the work is original and you are the author and you grant Mark Wheatley the right to publish it. The authors retain copyright on their work, but grant Mark Wheatley full permission to self-publish it and market it in eBook form on his websites and facebook page.
Mark Wheatley can only accept submissions by the authors themselves. By submitting you state that you are the author of the story and hold all the rights necessary for allowing Mark Wheatley to publish.

2) Understand that Mark Wheatley will be selling the eBook compilation on his facebook page and possibly through his websites for a reasonable price. But he won’t be sharing any money with the contributors. First, from past experience, there may not be much money involved. Second, the paperwork/headache just isn’t worth the effort, especially if there are many contributors.

3) If the work is picked up and published by a paying market, Mark Wheatley will split the money from that publishing use 50/50 on a prorated basis, where the art is 50% and all the written material is 50% and each contributing author’s portion of the work is figured by page count. With notice to Mark Wheatley (just so we know what is going on) authors can publish their contributions wherever they like, but if they wish to sell it to somewhere including Mark Wheatley’s illustrations, he has full approval and will recieve 50% of the sale.

4) We reserve the right to make minor edits on the story, such as spelling, grammar, etc.

5) All entries should be submitted, pasted into the body of an eMail – no attachments will be accepted.

6) eMail entries should be sent to insight@insightstudiosgroup.com with the subject heading WORTH 1000 WORDS – SUBMISSION.

7) Entries need to be in by June 1.

8 ) Don’t forget to include your name, link and info in the eMail, so we can give you full credit for your story. If you have a facebook fan page or web site that you want to publicize, please include that info. If you have a brief bio that supports your work as a writer – please include that as well.

The Winners Of The ‘Blue Magic’ Giveaway are…

Jules — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:00:24 +0000

At 12 am this morning, the Blue Magic giveaway closed.

10 people told me about their favourite bird. Using a random number generator, I chose two numbers. The numbers were 2 and 7. That means Paul Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) and Chris Tallant (@tallant_chris) each will be receiving a copy of Blue Magic courtesy of TOR.

You can purchase Blue Magic on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indigo Books and Music, or where ever books are sold. Don’t forget to listen to my interview with Alyx Dellamonica and read her guest post.

Lesli Margherita, Lauren Bass and Tom Lenk Interview

Jules — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:00:27 +0000

On Friday, May 4, 2012, I sat down to have a conversation with actor Lesli Margherita (@QueenLesli), director Lauren Bass and actor Tom Lenk (@TomLenk) (Buffy, Cabin in the Woods) on the Geeky Pleasures Radio Show at The Look 24/7 (@TheLook247), to discuss all things Sparklepuff Lazerium (@SparkleHottie).

If you missed the interview, don’t worry. The interview is available below for your downloading and listening pleasure. But first, the show notes.

Things we discussed during the interview include: Tom’s recent work and upcoming things, such as Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing; We discussed Lesli’s body of work; We discussed casting film, stage and television; We discussed all things Sparklepuff Lazerium; We geeked out about science fiction in general, Star Wars and Star Trek; We geeked out about musical theatre; We discussed the ins and outs of producing a webseries; We discussed the debate about mainstream media vs independent content creators; We geeked out in general and more.
There is some NSFW language.
At the beginning of the interview, you’ll hear the Geeky Pleasures Radio Show theme song by Chris Cogott (@chriscogott)
The length of the interview is 1 hours 28 minutes 51 seconds
The size is 81.3 MB
The format is mp3, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo
To download the interview, right click save as this link.

Alternatively, you can stream it below. If you are viewing this in an RSS reader, you may need to visit the site in order to stream it.

I hope you enjoy!

Geek Of The Week May 4, 2012

Jules — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:00:00 +0000

As it is Star Wars day, you’d think this week’s Geek Of The Week would be Star Wars related. Nope. It is Star Trek: The Next Generation related.

Many of you may have already seen the following. If you haven’t seen this video, grab your tissue. Watching this caused me to sob. Thankfully, LeVar saved the day by causing me to laugh.

This video is from last weekend’s Calgary Expo, taken during the TNG Reunion panel. This September marks TNG’s 25th anniversary. Last weekend, the Calgary Expo was the first stop of six months worth of events to mark this anniversary.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have a great weekend!

Geeky Pleasures Is Taking A Two Week Hiatus… Of Sorts

Jules — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:00:46 +0000

Just a little heads-up to Geeky Pleasures’ lovely readers and the awesometastic listeners of my radio shows on The Look 24/7. After two years without a day off, I will be taking a two-week staycation.

What does that mean? It means that I will not be doing anything work related and will be mostly unavailable from Monday, May 7, 2012 through Monday, May 21, 2012. If you send me any e-mails regarding things you think will be of interest for Geeky Pleasures, I will look at them and respond to them beginning Tuesday, May 22, 2012, unless you e-mail me before Monday. I will be resuming my radio shows on Friday, May 25, 2012, at 5 pm PT/ 8 pm ET, with my 2-hour Canadian Show, followed by the Geeky Pleasure Radio Show and my interview with Two Tribes.

In preparation for this staycation, I’ve written and scheduled a couple of handfuls of posts for Geeky Pleasures–which will include the winner of my Blue Magic giveaway that you still have time to enter–and a couple of posts for GeekMom–which will go up after GeekMom moves to Wired.com. I will be setting up Geeky Pleasures to auto-tweet posts as they go live during my hiatus, plus scheduling tweets for The Look 24/7. I will not be updating Geeky Pleasures’ Google Plus page nor The Look 24/7′s Google Plus page.

If you do not follow me on Twitter, I suggest to subscribe to Geeky Pleasures’ by RSS, if you have not already done so, so that you don’t miss anything while I’m away. Also, if you do the iTunes thing, subscribe to the Geeky Pleasures Radio Show on iTunes. If you don’t do the iTunes thing, no worries. You’ll still receive tonight’s interview via RSS on Monday.

I hope you all have a great couple of weeks!

Sanctum Partners with the Yogscast Crew for New Map as FREE DLC

Jules — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:00:44 +0000

Skövde, Sweden – May 4, 2012 – Coffee Stain Studios is once again teaming up with the masters of humor over at The Yogscast to bring a brand new map in the form of free DLC to its much talked about first-person shooter/tower defense hybrid, Sanctum, available now on Steam. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/91609).

The Yogscast crew has been fans and big supporters of Sanctum since its launch, and made multiple videos. Coffee Stain has included the cast in making their latest map, in which Simon and Lewis lend their voices. The map also contains a frightening new boss mob to take down, adding a whole new gameplay element! Appropriately titled “The Yogscave”, the DLC is available now at the Sanctum Steam page and costs absolutely nothing, so make sure to download it and catch some of the various eggs. Also, check out the awesome video of the Yogscast guys trying out the new map here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Simon, Lewis and the rest of The Yogscast crew bring their signature ‘Joffo Cake’ fuelled humor to this Yogscave DLC map. As the ruling elite in Elysion One, the brightsiders live a life of decadence, but this luxury comes at a terrible cost to the less fortunate members of society, who toil in factories below the surface – securing minerals to craft weapons to defend against invaders. Simon and Lewis are two miners who have found themselves on the night-shift to end all night-shifts. After Simon’s “amazing” idea to increase Joffo Cake storage by 46% by diverting power from the core’s energy containment shielding, the night was off to a great start! Unfortunately this idea backfired as the reduced shielding attracted unwanted attention from some of the Yogscave’s more sinister denizens. The invaders are different this time, they appear to be organized by some far more nefarious mind…

Experienced at dealing with the odd Barret Bat and Blessed Boar here and there, Simon and Lewis are still unable stop these invaders and require your help! Can you save the world? And more importantly can you save the Joffo Cakes?!

Sanctum is a fresh take on the tower defense genre and places the player right into the frenetic fray with tight first-person shooter gameplay mechanics. Gamers take the role as Skye, an elite soldier sent out to protect her home town, Elysion One, from hordes of mysterious alien creatures. To successfully defend your land, you must construct and upgrade a labyrinth of defensive structures and towers. When the havoc starts and the wave of baddies is unleashed, you jump right into the action with your own fully-upgradeable weapons and play a key role in the defense. Sanctum has taken the best features from FPSs and tower defense games to create something totally unique.

For more information about Sanctum, please visit http://store.steampowered.com/app/91600/. For more information about Coffee Stain Studios, please visit www.coffeestainstudios.com.

About Coffee Stain Studios:

Coffee Stain Studios, winner of multiple honors in Epic Games’ $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest, is the developer of the wildly successful PC title Sanctum. The company was formed in 2010 by a group of devoted and ambitious students from the University of Skövde in Sweden, and the goal was to form a company allowing the founders to work with what they love to create unique, awesome games. During the first months of the company’s existence, an iOS title called I Love Strawberries was developed and published by Atari, Inc. Since then, the focus has been put on Sanctum, which as of today has sold over 350,000 units on digital platforms.

Web: http://www.coffeestainstudios.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CoffeeStainStudios
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Coffee_Stain

Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat Review

Jerry — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:00:17 +0000

Game: Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat
Developer: PipeWorks Software
Platform: Xbox 360
Achievements: 1/36

Puerile Moments in History

Upon headshotting Vlad the Impaler, Sun Tzu unceremoniously shouts, “Impale that, Vlad!!”

Upon the dismemberment of Hannibal’s left arm, Joan of Arc yells, “Where are your elephants now?”

Upon beheading Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu screams, “”I guess you Khan-t do that!” and does a little dance.

Upon killing Hernan Cortes, Alexander the Great asks, “That’s gotta be better than death by syphilis, right?”

In my head, Sun Tzu is a total badass that can kill with a single shot from his repeating crossbow and, while he has ammo, sounds a lot like Samuel L. Jackson (Can we just agree that Mr. Jackson is someone who just embodies badassery?). When Sun Tzu’s out of ammo, he runs around the arena and sounds a lot like the knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Run away! Run away!”). Thanks to Deadliest Warrior: Legends, I can live out this fantasy in all of its nerdy, embarrassing glory.

Deadliest Warrior: The Game and Deadliest Warrior: Legends are fighting games that pit historical warriors against each other and were released as Xbox Live Arcade titles in 2010 and 2011, respectively. They have now been repackaged into a retail disc titled, Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat. Included with the two games are six episodes on which the game is based – Deadliest Warrior. The show examines warriors throughout all of history and then tries to figure out the deep questions that all kids want to know – “Who would win in a fight of Ninja vs. Pirate?”

Deadliest Warrior: The Game takes generic fighters, whose names are said with special emphasis in my head – Apache!, Centurion!, Knight!, Ninja!, Pirate!, Rajput!, Samurai!, Shaolin Monk!, Spartan!, Viking!, Zande! and places them in 3D arena combat. The fighting system itself is, in my opinion, nice and simplistic. I am not a fighting game enthusiast and my style of play can be best described as “button mashing” and I found a lot to enjoy in this game. Each character can switch between a long, medium, or short range weapon with corresponding high, mid, and low attack options. Bouts can be ended with a single headshot, regardless of the status of your health bar. Customization of your warrior’s weapons and armor adds some more depth to the gameplay. As you play through the Arcade mode you can unlock new weapons and new armor that have different stats in terms of speed and reach.

This is not Street Fighter folks, though you would be forgiven if you are reminded a little of Mortal Kombat. All of the fights are accompanied by an overabundance of spewing blood, falling limbs, and beheadings. You can chop of your opponent’s arms and legs and watch as they hobble about painting the floor and walls with their blood. Hopefully, they’ll also be yelling, “I’m not dead yet!” at the top of their lungs. If you’re good, or lucky in my case, you can behead them and see their body crumple over. It’s all so over the top that it’s hilarious.

I had fun with Deadliest Warrior: The Game, but I was drawn a lot more to Deadliest Warrior: Legends. Most of the fighting engine has been carried over, but instead of no name peons for combatants, you get famous historical figures – Alexander the Great!, Attila the Hun!, Genghis Khan!, Hannibal!, Hernan Cortes!, Joan of Arc!, Shaka Zulu!, Sun Tzu!, Vlad the Impaler!, William Wallace! There is a key difference though and I think this difference is what made me want to keep playing.

[Show as slideshow]

There was a game released for the original PlayStation called Bushido Blade. I loved that game. It was a 3D fighting game that had no health bars and in which you could maim your opponents or kill them outright with one strike. There were no flashy superpowers and no kung fu movie aerial combat. It was just you, your sword, and a small supply of stamina that determined how long you could run around screaming, “Run away! Run away!”

Deadliest Warrior:Legends improves on its predecessor by removing the health bar. That’s right, the only indication of your overall health is the amount of blood you are spewing, the number of intact limbs you have, and whether or not you’re twitching on the ground. It’s odd, because in many ways the fighting engine is the same, and yet, with the removal of information, I liked the game more. It brought to the fore how similar the mechanics of the game are to Bushido Blade and with that, the nostalgia kicked into high gear. Plus, the impact of actual historical people cannot be dismissed. The ludicrousness of these battles gets highlighted even more when you have names. For example, just imagine as Joan of Arc steps up in her full plate armor to take on Vlad the Impaler (DRACULA!) as he licks his sword. Seriously. I’m still giggling.

When I got a chance to fight, I laughed. I would often laugh so hard that my sides hurt. Sadly, getting to an actual fight was frustrating. The load times for this game are unacceptable. When you’re just itching to see William Wallace in his kilt chopping down , sitting and waiting at the interstitial screen is a total mood killer. Installing the game to the hard drive didn’t make a noticeable dent in the wait times. I’m going to chalk this up as part of the conversion from being a downloadable XBLA to a disc based game, but it’s still frustrating.

Deadliest Warrior:Legends also adds a Risk-lite turn based strategy game called Generals. In this game, you strategically place battalions across different tile types and try to spread your fame, glory, and probably disease across the entire game map. It’s a refreshing change of pace that could easily be fleshed out and sold as its own title. I’m not sure how much crossover there is between the fighting game crowd and the turn based strategy crowd, but if you exist in that part of the Venn diagram, Deadliest Warrior:Legends was tailor made for you.

Recommending people play Deadliest Warrior:Legends is easy. It’s fast, fun, and comes with a neat strategy game. Recommending people buy Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat is a trickier proposition. On one hand, it comes with both games, 6 episodes of the show, all of the DLC, and a new arena to fight in. On the other hand, the load times are dreadful and do a lot to hamper the flow and fun of the game.

In the end though, if you like to laugh and are hankering to see Sun Tzu put a crossbow bolt through Attila the Hun’s face, this is probably the only way to see it happen without breaking the laws of physics.

Note on Achievements: I will readily admit that I am not the most skilled at fighting games. Sadly, as try as I might, I couldn’t get many of the Achievements in either game. They’re shockingly difficult and specific and should you get them all, you should feel quite proud of yourself! One example – As the primary player, kill an opponent while at critical health, with your leg and arm injured.

FPS/Tower Defense Hit Sanctum Free to Play on Steam this Weekend!

Jules — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:00:49 +0000

The Sanctum Collection Participates in Steam’s Free Weekend AND Gets a New Low Price!

Sanctum Will Be Free-to-Play from May 3rd through May 7th, 75% Off to Unlock

Skövde, Sweden – May 3, 2012 – Coffee Stain Studios announces that the Sanctum Collection, which includes the game and all DLC, has a new price of $19.99 across digital platforms. That’s hardly the best part, though. From now until May 7th, the first-person shooter/tower defense mashup that has received tons of attention will be free-to-play under Steam’s Free Weekend. During that weekend, players who accept this amazing tower defense game’s brilliance can purchase the full version of Sanctum at 75% off for only $2.49 and the DLC-packed Collection for only $4.99!

Sanctum is also getting some fine tuning in a quick update that includes:

Brand New Medal System
Improved Balancing
Graphic Details Settings
Under the Hood Tweaks

Sanctum is a fresh take on the tower defense genre and places the player right into the frenetic fray with tight first-person shooter gameplay mechanics. Gamers take the role as Skye, an elite soldier sent out to protect her home town, Elysion One, from hordes of mysterious alien creatures. To successfully defend your land, you must construct and upgrade a labyrinth of defensive structures and towers. When the havoc starts and the wave of baddies is unleashed, you jump right into the action with your own fully-upgradeable weapons and play a key role in the defense. Sanctum has taken the best features from FPSs and tower defense games to create something totally unique.

For more information about Sanctum, please visit http://store.steampowered.com/app/91600/. For more information about Coffee Stain Studios, please visit www.coffeestainstudios.com.

About Coffee Stain Studios:
Coffee Stain Studios, winner of multiple honors in Epic Games’ $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest, is the developer of the wildly successful PC title Sanctum. The company was formed in 2010 by a group of devoted and ambitious students from the University of Skövde in Sweden, and the goal was to form a company allowing the founders to work with what they love to create unique, awesome games. During the first months of the company’s existence, an iOS title called I Love Strawberries was developed and published by Atari, Inc. Since then, the focus has been put on Sanctum, which as of today has sold over 350,000 units on digital platforms.

Web: http://www.coffeestainstudios.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CoffeeStainStudios
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Coffee_Stain

200,000 Illuminati, Dragon And Templar Initiates Now Fighting The Secret War

Jules — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:00:48 +0000

– Over 50 MILLION agents deployed in ‘The Secret War’, a unique social experience that gives a glimpse of the conflict in ‘The Secret World’ MMO launching June 19 –

Durham, USA – May 3^rd, 2012 – Funcom is excited to share that 200,000 participants are now engaged in battle through ‘The Secret War’, a unique browser-based social experience that draws upon the conflict between the three secret societies in Funcom’s upcoming massively multiplayer online game‘The Secret World’. Launching on June 19^th, 2012, ‘The Secret World’ MMO pitches players against each other as they fight for the power to control the world for their secret society, and through ‘The Secret War’ social experience, participants can get a taste of the epic conflict that hits on June 19^th.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY ‘THE SECRET WAR’

In this unique social experience participants recruit their friends to join the battle and use them as agents on a world map to spread influence for one of the three secret societies: the Illuminati, the Dragon or the Templar. While doing so they unlock items that can be used in ‘The Secret World’ MMO at launch, items such as clothing, weapons, elixirs and even in-game titles. Through this social experience, participants get to engage themselves deeper in the conflict that they will get to play in ‘The Secret World’ MMO. They can also win a trip to the Funcom studio and even the chance to have their name in the game world.

‘The Secret War’ has now been raging for two weeks. Here are some interesting stats so far:

Over 200,000 gamers have registered and become participants in the war
The experience has had over 1.2 million visits in total
Each participant spends 20 minutes on average playing at each visit
Over 50 million agents have been deployed by the 200,000 participants

Since launch on April 18^th additional strategic layers have been added to the experience and participants must now work together toward a common goal every week. The secret society that performs best by the end of each week will see all their members be rewarded with unique items that can be used in‘The Secret World’ MMO. This week the factions battle for the Heart of Africa health-boosting talisman.

“The success of ‘The Secret War’ shows that the conflict between the world’s secret societies has universal appeal,” says Funcom SVP of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen. “This conflict has always been a key driver for activity in our own community, and we are excited to see that more and more people are coming in to join the conflict from outside the community as well. The conflict between the three secret societies adds a whole new dimension to MMO gameplay and we are excited to be able to have gamers take part in that conflict even before the launch of ‘The Secret World’.”

‘The Secret World’ is consistently mentioned as one of the most anticipated online games in development, and Funcom reported in February that over 750,000 gamers had registered for the ongoing beta testing by then. ‘The Secret World’ breaks new grounds and genre conventions by introducing a modern-day setting, a story-focused MMO experience, and a freeform progression system using no classes and no levels.

‘The Secret World’ is developed by Funcom and co-published by EA Partners, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA). For more information about ‘The Secret World’ or how to register for the beta, please visit www.thesecretworld.com.

ABOUT FUNCOM - Funcom is an independent developer and publisher of online games for PC and consoles. Funcom has provided outstanding entertainment since 1993 and continues to expand its track-record of more than twenty released games. Recent titles include ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’, ‘The Longest Journey’, ‘Anarchy Online’ and ‘Dreamfall: The Longest Journey’. For corporate information please visit www.funcom.com. For information about Funcom games visit www.anarchy-online.com, www.dreamfall.com, www.thesecretworld.com or www.ageofconan.com. Funcom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker FUNCOM.

GeekMom Is Moving To Wired.com Next Week!

Jules — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:00:22 +0000

I’ve been sitting on this news for about a month now, and it has been difficult to do so. This news is so very exciting! You may be aware that I’m a core contributor at GeekMom.com. It is Wired’s GeekDad‘s companion site. Over at GeekMom today, the announcement that GeekMom will become apart of Wired.com was finally made! The move is expected to happen next Wednesday, May 9, 2012.

For more information, click the clip below and join us as we collectively squee.

Clipped from: www.geekmom.com (share this clip)

JAM Live Music Arcade Launching May 16 on XBLA and PSN

Jules — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:00:53 +0000

Get Ready to Rock as JAM Live Music Arcade is Coming to PlayStation® Network and Xbox LIVE® Arcade May 16

Zivix and Reverb Publishing are bringing the definitive live music event to console gamers’ homes everywhere in just a few weeks

Minneapolis, Minnesota – May 2, 2012 – The kickoff date for your own music tour has just been announced! Zivix LLC, a developer leveraging innovative technology through peripherals, real musical instruments and entertainment software, and in association with Reverb Publishing, announced today that its upcoming music creation sandbox game, JAM Live Music Arcade, is set to launch on both Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation® Network the week of May 16th.

JAM Live Music Arcade was recently featured at SXSW in Austin and fresh from the PAX East show in Boston, where would-be Jam Masters from around the world got to remix some of their favorite hits on-the-fly. Be sure to check out the launch trailer here: http://youtu.be/jeqldm7rTJs

JAM Live Music Arcade is a completely new approach to the music genre with a real-time live music sandbox “JAM Mode” that allows the player to immediately build and customize their very own tunes, as well as a bonus “Arcade Challenge Mode” that plays similar to traditional music games. Starting with any one of the 30+ licensed songs featured in the game (including hits from Modest Mouse, Fallout Boy, Fatboy Slim, Owl City, Rise Against, Atmosphere and more), players jam with and remix all aspects of the song – guitar, bass, drums, synth and vocals – to experiment with the song and re-create it to their own personality. All of this is done with any one of the numerous compatible guitar gaming peripherals – the entire band is in your hands! Accessible and easy to get started, yet deep and almost endless to master, everyone can touch real music across a broad range of sonic tastes. JAM Live Music Arcade offers an immersive level of musical interaction that’s inspiring, powerful and contagious.

JAM Live Music Arcade joins Reverb Publishing’s growing roster of titles, which includes the massively successful Dungeon Defenders, as well as the upcoming Sanctum 2, Primal Carnage, Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad, Black Knight Sword and much more. For more information about the game, please visit www.jamlivemusicarcade.com. Also, be sure to visit https://www.facebook.com/JamLiveMusicArcade and ‘Like’ the page for a chance to win lots of great prizes. For more information about Zivix LLC, please visit www.zivix.net. For more information about Reverb Publishing and its initiatives, please visit www.reverbpublishing.com.

About Zivix:
Zivix, LLC combines innovation, technology and entertainment through gaming software and music peripherals. Based in Minneapolis, MN Zivix is an entertainment software developer and publisher that has also created a patented finger-sensing technology that enables a new generation of digital guitars. Our core mission is to combine the experience of playing an instrument and real musical interaction through accessible, fun and rewarding products for everyone.

About Reverb Publishing:
Founded in 2010, Reverb Publishing offers digital publishing to independent game developers on PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE Arcade, Wiiware, PC, iOS and Droid, by combining production and business development support paired with the proven public relations and marketing agency expertise from its parent company, Reverb Communications. Reverb Publishing’s unique business model is form fitted for studios, ensuring that they receive the majority of the game’s revenue and maintain ownership of their titles while Reverb handles all the non-developmental tasks including production support, navigating QA, and preparing for product submission.

The PR veterans at Reverb Communications have worked on recognizable brands like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band, Dance Central, Star Trek Online, as well as stellar digital titles like Battle Slots, Army of Darkness, BloodRayne: Betrayal, Kung Fu LIVE and the critically-acclaimed Dungeon Defenders.

For more information about Reverb Publishing, please visit www.reverbpublishing.com.

Debs And Errol

Jules — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:00:20 +0000

I am really excited about this month’s featured independent band. I’ve been waiting for MONTHS for the completion of their first album so that I could feature them.

They are geeky. They are Canadian! HUZZAH!–as Errol would say. They have a webcomic, one that I’ve been mentioned in and subsequently became Geek of the Week. They are Debs and Errol.

A couple weeks ago, they FINALLY–I say finally because I really have been waiting for this album for at least eight months now–released their album Songs In The Key Of Geek. The album is rather splendid and caused me to laugh, a lot. It even caused me to become all schmoopy and d’awh, thanks to their song My Pachebel Song.

Below, you will find their bio, five of their songs–I told Errol to pick four or five. He picked four. I decided to add My Pachebel Song because I adore it so–and you’ll find links to their online places, plus purchasing information for their first album.

If you are viewing this in your RSS reader, you’ll need to visit this post in order to listen to the music.

I hope you enjoy!

Debs and Errol are a Toronto-based music duo focusing on all things geeky. After meeting through the local chapter of National Novel Writing Month in 2007, they began to sing duets and write songs together and have performed at a smattering of gatherings. Both are highly active in the February Album Writing Month community, an online songwriting challenge where participants aim to write 14 songs in 28 days. When not together, Debs focuses on writing serious things and Errol works on becoming tactful in public. (Actually, Errol’s not working on that at all)

If you want to read the crazy long 3 page bio, that’s on their page:
http://debsanderrol.com/about-page/

Geek Love Song