Ditto’s Interview with Mike from Twisted Pixel Games
Ditto was lucky enough to get an interview with Mike from the great gaming company Twisted Pixel! They make games like The Maw, ‘Splosion Man, and the very popular Gunstringer! He was really nice to chat with and we had a really good talk about what Twisted Pixel has got going on. We were so interested in the game The Maw after talking to him and seeing the game played in the booth that I actually bought it when we got home, and I’ve been playing it a ton – it’s adorably cute and really funny!
Ditto’s final puzzle piece – Avalon!! This looks amazing!!
Taking a break from PAX posts to share the amazing news that’s sweeping through The Spiral!! Avalon is coming soon to the Test Realm, and it looks AMAZING! I can’t wait to see what stories and quests will be told in this rich new addition to the worlds of The Spiral!!!
Interview with Ziba Scott – Girls Like Robots!
Investigating the indy games area at PAXEast, I came across a booth decorated with cute square character tiles and had my favorite game title of the show – ‘Girls Like Robots‘. The game is a fun casual puzzle game with great art design and a great goal – to make everyone happy! That’s right, in a show full of games that brag about body count or extreme weapon mods, Ziba Scott was showing off a game where all you had to do was make people happy by sitting them next to people (or robots) that they like.
Ziba, the founder of PopCannibal games (This guy REALLY knows how to create catchy names!) was nice enough to give us a totally unscheduled interview and it was great talking to him! We got to play the game for a little while as well, and it really was a lot of fun. It isn’t out yet, but he says it should be out this summer and available on multiple platforms. I know I”ll be on the list to get it when it’s available, because after playing only the first few levels, I was hooked. And hey – I love making people happy, it’s what furry orange monsters do!!
Ditto Interviews Sonic the Hedgehog!
At PAX East I got incredibly lucky and landed a short interview with media icon and video game legend Sonic the Hedgehog! The audio is a little off and it’s really difficult to hear Sonic’s answers, but it was a great interview and Sonic is a really funny guy!
Interview with Fire Hose Games – Go Home Dinosaurs
There are so many of the ‘big budget’ games at PAX East – huge flashy games that all seemed to be about how big the guns were or how high the body counts could be. That’s not the games I was looking for. I looked at the edges of the show, for the smaller indy studios that had clever, family friendly games and who had new ideas or great spins on old ideas to share.
One of the great games I found was the adorably named ‘Go Home Dinosaurs‘, by Fire Hose Games. The concept is really cute – it’s a kind of tower defense game (one of my favorite kind of games) where you’re a gopher trying to protect your barbeque from rampaging dinosaurs. It was cute and clever, and I even got to play a bit. This is a short interview in the Go Home Dinosaurs booth, followed by a bit of me playing the game. It was a lot of fun and well worth a try if you get a chance.
FeliciaQuest, Ditto’s Journey to meet an Internet Icon at PAX East
As I have said before – this year for PAX East I really had one goal, one purpose in mind for the day, and that was to see, meet, and possibly talk to Felicia Day. Sure, there were many big name folks there for meet and greets, but I am a huge fan of Felicia Day, not only because she’s a fun, quirky actress, but because she has been a pioneer in social media and taking web content to the next level. ‘The Guild’, her web show about a bunch of gamers, was one of the very first to start being taken seriously by ‘old school’ media, and of course she had a starring role in ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’, which also revolutionized the way people think about internet media and distribution.
Ditto trying to meet Felicia Day
Ditto Interviews Steve Spohn from AbleGamers at PAX East
I want to talk about this one. When I went to PAX East, I honestly had one main goal – to see or even meet Felicia Day. I’m a video blogger into gaming, so naturally I’m a huge fan and really respect how her work has helped to elevate internet media to the level is at today. So that was my PAX quest – sure, I wanted to see new games and meet cool people, but I didn’t have any plan beyond my quest for a brush with celebrity.
Well, leaving the main show floor on a search for pie, I came across a booth for The AbleGamers Foundation. I’ve known about them for quite a while of course – many people in the gaming community do – and I understood their mission, but I hadn’t really looked into it any more that, as I suspect most gamers hadn’t.
Ditto’s On the Floor Videos from PAX East
OK, so these videos were the ones that I wanted to post yesterday from the floor of PAX East, but I had a lot of trouble with the WiFi at the convention center and couldn’t post them, so here they are all in one place. These are just little notes and observations from the PAX floor. (more…)
PAX East in Pictures
Nothing can really capture the scale, the atmosphere, or the energy of PAX East – the hall is just full of people, movement, sound, excitement, and amazing games. We took a lot of pictures, especially of some of the great and amazing Cosplayers – actually a lot of people wanted to get pictures with Ditto too… I think it’s because I did such a thorough job brushing my fur. Anyway, here is a gallery of the best of Ditto’s PAX East photos. (more…)
Ditto’s Video Bloggy Thingy, Pre-PAX Edition!
So here we go – by the time you read this, Miss Narrator and I will be on our way to Boston for the amazing PAX East!! I am SO excited!! We’ll explore all the games and do interviews and all kinds of stuff! My #1 goal is to get a picture with Felicia Day – I hope I can do it!! I hope I don’t just pass out and melt into a pool of fur when I see her!
So follow my twitter (@dittowizard) and check my YouTube channel as I live tweet pics and videos from the show floor all day! It’s going to be so exciting!
Ditto and Mark Swiftgem face Tempus Stormfist!
At long last, Ditto and Mark Swiftgem finally face Tempus Stormfist, the final boss of the Storm Lord’s Temple. I wonder what’s up with that big weird squid thingy in the background?
Well it was a big fight and Mark helped a lot – finally we defeated Tempus and got the final portal piece! A great set of quests and a fun time.
The Storm Lord’s Temple, part 2 of 3
The second battle in the Temple of the Storm Lord, where Mark Swiftgem again helps me defeat the vicious foes who block the path to our goal – the final portal piece!
In this battle, Mark and I battle a Wing Fish and a Voltaic Eel, who prove no match for our combined forces! With the defeat of these two enemies, the gates barring our way into the inner chamber finally fall away and let us in to face our destiny!!
Ditto and Mark Swiftgem enter the Storm Lord’s Temple!
After finally having unlocked the Storm Lord’s temple, Ditto heads inside to defeat the evil minion of the great and terrible Storm Lord in order to get the final portal piece.
Of course with all the terribleness and scary summoning and stuff, Ditto decided he could use a little help. Fortunately Mark Swiftgem was able to join Ditto and help him get through the temple and face the evil badness inside!
This is the first battle – we had to do two big battles before we could even open the gates to summon the final boss…
Thanks to Mark Swiftgem for the help!
Ditto’s New Puzzle Piece – The best one yet!! Monsters!!
And here it is, at long last – Ditto’s fourth exclusive puzzle piece for the Wizard 101 Puzzler! I have to say – this is the most exciting piece I’ve seen yet – it’s monsters!! It looks like some creepy zombie thing and some kind of hairy horned monster to me! What does everyone else think?
Prospective Puzzler Participants:
Ditto finds all the Storm Shards… And a bug?
With all the Storm Shards found, Ditto has to find an ancient pedestal and interact with it – but has Ditto found a bug? There are two ‘blocks’ to interact with, but there was no text explaining what they did – so I pressed one and got struck by lightening!! Yikes!! The second interaction does something too, and then I head back to Vassik to see what comes next!
Ditto finds the second Storm Shard, tries for a third
Still hot on the trail of Storm Shards, Ditto finds one just laying on the ground – that was easy. The final shard, however, looks like it will prove more difficult, as the conscripts that are supposed to drop them are, as is normal for Celestia, pretty stingy with their drop rate…
The Wizard101 Puzzler so far…
Ditto knows he is not supposed to post the other website’s puzzly pieces, but we’re so close, I figured people would like to see what we have so far… Here’s what it looks like!
Here is all the pieces we have so far - oooh, it looks so handsome!
And yes – Happy April Fools Day everyone!!!
In Defence of the Trolling Stone
As most Twizards know, Wizard101 had a countdown timer on their launcher and website all week, counting down towards today. Well, today came, and we learned that we got a fun awesome brand new pet! the same Pet Rock we got for last April Fools, but with cute disguise glasses on.
When I saw him, I thought he was very cute, as well as a clever April Fools gag, especially with the name. It wasn’t some earth-shattering new game feature or uuber-pet, but for what it was – a silly April Fools gag – I thought it was fun, and I know we all had fun with the build up and anticipation.
And I think that’s where it went a little wrong – all that anticipation, all the exciting things going on in The Spiral, and today’s reveal may have seemed a little anti-climactic. When people started seeing what it was, there were some notes of open disappointment and even near hostility in one case that I saw. I think some people had built it up in their heads so much that the reveal of a minor (though adorable) tweak to last year’s gag pet was a serious letdown.
The Noble and Bespectacled Trolling Stone
Well I just wanted to defend the noble and bespectacled Trolling Stone. I have over 350 videos and over 400 blog posts, so I feel that I can say, with some authority, that creating any kind of content for public consumption is hard to do. Now, creating a new pet for Wizard 101? New artwork, new animations, new spells…. Way harder than making a blog post, that’s for sure! So how much effort do you want KingsIsle to put in for what amounts to an April Fools gag? Really, I think they made it easy for everyone – the price and stats are exactly the same as the Pet Rock last year, so if you already have one of those, unless you have a thing for little animated glasses, you don’t need this one. If you missed out on the Pet Rock last year, you’re in luck – you got the ‘Deluxe Model’, complete with funny glasses.
In short – this is a fun, cute April Fools gag, nothing more – I don’t think we have any reason to be disappointed in something we didn’t even know EXISTED 24 hours ago…. I know it’s easy to feel disappointed by something like this when KingsIsle cranks out so much awesome content, but let’s be honest – KingsIsle never said ‘Super Awesome New Pet coming March 30th’, and even their announcement page is completely tongue in cheek (and really funny).
So enjoy your rocks in all their various forms, or don’t – but remember, it’s April Fools and it’s all for fun – taking an Aprils Fools joke too seriously is almost as silly as taking advice from a bunch of felt and stuffing….
Ditto is Searching for the Storm Shards
So to recap, Ditto is searching for the missing Portal Piece, and that piece is apparently being held by some big scary titan thingy. So Ditto has to find these storm shard pieces, then summon the big scary thingy, then try not to get eaten by the big scary thingy, then get the final portal piece… Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
All I want to know why we can’t just, like, plan to blow him up or something, since we’re summoning him and know he’s coming? Maybe I just like blowing things up a little too much…
Wizard 101 Puzzler – Ditto’s Next Piece!!
Here it is, my next puzzle piece – isn’t is green and pretty? It may be my favorite piece yet! Remember, there are many pieces spread throughout the various Wizard101 Blogs and Fansites – the list of potential participants is below! Good luck – and remember, no posting of completed sections of the puzzle!
For my other two pieces and more information on the puzzle, see my first Puzzler Post!
Prospective Puzzler Participants:
Ditto finds out about the Storm Shards
Still on the hunt for the final Portal piece, Ditto finds a spooky underwater temple and learns that he must gather three storm shards and summon a big scary titan monster thingy – this doesn’t really sound like a good idea, does it? I mean, this whole plan consists of me hunting for crystals that will allow me to summon a boss monster that wants to eat me… As plans go, this one just seems poor…
Ditto searches for another Portal Piece and gets distracted
So after defeating Karolak and getting his portal piece, I returned to Leland (AKA ‘Mister Grumpy-Pants’) and learned that there was yet ANOTHER missing piece. Hot on the trail of this (hopefully final) missing piece, Ditto is distracted by a shiny object – in this case a Silver Chest. Shock-A-Lock time!!!
Ditto Faces Karolak again, and this time it’s personal…
This is Ditto’s second battle against Karolak Nightspinner, this was certainly one of the more difficult duels I’ve had lately, with a final health of only 24 points when I finally defeat the wicked fire boss.
The fight is one of my least favorite types, a fire boss (so I need prisms) with a typically tower-shield happy ice minion. It is certainly touch and go but, happily, I avoid yet another all-expenses paid trip to base camp…
Karolak Nightspinner is such a meany…
After fighting a whole bunch of bad guys to find Karolak’s special amulet, wouldn’t you know it, instead of thanking Ditto, he attacks! That’s isn’t very nice at all, now is it? Taken somewhat by surprise, Ditto doesn’t fare well in this battle.. but it is a good fight!
Ditto Monster's Bloggy Thingy 