Boy was I excited when I found out via her mailing-list that not only was she going to do a tour, albeit short, in the United States, but that she was coming to NYC! To make it even better, she was going to be in town a mere days before my birthday! (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!) I scarfed up two tickets for me and Adam to see her and it only costed about $20 for each ticket. That was a steal for me!

Last night was the night and I was wowed! Not only from Little Boot’s performance and energy but by the two opening bands that night: Plastiscines and Yes Giantess. I should have realized I would have enjoyed Yes Giantess by the remix they did of Little Boots’ “Earthquake” that she released a couple weeks ago.

The Plastiscines were an all-female group with a hard edge. From what I could tell they were French due to their accents, after doing some research I found out I was right. I like being able to hear powerful women who don’t come off as whiney or bitches and they didn’t disappoint. I’m sorry to admit this, but I was really impressed with their hair and clothing too! To be able to rock and look good while doing it? Fab!

Yes Giantess was also a pleasant surprise. As we waited for them to make up the stage I watched the crew put together the different synthesizers and keyboards that the team were going to play and then there was a lone Mac laptop with red electrical tape spelling out “YES” sitting on there as well. These guys were outright nerds and seemed to have a jolly time up there banging away on the keys.

Then came the headliner: Little Boots. I had read Perez Hilton earlier in the day and knew she was to do a surprise set on whatever local event he was having that night in NYC, but I did notice it was here a few times peaking around the corner on the stage while the other acts played so Perez’s thing must not have been long. She had a disco-ball-esque dress on that refracted the stage light that shined in various directions. She has total control of the stage and is very adept at starting audience participation.

If you aren’t familiar with Little Boots’ YouTube videos, she performs with Tenori-On by Yamaha on some of her tracks. The device is so nerdy and dramatically different from all of the classical and modern day instruments out there. As I have interpreted it, you have to be competent in being able to program the machine and then can use your programming and sound bites to play. The most obvious song that you hear it on is “Meddle.”

Another interesting “instrument” she used was some sort of light beam that was sitting on a synthesizer and depending on how she moved her hand the sound would be different. I have no idea what it is called but it was awesome.

She wrapped up the night without playing “Stuck on Repeat” and I was getting a bit nervous! That was my favorite song and I think her most well-known. After exiting the stage everyone stayed on the dance floor and called for her to come back on. Then the first few bars of the song started to play and the crowd went wild! Everyone was satisfied.

She played all the songs I knew of plus ones I hadn’t heard yet since her debut album “Hands” isn’t available in the States yet so I can only hope that one day we’ll be able to hear it. I’m really excited about what she has to offer to indie electronic music and I hope people in the states will be able to share in it really soon!

My goals for TLoR is to have a game where there are many different “levels” for people to play. I want a beginner, intermediate, and advanced player goals. But also, I want the casual player to be able to come on maybe once or twice a week to play and still have fun with it and not get bored or feel like they will never “win” at the game. However, I also want to entertain more active players with things that happen by hour and keep them coming back day after day.

I have yet decided if I want to immediately classify accounts as specific “types” of players or just let the players decide themselves. I am going with the latter because I feel the “pick your own adventure” is just much more exciting for people, it is at least for me if I were playing the game.

I have also decided that my game is going to be free. It really ticks me off when these sites out there that make it impossible to do anything in the game unless you pay for it. Some sites do “pay to play” better than others but some make you pay exorbanent amounts of money for “customs” that really aren’t “customs” you’re just paying for the code of the site to make you a generation 1 animal with a few of your own chosen colors. To me, that’s worth $5 because the actual artist hasn’t made anything “custom” about it.

I have been toying with the idea of doing actual custom art for people if they want it and then loading those custom sprites into the game. But would I have the time? Probably not. Meh, maybe I could only offer very limited custom slots.

Anyway, the original point of this post was to list my favorite websites that do something that I would like to do, why the do it good, or why they do it “bad,” (all in my humble opinion.)

Dragon Adopters

Pros:

• Excellent graphics, both pixel (animated and non-animated) and vector.
• “Dragon Game” on each dragon page. Makes users want to visit other people’s pages and help their dragons grow by winning items.
• Very nice marketplace to sell items.
• Overall a very nice way to create items, use and sell them.
• I like how the dragon “produces” stuff. I wanted to implement something like this however was thinking more along the lines of the dragon going out and fetching it. (Like gold, jewels, etc, how classical dragons liked to “horde” things.)

Cons:

• Takes a long time to level your dragons unless your a post whore. Not exactly what I am going for in my game.

Furry Paws

Pros:

• Love how people submit art for the different breeds.
• Like that you have to have some level of care in order for the dogs to perform better in competitions.
• I believe there was a “newbie” tutorial for this site but I can’t remember because it has been a while.

Cons:

• For some reason I stopped playing this game after a few weeks. I think generally, the layout for the site is too difficult to keep people to stay within the site and drill down and discover everything. Instead, when I log in I am not sure where to start first because there isn’t really a launching point. I get bored and navigate away from the site even though I know there is a lot to do in the game.

Dragon Cave

Pros:

• Nice art.
• Good community
• Very simple interface, know exactly what you’re getting into and what you need to do.

Cons:

• Again, you have to spam message boards or join “fan sites” in order to get the needed amount of views to grow your dragon. I don’t think I want that to be a main focus of my game (maybe a small part of it though, might be fun)

Aramii

Pros:

• Lovely artwork.
• Includes “quests” for the aramii to do.
• Meeps!
• Theme contests for people to enter in.
• Breeding rounds that you earn.
• “Guilds” of players – helps the community
• Things like the treasure chest and game machine for “guilds” for guild members to get free stuff.
• Very good with updates, they update the main page and have a Twitter account.

Cons:

• This may have changed since the last time I was playing this game, but like Wajas and Tagas (see below) there isn’t as much desire for high generation pups/cubs/babies/whatever. So if you’re a newbie, it’s hard to sell and gain money if you were only able to get high level generations. I think Aramii does a better job at helping this though by having the adoption center and being able to do quests no matter what the level. They also have aforementioned theme contests which demands people to breed for the right theme.
• It costs $20 to get a custom and donate other monies for special items. I don’t want money to be a factor on how well someone does at a game. You have to deal with that in real life, you shouldn’t have to deal with it in fantasy.

Howrse

Pros:

• Wonderful artwork
• You keep track of your horses and your equestrian center
• Nice “Black Market” items but, see Cons.
• The list is pretty long, I’ve been playing this game for more than a year and a half now, so I like it a lot!

Cons:

• Like Aramii, has a way to pay money and the ones with the most money do best in the game (that’s just the way it is!)
• The creators aren’t English speakers.
• Have a suggestions board but still don’t seem to listen to real concerns.

Majestica Online

Pros:

• You are able to move around in the land and fight monsters and get “drops”
• Again… art is wonderful…
• Nice storyline

Cons:

• No updates for a while. They were planning a version 2 and kinda forgot about version 1. If I make a site and work on a “version 2″ I have to make sure people don’t think the site is dead because updates aren’t happening in “version 1.”
• I got bored playing this game because it was mostly just leveling and quests about getting dropped items off of monsters I hadn’t got to yet. Not having regular updates may have affected my perception of this.

Tygras

Pros:

• Art! (I must only like sites with wonderful art XD)
• Have shops that you can work in to earn money
• Have “Activity Tokens” for chances at quests in the forest.

Cons:

• Also $20 for basic customs, however unlike Aramii no incentives for high generations of babies.
• Not sure where this game is going. Are they basically just trying to be like Wajas, but with large Cat breeds? (see below)

Wajas

Pros:

• Nice art
• Nice breeding program (old one was okay but the newest one actually makes me interested in breeding my Wajas again)

Cons:

• I think they have too many breeds… Makes it hard to get items to all look right when there are so many breeds to consider.
• This has tapered off a bit but the admin team were pretty rude and mean for a while. Very ungrateful for their users.
• Also, need to donate to do any of the “fun” stuff on the site. I donated once when I first joined but after that I never saw where my money was being put into. I think the site has gotten better about this but it’s important to understand that if you’re offering a service for money you need to keep your players up-to-date with what you’re doing with that money. I think the site gets away with this because they call it “donations.” It’s probably also a scheme so they don’t have to post taxes on the money they make from “donations” but of course I am only speculating.

I Will Never Be The Same - Standby

“Standby” is the freshman album from “I Will Never Be The Same“. The man behind the band is newcomer Josh Atchley. From the band’s website, he details that through a year and a half of writing, playing, production and marketing, he has started from scratch to create the apocalyptic sound of “Standby.”

Atchley is the write, lyricist, and sole album band member (except for help on some of the drumming) which reminds me of Trent Reznor solo efforts with his band Nine Inch Nails. Atchley and the live band members of I Will Never Be The Same have started touring the album on the west coast (sadly, I have yet to see anything performed live or on video by the band.) He has dreams of touring the band across the country and hopefully, around the world.

His live band members include of course himself, Josh Atchley (Vocals, Lead Guitars, Keyboards), Brittany Bao (Keyboard/Synth), Taylor Haycraft (Guitars), Francis Ten (Bass), and Adam Waldon (Drums). Haycraft and Ten are also of the band “West Indian Girl” that specializes in some serious psychedelic music, not my cup of tea but check it out if interested!

The album starts with the contemplative “Prelude” and segues into the powerful “I Am Not The One.” “Worldless” exhibits the eminent warnings from the previous tracks and then glides into the electric “Starfields.” Atchley apparently is a fan of fire and includes two tracks alluding to the destructor, “Burn” and “Set Your World On Fire” have much grittier vocals but keeps to the beauty of the album. The other tracks on the album include thoughts and missives to another, the speaker alone and recalling the past. “Eyes Turning Black” is like the final chapter of the story, the world has died with everything with it. The sense that someone has died and the life you saw in their eyes has “faded to black.” “Superloop” is the ending thought that concludes with “Cry Little Sister,” a cover of the “Lost Boys” soundtrack theme by Gerard McMann and Michael Mainieri.

My favorite tracks off this album are “Worldless,” “Starfields,” “Last Goodbye,” “Eyes Turning Black,” and “Cry Little Sister.”

Here is a full track listing:

• Prelude (1:42)
• I Am Not the One (4:18)
• Worldless (3:25)
• Starfields (4:39)
• Burn (4:46)
• Speak (4:14)
• All For You (5:48)
• Last Goodbye (5:45)
• Set Your World On Fire (5:34)
• Eyes Turning Black (5:29)
• Superloop (5:27)
• Cry Little Sister (5:00)

You can pick up the album (electronic download only as of now) via your favorite electronic store: Amazon.com, iTunes, Fixt or eMusic. Also be sure to check out the band’s MySpace (if even just to listen to the music I talked about here), Facebook Page, and Josh even has an entertaining Twitter account as well.

And there you go, my first attempt at an album review! Check out this album and let me know what your thoughts are.

An ugly cupcake enacts his revenge.

I thought I’d write a short post on a very awesome web comic. I first heard about Kawaii Not from a present for my last birthday.

Do you like cute? Are you sure you like cute? Do you like sick humor? Do you like cute things with sick, twisted humor? Then you’ll love Kawaii Not!

One of my favorites...

Kawaii Not started off as a webcomic done by Meghan Murphy who does some neat-o looking vector graphic-y artwork. It involves everyday objects anthropomorphized into cute objects doing sometimes innocent, sometimes grotesque, things.

In 2008 she compiled together 100 of the strips and included them in her book, Kawaii Not: Cute Gone Bad.

So check out her site and let me know which perverted cute object story is your favorite.