While you may desire to thrash us with truncheons, that’s not what this is about. Fans wishing to do us bodily harm should check out FaceFighter …

… but for the rest of you hoping to prove your superiority to Appy Entertainment at our own game — Zombie Pizza — then step right up to beat … the … developers!!!

That’s right, thanks to the awesome Open Feint leader boards in version 1.2 of Zombie Pizza, you can match your top score in survival mode against the knuckleheads who made the game. Search out our handles and see how you measure up!

From left-to-right, we have …

• Motar: Farzad Varahramyan, Appy Creative Visual Director, and artist of Zombie Pizza.
• Marcus99: Marc-Antoine Argenton, Appy Entertainment Lead Programmer, FaceFighter co-creator, and the best pizza-making Frenchman in the world.
• galactor: Appy Project Director Emmanuel Valdez, co-creator of FaceFighter and (as of this writing) the top-scoring Zombie Pizza player in the world.
• Sargietest: Steve Sargent, Appy Executive Producer … but he’ll claim his score doesn’t count because he’s “just testing.”
• RickOrama: Appy CFO Rick Olafsson. He’s great with numbers, but Zombie Pizza? Not so much.
• Dokmo: Appy CEO Chris Ulm, still trailing Paul O’Connor. Que lastima!
• Goldenboat: Appy Brand Director Paul O’Connor, primary voice of this blog.
• And not pictured (to protect his innocence) iSol: Craig Broadbooks, Lead Programmer of Zombie Pizza.

Add us as friends via Open Feint and post here when you’ve beaten our scores. It will be no real challenge to knock off Rick, Ulm, or I, but if you can beat Em, you’ve earned some bragging rights!

(To add a friend, from the first screen of Zombie Pizza, you need to select Leaderboards > Friends (at the bottom) > Find My Friends> Then type in Open Feint name as listed above)

For all of you who fought. Some I know. My father served in the Navy before he was old enough to serve, lying to get into the military. Then, in the Marine Corps, serving in Korea and coming home with shrapnel in his leg.
To Sarge aka Dellard Graves who served in Korea and was one of 50 men out of two thousand who survived one of the most horrible massacres of American troops in the Korean War.
To Grandpa Patton who parachuted into Europe in WWII.
To Grandpa North who served on several battleships in WWII.
To my Uncle Mike who served in the Marine Corps.
To my cousin Eric who also did a tour.
To the Redneck’s cousin Frankie who served in the Big Red One and committed suicide in 1999.
To so many we know and many we don’t who have been that line in front of us. We love you.

And this one. I always put this one up because I love it.

And finally, one from a man who was there in the 90’s.

Tune in between 10 and noon on Friday the 20th to Pat Wolfe’s “Interstate” on KDHX.  We will be promoting that evening’s show at the Firebird as well as playing some live tunes in studio.  Should be a monumental day for the Dive Poets.

Beautiful…

Muita gente prefere sargear com wings, e muita gente prefere sargear sozinho. Dizem que não muda quase nada se o seu wing tá ali pra te ajudar ou não, afinal, é você que tá jogando.
Mas na verdade muda.
A escolha é de cada um, algumas pessoas se adaptam melhor ao jogo sozinho e outras ao jogo em grupo.




Alone Sarge





Pessoalmente, eu prefiro sargear sozinho. Você pode estar pensando que não seria nada divertido sair só… e está errado. Você tem razão em um ponto: eu realmente não estou me divertindo com meus amigos, mas estou abrindo sets, e isso é muito divertido! Me sociabilizar com pessoas desconhecidas e conseguir o que quero cedo ou tarde, ser um cara sociável e lembrar de como eu era nos meus tempos de beta, onde eu saía sozinho porque não tinha escolha, isso é bom pra mim mesmo, isso é o que eu chamo de diversão. Alone sarge é uma coisa muito boa.
Um dos motivos por ser tão boa é que você tem que abrir um set. Tipo, ou você chega em alguém ou você é visto como o cara sem amigos e anti-social. A partir do momento em que você vai sozinho para algum lugar onde geralmente você vai com os amigos, uma pressão social é criada em cima de você. E essa pressão é sua aliada. É ela que te força a abrir um set, é ela que te força a se sociabilizar, é ela que faz o teu progresso aparecer.


Um cara que é visto andando sozinho por aí, e que depois é visto andando com várias pessoas diferentes é um cara sociável, um cara interessante. Se as pessoas perceberem isso, a sua social proof no lugar vai crescer, o que vai fazer com que a aceitação em outros sets seja ainda mais fácil.
Visando a evolução pessoal como PUA, recomendo alone sarge. É o meu tipo preferido de sarge, e evoluo mais sozinho do que com meus wings junto.






Wing Sarge





Do outro lado, temos a sarge com wings. Talvez esse tipo possa ser mais divertido do que sozinho, você pode combinar várias coisas com seu wing, pode fazer joguinhos com a Hb, competições de quem pega mais, podem competir quem amoga melhor, enfim, existem inúmeras coisas que se podem fazer para se divertir em um set. Não pense que só porque você está com um amigo sua social proof vai ser maior. Sair com amigos é normal, o que vai te dar valor social é a interação com várias pessoas, desconhecidas ou não.
Além do mais, sempre é bom ser um bom PUA, e ser um wing faz parte disso. O objetivo principal dele é ajudar o PUA a pegar o alvo, depois, se conseguir, pode tentar pegar um dos obstáculos, mas não tem prioridade. Mas lembre-se que você só entra de wing se estiver com energia maior do que o set, ou pelo menos no mesmo nível, caso contrário, vai jogar a energia do grupo pra baixo, fazendo com que o PUA o perca.




Abraço.

does not come easy to police officers. And their families.

Case in point–what my son did to me at the Harry Potter-themed Halloween party we went to tonight.

Now, seriously folks, it was easy to apply face paint to a person according to the afore mentioned theme.

Why, the job I have done on my son here is stupendous.

How did I end up with such a questionable look?

And another example of my artistic handiwork . . .

At least the kids looked pretty normal.

And my contribution to the party were Rice Krispie Treat pumpkins.

Which the kids in attendance were allowed to decorate according to their own preferences.

You would think that other than the exception of my hideous face painting, we would be the kind of family that would be fun to have come over.

But I haven’t told the full truth yet. We went over to a fellow police officer’s house tonight. A man that Sarge has known for almost all of his 13 years with his department. As a result, they are a little too comfortable with each other.

In fact, the conversation that occurred while the adults were carving the pumpkins and the kids were running around was disturbing to say the least.

And the least inflammatory thing I can repeat here is “Yeah, we don’t need partners. That’s just another witness to worry about.”

Oh my! That’s all I can say.

To repeat some of the other topics and one-liners that were tossed around would scare the pants of a normal person. In times like this, I find it helps to repeat my mantra that “normal is just a setting on the washing machine.”

A great thing about the night is we (as in the adults, not the kids) carved some pretty fantastic pumpkins.

As I so rarely ever get to display Sarge in this forum, I figured it was time to give him his due and finally include another picture of him. It’s been quite awhile so here goes, people.

Happy night before halloween!

On a completely different note, I was at work today and stopped at a gas station to get my morning caffeine fix/Diet Dr. Pepper. While in the store, I saw a police officer. As I work in the same geographical area where Sarge is assigned to work, I was pretty sure this fellow worked for Sarge.

Well, Sarge came down with a pretty bad cold yesterday. And when Sarge is sick, he is not the easiest person to be around. But for the life of him, Sarge will not take a sick day. This morning, he dragged his sorry, sneezing self to work. Plus I had already talked to him on the phone earlier prior to stopping at the gas station, I knew he was not in the best of moods.

As I passed by the police officer in the store, I had an overwhelming compulsion, an urge so strong it was almost impossible to deny, to say something to the poor fellow. Something along the lines of  ”Your supervisor is in a really bad mood and I’m so sorry. Just take my advice and steer clear of him until he’s healthy again.”

But since this officer didn’t know me from Adam, I didn’t want to scare the pants off him.

Or risk being taken into custody for some strange charge like insanity. Or is that even a real charge?

Anyway, I resisted my very strong instinct and said not a word.

But I still felt sincerely bad for him and all of the people who had to work with grumpy Sarge today.

Have zombies become too mainstream? Has the horror gone out of the undead?

Several weeks ago, Privateer Press man of mystery and Militant Optimist Matt Wilson visited the Secret Worldwide Headquarters of Appy Entertainment, and as you might expect, we got to drinking and the conversation soon turned to zombies and the living dead. With Zombie Pizza making waves and Halloween fast upon us, we thought it time to publish our transcript of that boozy, three-way conversation …

PAUL: Hey Ulm, how come you like the undead but you’re such a goddamn pussy about zombie movies? I mean, I had to bind you to the chair with duct tape to make you watch 28 Days Later. Yet you’ve created Dead Clown Comics, a angst-ridden teenage undead superhero named Ghoul for Ultraforce, you co-created the vampire lord Rune with Barry Windsor-Smith, then there’s Jericho Cross from Darkwatch … and now Zombie Pizza. WTF? Does this all stem from getting your wires crossed by watching An American Werewolf in London … did that potent brew of coming-of-age story, undead best friend, and oversexed Jenny Agutter just mess you up for all time, or what?

Nurse Jenny

ULM: First off, it is all Jenny Agutter’s fault. I hover around the whole undead thing like some demented moth around an evil green flame. The undead thing has always attracted me, but I faint at the sight of blood. I just can’t stand to see gory depictions of guts being ripped open or close ups of torture cannibalism. It freaked me out when I was ten and it freaks me out now. I don’t know why I can hold both of these beliefs in my head at the same time, but that’s why I’m an enigma wrapped in a mystery. I mean, I love to travel, but I hate to use public toilets — what can I say?

PAUL: “I’m A Frickin’ Looney” might work.

MATT: I’m with Ulm, here. I actually get kind of squeamish with graphic or gratuitous depictions of violence. That said, I’m a huge fan of all things undead, especially zombie movies. I think that zombies are such a parody of humans that the graphic imagery is reduced to over-the-top cartoon violence that doesn’t hit me in the same psychological soft spot that more realistic subject matter would.

PAUL: I suspect much of the success of Left 4 Dead is down to the fact that it doesn’t feel wrong to shoot zombies. Even Quentin Tarantino might get sick to his stomach killing that many Nazis … but the zombies can keep coming, all day long.

MATT: Are you supposed to laugh at Night of the Living Dead? I laughed my ass off all the way through.

ULM: I’m out. Too terrified to laugh. I was in for the “split dogs” in Return of the Living Dead, though.

Split Dog — now you know where we got that name for Zombie Pizza

PAUL: Matt, if you tell me your love of the undead stems from every artist’s careful examination of animal skeletons then I am going to pull your belt out through your throat.

MATT: I’m not into researching skeletons — you’ve got me confused with the world famous artiste, Farzad Varahramyan. I just like drawing all those skulls and gooey bits.

PAUL: C’mon, I want to hear the deep, true, sick reason you are in love with the undead. Did you pray for the return of your run-over dog? Stare too long and too closely at a bit of roadkill? Grow up as a closeted Iron Maiden fan?

MATT: Trying to trace back why I dig the undead –

PAUL: Heh. “Dig” the undead. Get it?

ULM: Shut up.

MATT: — my earliest relevant recollection is the 1963 version of Jason and the Argonauts. Jason fighting the skeletons was one of the coolest things ever and definitely made its impression on me. Not long later, I’d encounter my first lead D&D minis, which included a couple of skeletons.

Privateer Press’ Own Take On Undead Pirates

ULM: It always comes back to D&D, doesn’t it? It’s the wound that never heals.

MATT: … So my first encounter with the undead was skeletons. Of course, during that time, Scooby Doo was the cartoon du jour, and they encountered all kinds of undead, from zombies to ghost pirates … it’s all coming together here. I was a sponge, as a kid, soaking up all of these lovely images and themes.

PAUL: There is a skeleton pirate subculture, isn’t there? I blame Pirates of the Caribbean — the ride, not the cash cow movie franchise. I remember trying to assemble the old MPC plastic model kits from Pirates … the ones with the “zap action” rubber bands that were supposed to make them move, but instead just made them fly apart. I remember trying to force-fit a couple pieces by biting on them and having a flood of model airplane cement gush into my mouth.

ULM: That explains a lot.

MATT: Playing with the undead has been a great creative pastime of mine. The undead have been a huge part of our endeavors with the Iron Kingdoms/WARMACHINE setting. Indeed, our first books, the Witchfire Trilogy, were heavily peppered with the undead. (Spoiler Alert). The story is of a young woman trying to put the soul of her dead mother back into her mother’s exhumed corpse, with the help of an ancient and magical sword that raises all dead within a several mile radius. The first book in the trilogy climaxes during a festival called ‘The Longest Night’, a celebration of the deceased, analogous to our Halloween. Only this time, the deceased actually come to the celebration and mix it up with the partygoers, which doesn’t go over so well as you might imagine. The whole trilogy actually ends with the heroes lading an army of ancient undead soldiers against a foreign invader. These soldiers protected the land in life, and now they protect it again in death.

So, going back to the idea of playing with the rules, we had a lot of fun with the idea that the living would actually be saved by the undead, and all the imagery that came with this giant battle between a legion of skeleton heroes and the evil, living invaders.

The Cryxians in the Iron Kingdoms are another great collection of undead with a twist. Here’s a hostile empire, ruled by a giant, undead dragon. They use corpses as raw materials in the construction of their armies and war machines, fusing steam powered technology with bone and flesh to create some truly hideous things — and topping it off, everything runs on souls.

ULM: When we were playing Warmachine, I painted up a whole bunch of Cryx. But then I beat Paul’s Khador army and he cried and now we don’t play any more.

PAUL: Not true!

ULM: Don’t lie, Paul. It demeans us both.

leader of the damn Cryx that smashed Paul’s Khador and made him cry

MATT: The realm of the undead is a huge sandbox for artists, story tellers, game makers— anyone creative that enjoys the contrast of fragile, vulnerable life and the limitless and eternal power of death. There’s probably a great philosophical metaphor here just waiting to be penned …

ULM: There is. And we’ve found it. Pizza Delivery As Metaphor. Think about it — you make money by sacrificing life to the insatiable appetite of death. Really, there’s no philosophical metaphor that is NOT made by Zombie Pizza, which is why it is an outstanding bargain for $.99!

MATT: … there’s a malleability to the undead that allows you to do anything with them that you want from a story perspective. The core concepts are familiar — people already understand what a zombie, vampire or ghost is, on a fundamental level. And each flavor of undead has its rules — zombies only go down when you kill the brain, Vampires don’t like sunlight, etc. But it’s also acceptable to change the rules, or play against them, which from a story-telling point of view, is where I really enjoy ‘undead’ as a genre. The film, Fido, is a great example of taking the tried and true zombie sub-genre and turning it on its head; the story of a boy and his zombie — genius.

PAUL: Out of a desire to keep things on track, I won’t introduce Let The Right One In to your list of reinvented genre movies, except to say that it is brilliant and you are a Philistine for not agreeing.

MATT: And you are a port-sipping film snob. That picture was a bore. There are an endless number of ways to explore the subject, and all of them better than your over-rated Swedish fang flick. Lesser known fav’s of mine include Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (originally Braindead) and a recent fun romp through a zombie infested town called Dance of the Dead. Of course, everyone knows the Army of Darkness. And the hits just keep coming.

ULM: He’s more like a Diet Coke swilling snob. Shaun Of The Dead is where it’s at for me with a little of From Dusk Till Dawn thrown in for good measure. And Zombieland!

Goreshade, another cheery denizen of the Iron Kingdoms

PAUL: Any comment on pop culture’s relatively recent re-casting of the undead as hero figures? Certain vampires, at least, are now seen as good guys, or semi-admirable anti-heroes. Are we so afraid of death that being a vampire now seems a pleasant fantasy … are we really that materialistic at heart? It seems all these heroic vampires have tragic pasts but bright futures full of romance and redemption.

MATT: Is it really such a recent phenomenon that the undead have become the heroes? Or is it just that they’re now being mainstreamed (eg. castrated)? How far back can we go and find examples of undead protagonists? Does Spawn count as undead?

PAUL: We’ve had undead comics heroes since at least the early 1970s – Blade, Ghost Rider, Swamp Thing…

ULM: Actually, despite my supposed hatred for violence, I keep coming back to the undead. Back in my comic years, every character I had a hand in a creating ended up being dead at the core: Dead Clown. Ghoul. Rune. I think what draws me back time and time again to the undead is that they have crossed the ultimate divide — only to be back among us! The very existence of the undead is an aberration against all that is natural and sacred and occupies this high place of tragedy — which, like you, causes me to convulse with laughter.

PAUL: Are you mocking me?

ULM: I love the idea of this weird juxtaposition: every character is better if he’s dead for some reason. Consider: a wise-cracking detective — who’s dead. A supermodel with a twinkie fixation – who’s dead. A teenage wizard — who’s dead.

PAUL: An iPhone startup CEO — who’s dead! Not that anyone cares or remembers, but the first comic book I wrote — Bones — featured a sarcastic, undead protagonist, so I guess I am with you guys.

MATT: I was an avid watcher of a Canadian TV show in the early 90’s called Forever Knight, about a reluctant Vampire trying to atone for his sins by solving crimes. (A vibe repeated many times since then as seen in Buffy, True Blood, etc.) That’s almost twenty years back. There were some helpful ghosts in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as I recall, though I’m not expert on that saga. And Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t really evil, right, he was just built that way … and misunderstood. Even Dracula was sort of a tragic figure, though I suppose not a protagonist at all.

PAUL: Dracula was the protagonist in the old Tomb of Dracula comic series from Marvel. Man, I loved that book.

MATT: When it comes to the undead leaches, though, I like my vampires like a I like my eggs: sunnyside up on top of a stake. (That pun’s for you, Paul.) I mean, come on, I enjoyed the first three seasons of Buffy as much as any other geek with a free hand and a Y chromosome, but I think we’ve really lost sight of the idea behind what vampires are supposed to represent when every teenage girl in America wants to date one.

Buffy!

ULM: Matt, most of the time I like you, but now it’s on. Buffy was awesome all the way through the sixth season! You just have to snuggle up with a warm fire and let your inner chick take over…

PAUL: Marvel was wise to keep Drac a mean old son-of-a-bitch in their comic series, and they kept it going for 80-something issues. Marv Wolfman’s take was that Dracula was aristocratic and proud to be Lord of the Vampires. He reveled in his evil. There was no looking back for that dude, no Hamlet-like monologues on the battlements of Castle Dracula.

MATT: Just out of high school, I wasted a lot of hours arguing with a couple gamer buddies about the idea of being a vampire. They thought it would be the coolest thing in the world.  I thought they were idiots. Give up the taste of good food? Never see the sun again? It’d be like living in England! Ugh.

SARGE: Oi!

MATT: Of course, the ultimate trap was, would you give up sex to be a vampire? Well, they both said yes, but they were late bloomers and didn’t have a basis for comparison. Otherwise, that used to be the coupe de grace in that debate … until vampires were reinvented with a raging libido. I blame Joss Whedon. He did smartly what no one before him could do, but he broke vampires for everyone, and since then we’ve been subjected to a slew of craptastic vampire media that has reached so far in an effort to be different that they have not only redefined the once bloodsucking spawn of Satan as emo-kids who sparkle in the sunlight, but have finally answered the question of whether or not a virgin-turned vampire would actually regenerate her hymen each time after intercourse. (Might be good, might be bad, depending on if you live in a landlocked state.)

ULM: Now, no vampire gives up sex at all. They get everything! For the latest in vampire porn, see True Blood!

PAUL: Maybe we lay the body of the heroic vampire on Anne Rice’s doorstep. She kind of defined the tortured metrosexual noble vampire with her books, and was laps ahead of Joss Whedon, at least until she got religion and started writing Jesus books.

MATT: My musing turned into a rant, but here’s the score so far: I’m down with undead heroes — what’s more tragic than having every reason for living denied you and suffering on, consciously, in a dead vessel that can never enjoy the pleasures of humanity again? But you do it anyway, out of some sense of righteousness, to protect loved ones, serve humanity better in death than you did in life, seek revenge on some wrong — name your motive. That’s good stuff!

PAUL: Good premise for a novel there.

MATT: But it reduces down to weak sauce when you temper the tragedy by giving back to these things what death rightfully takes away. As we said before, what’s fascinating and enchanting about the undead is the contrast to real life, the exploration of continued existence trapped in a state of death. When you let vampires enjoy long afternoon walks on the beach and make them better lovers than the living, I think you’ve cut the nuts off the whole foundation of the concept.

as mainstream and scary as it gets — soccer mom!

PAUL: Yeah, the horror of undeath is being undercut in contemporary fiction by giving back to the undead those things they should have sacrificed with the end of their lives. It’s like Hummers in mall parking lots, soccer moms on Facebook, and tattoos for everyone – mainstreaming messes things up!

MATT: So, can we just kick vampires out of the undead club? Clearly they turned traitor. Let’s stick a stake in them and call them done.

ULM: Resolved. But I’m not giving up True Blood. My wife likes it, after all.

PAUL: If vampires have been pussified, are zombies next?

George Romero — Old School Patron Saint of The Undead

George Romero still has a pretty unflinching idea of what these mindless, flesheating ghouls are all about … but we’ve moved on to Shaun of the Dead, Army of Darkness, Zombieland, these characters making Zombie Pizza (plug plug) … Have we entered the era of the Fundead?

ULM: The next frontier! Maybe Marvel will bring back Millie The Model as a flesh eating zombie and show us how it’s done!

Our thanks to Matt Wilson for providing images from the upcoming Warmachine MK II for use in this article. All Privateer art (which definitely does NOT include Millie the Model, alive, undead, or otherwise) is © & TM Privateer Press, Inc.

This is a pretty late update, however a few weeks back I came across 2 Tunerz sets at the Disney store. These tunerz sets light up utilizing a a push button on the bottom of the cars as well as a switch that leaves them turned on. They kind of represent the nighttime neon’s they had in the movie when messing with Mack. I am a total tunerz nut and had to have the set!

I just have to relate a story about my dear, sweet, loving husband that will unfortunately paint him in a very unflattering light.

Last Friday, I was having lunch with my BFF from work and she was telling me about a friend of hers and the fifteenth anniversary celebration that the friend and her husband had. The husband took her to a five star hotel, booked a couple massage, reserved a lakeside private outdoor eating area for a romantic dinner alone, and then had the hotel room covered in rose petals. And he planned it all without her knowing and she just had to show up. He even arranged a babysitter for their three kids. Sounds really fabulous, right?

Well, in the midst of our conversation, I recalled that my BFF had just celebrated her fifteenth and there had been a wee bit of disappointment between her and her hubby as they had radically different ideas about what they should do to celebrate. So I began to quiz her about her tenth anniversary celebration and her honeymoon. And she let me know she and her hubby did take pretty cool trips for both occasions.

It’s this morbid curiosity thing I have.

I love hearing about what other couples have done.

Because Sarge and I have done nothing.

I need to let you know that my tenth anniversary celebration consisted of dinner at a restaurant that had a big mascot robin that came around and greeted diners. Oh, and being taken to the movie “Blades of Glory“ (somewhat reluctantly too, I might add).

I also never had a honeymoon as Sarge was in police academy at the time of our nuptials. Now, this wasn’t really Sarge’s fault but the end result was the same. No honeymoon for us.

After hearing about the wonderful experience of the other friend and then hearing about my friend’s romantic escapades, I told her about my lack.

Her response, “Yeah, Christa, you’ve been robbed. You need to get Sarge to take you somewhere, anywhere, and soon.”

You see, Sarge is a pretty bang-up dad, a very funny man, a borderline work-a-holic, an extremely committed police officer and a truly honorable husband. And as such, I do hate to throw him under the bus . . .

. . . but he really does need to take me away. Just him and me.

And soon. Or I might not be responsible for the bad things that could occur.

Editor’s Note: Today at Appy Place we are delighted to welcome guest blogger Michael Mayhew, a pivotal member of the Appy team, who is responsible for the product videos you’ve seen here and on our YouTube channel.

Michael Mayhew directs the Appy Newz video shoot

So. I’m the guy who directs and edits the video ads that Appy releases whenever they have a new app. A while back Chris (“The Ulm”) asked me to write a blog about the process. Specifically, he was hoping I could explain “What’s it like for a normal person to have to deal with the Appy guys?”

(It tells you a lot about the mindset at Appy that they would think a guy who has never once held a regular salaried job, who has spent his entire adult life in the world of movies — who essentially has joined the circus — would qualify as “normal.”)

Here’s what I noticed about Appy:

Upstairs at Appy’s Secret Worldwide Headquarters (let’s just call it ASWHQ – which I guess is pronounced “ass-whack”) is a cramped, sweaty attic space, where the Appy guys plot and scheme their deviously brilliant apps. Running along one wall is a continuous whiteboard, covered in notes, sketches, brainstorms, graffiti, flow charts, mad ideas, Venn diagrams, and what appear to be incantations in a lost language.

Sarge writes “incantations in a lost language” on the upstairs whiteboard

What struck me about the whiteboard were two things: first, there is one spot on the far end which is never erased, because it contains the business plan, which spells out exactly what is and is not an Appy app. It’s their founding document, their Magna Carta, their Declaration of Independence. It says:

An Appy app is:

Easy – Easy to try, easy to buy, easy to share

Fun – Fun to play, Fun to watch

5/500 – you can play it in five minutes, and enjoy
500 replays

Innovative, Integrated, Inexpensive – “The 3 I’s”

Social – the user brings part of the content, they
help make the fun.

Mischievous – Appy apps are funny and sly.

The second thing I noticed was that the whiteboards aren’t actually whiteboards. They’re sheet vinyl, of the sort that you buy at Home Depot to line a shower stall, bought for something like ten bucks a sheet and grommeted onto the wall.

The first thing told me that these guys are serious about their work, they have a plan, and I could use that plan to help them make ads.

The second thing told me that these guys are both inventive and cheap. And by “cheap” I do not mean any kind of insult. When your entire product line sells for a buck a throw, you learn to have a keen appreciation for every dollar you spend.

APPY NEWZ

The first ad we made was for Appy Newz. Keeping in mind the idea that an Appy product is both mischievous and highly social, we came up with a collection of revenge scenarios for when someone might want to turn somebody else into an Appy Newz front page, and then share it. At the same time we decided to have a little fun with Apple’s iPhone commercials – take that basic iPhone ad format and then make it as nuts as possible.

We wanted to emphasize that Appy Newz worked well with the iPhone’s mail and photo applications, so each spot begins with an arriving email with a photo attached. The photo is quickly turned into a funny headline with Appy Newz, and is then emailed back out again.

The choice to riff on the iPhone ads was partly us being a bit naughty, but mostly about saving money — which leads us to “The Bob Fosse Principle.”

Bob Fosse, director and choreographer of Cabaret, All That Jazz and Sweet Charity is rather famous in theatre circles for taking his weaknesses as a dancer and turning them into a celebrated style. Fosse the dancer wasn’t particularly good at giant leaps and tossing ballerinas into the air, so as a choreographer he created a style all about very tiny, very controlled movements — a finger snaps, a hat is lifted a certain way, and so on.

It’s a very useful mindset when you’re making things on a micro-budget — don’t fret about what you don’t have, find a way to celebrate what you do have. Which is different then just being low budget. So many videos for apps boil down to either 1) a really fast montage of game-play, which is meant to convey that the game is terribly exciting, but which almost always looks just like every other really fast game montage, or 2) just pointing a camera at an iPhone while some poor game designer, in a voice that sounds like he’s hasn’t slept in three weeks, mumbles his way through an explanation of what may very well be a cool app — but who can tell? So cheap, yes, but not much more then that.

The Bob Fosse principle means doing your best to take your limitations and give them enough personality that they actually have style. You can’t afford actors? You can only afford to shoot an iPhone and a pair of hands? Well, grab a piece of white foam core for the background and riff on iPhone ads, and while you’re at it, how about putting an Appy-branded band-aid on one of the fingers? And then, once you’ve homaged the iPhone style, smash it with as many whack zooms, jump cuts, effects and distortions as you can think of.

(And at this point someone in the crowd is saying, “Hey, Mayhew, did you just compare your cheap-ass app ad to the work of Bob Fosse?” Ah, no. Please keep in mind that I’m talking about the Bob Fosse principle here, not the Bob Fosse equivalency.)

So that was the approach on the first ads. And as we worked we kept asking: is it clear how the app works, and is the ad funny? Anything else was gravy.

FACEFIGHTER

By the time that FaceFighter was ready for the app store, we’d learned a few things. Namely, that pricing on apps is a race to the bottom, where volume is everything. To paraphrase S.J. Perelman, apps are a tough buck. In practical terms, that meant we had even less money to make commercials then we’d had before — so even a minimal camera crew was not in the cards. The question became, what kind of video can we make with only the things we already have on hand? And underlying that question was, once again, how do we turn our limitations into a style? It became like the scene in The Princess Bride where the three heroes are about to storm the heavily guarded castle: “What are our assets?” “Your brains, Fezzik’s strength, my steel.” “That’s it?!” But in the end of course they storm the castle.

So what were our assets with FaceFighter? Well, of course there was the app itself (which almost perfectly fit the definition of an Appy game written on the upstairs white board). We had some screen-captured game play, the original artwork that was created to build the game, and some sound effects. There was enough money to buy some stock pictures to demonstrate how the game can turn any face into an opponent, and a drop of money for music. Everything else had to be done with editing.

Fortunately these days you can do a lot in post. You can resize images, add camera moves, use filters to create effects, and you can even composite in a pair of fingers (with an Appy band aid, natch’) to demonstrate how the app works.

But the thing that helped the most was actually the simplest, something that we’d done almost inadvertently on the Appy Newz ads, which was adding simple title cards — just white text on a black screen — short, wry posts to “talk” the viewer through the game. These cards became a sort of branding device, and they were the essential tool for clearly communicating what the game was about.

ZOMBIE PIZZA

By the time we were making ads for Zombie Pizza, there was actually a distinct feeling to an Appy ad: simple title cards, a mischievous attitude, clarity about how the app works, and a willingness to break an app’s visual frame to get more interesting compositions. And the guiding principles remained: think like Fosse, turn limits into assets, and always ask ourselves is it clear how the app works, and is the ad funny?

Of course there are probably limits to this approach. At some point sticking to a style can be an awful lot like being in a rut. Sooner or later we’ll have to get a bit more ambitious. But in the mean time Appy can grow and better establish itself as a first-class maker of games. By the time we really need to make fancier ads, we’ll be in a position to afford them.

You might wonder how important I think these videos are in the larger context of Appy’s sales. My instinct is that the videos matter to sales like a good resume matters in a job interview. In my experience a resume is basically supporting evidence which is secondary to recommendations, the quality of work that you can show, and whether or not you look shifty-eyed in a face to face conversation. These videos play a similar support role. People buy apps because their friend had it and it looked fun, or because they saw it recommended on the App Store, or even because it got a got a good review. If someone is already interested, the video might seal the deal.

But deal sealing is a great business to be in. As long as the Appy guys are interested, I am happy to lend a hand.

(And we are fortunate to have you, Michael! Thanks for your tireless effort and insight!)

It’s getting spooky around the Secret Worldwide Headquarters of Appy Entertainment.

The downstairs pub is suitably creepy, in honor of the Halloween season.

And Sarge and Marc-Antoine looked at least a little startled when we caught them at the bar.

This is our favorite time of the year, and we do plan a few special features here at Appy Place as we march toward our company’s first birthday on Halloween. We have a couple zombie-themed blog posts on the boil, and we’re planning a special direct email containing Appy’s holiday wishes and a bit of bonus content for FaceFighter (click HERE if you’d like to sign up for our infrequent-but-fun email blast).

And if all of this puts you in the mood for Halloween, consider sating your appetite with a little Zombie Pizza.

“Who is this superhero?
Sarge? No.
Rosemary, the telephone operator? No.
Penry, the mild-mannered janitor? Could be…”

Yes, it’s Hong Kong Phooey, the incompetent Kung Fu-crimefighting dog with a magical shape-changing car and a partner who is a stripey cat called Spot and who does all the real work of catching the bad guys.

It also has one of the all-time great cartoon theme tunes, written by Chester Stover, Watts Biggers, Treadwell Covington, and Joseph Harris and sung by Scatman Crothers, who also provided the voice for the title character and Penry, his mild-mannered alter-ego.

Only 16 episodes, featuring 31 adventures, were made back in 1974, but they continue to be re-run to this day around the world.

You know, watching the opening titles again after all these years, I can’t help but be distracted – and a bit annoyed by the lack of realism (well, y’know, realism within the context of a cartoon about a talking crimefighting dog who has a magical shape-changing car…) – by the fact that HKP’s car is clearly far too big for the trash can that he keeps it in.

But maybe that’s just me…

Enjoy!

Today was one of those regular kind of days. The kind where nothing extraordinary happened. No heroic rescues, no fifteen minutes of fame.

But a day that will stick with me for two main reasons.

The first reason: Sarge came home this morning with a brand new dishwasher for our house. I thought he had gone to feed his mom’s cat but lo and behold, he comes back with an appliance.

Granted, it was a much needed appliance as what we had was original to the 17 year old house we live in. And we’ve been discovering left over bits of food stuck to our dishes after being “cleaned” by afore-mentioned dishwasher.

Anyway, we sat down on the kitchen floor together and as we were about to commence with the installation process, Sarge reached over to me and said “Let’s agree to not yell at each other or get mad.” We sealed the deal with a handshake and got to work.

I do feel compelled to let you know that home improvement projects are not Sarge’s nor my forte. Both of us will usually start a project and end up cursing obscenely and in large amounts. This is not the “nice” cursing we try to do so as not to expose our kids to unsavory language. When in the throes of a home improvement project, bad words and “F” bombs abound from both of our mouths. Hence, the agreement to not get mad.

In addition to our sailor-like language, we also have a tendency to make no less than four or five extra trips to various hardware stores to complete any task we undertake.

Miracle of miracles, we finished installing the lovely new dishwasher with absolutely no cursing, no fighting, no extra trips to the store and a modicum of our sanity intact. It did take several hours and a few mis-placed things but considering our history, I would have to say that our endeavor was a true success.

As I bask in the afterglow of our exemplary teamwork, this brings me to the second reason this day will be remembered.

Sarge and I went to a 70th birthday party for a woman I have known all my life. She and her husband lived next door to my parents for years, including the first eight years of my life. Their children and my siblings and myself have so many wonderful, timeless memories of each other, with each other and so on. The husband of the birthday girl took this picture and her daughter and son are two of the heathens in this picture along with my siblings and me.

Anyway, the husband had put together a slide show of pictures from this woman’s life. Just before he showed the slide show, he made a toast to his wife. It was so incredible touching. He was barely even able to get his words out because he was so choked up with emotion. I wish I could remember what he said because it was fabulous and she responded back to him with just as much love.

Regardless of my inability to remember the words, I walked away with a firm and lasting impression of the love and time and commitment these two people have for each other. And I truly hope one day, Sarge and I are like this couple.

But my life being what it is, I turned to Sarge at dinner tonight and made a comment about how neat it was to see such love and devotion.

And Sarge’s reponse: “Yeah, ummm-hummm . . . “

These words will never be able to capture the sarcasm that oozed out of his pores when he uttered this.

So even though Sarge will probably never get choked up over honoring me, I need to go with the flow here.

At least we didn’t fight today or send curse words flying while installing a dishwasher.

That’s the kind of stuff dreams are made of, right?

Target’s 2nd Disney CARS exclusive for the Christmas season is the Pit Crew box sets. These sets are pretty nifty as you get the Pittys and crew chiefs for the respective teams. The ones that will be available are the Dinoco Team, HTB Chick Hicks Team, and the Leakless Team. Each box set has 3 different pittys (although some are reporting that their sets have all the same pitty in them) and the crew chiefs ( chick hicks and the dinoco crew chief have not been released before) Included are wheels stacks and a tool chest.

I was able to come across a few of the Toys R US exclusive Sarge’s Boot Camp Megasized sets and brought them home with me. Not a bad set but it is pricey.

I had bought 2 Sarges Boot camp sets and noticed the second one was “special”.

The Correct version

The Error

“A-at least I made a difference…” The effort sends blood flecking the boy’s lips. His lungs are slowly filling with blood spilling into Sarge’s lap with every cough. No, you fucking didn’t, Sarge screams, you’re just another useless fucking casualty. But the boy doesn’t hear. His eyes have gone out like the night’s last embers.

Sarge gets to his feet, the sack of meat slumping face down into the dust. He walks to the Command tent, passing rows of moaning men with filthy needles hanging from their arms. Brushing aside the tent flap, he takes out his pistol and sends a bullet into the General’s skull. A captain and lieutenant have their guns instantly trained on him. The lieutenant moves his gun hand away and shoots the captain in the stomach, his electric blue eyes inexpressive. Sarge’s moss green gaze flickers to the lieutenant’s bruised cephalic vein. “I shoot up with a saline solution,” the lieutenant says, going outside to see if anyone has heard the shots. He returns shaking his head. “We better get out of here. They won’t be too happy once they find out.”

“There’s something I want to do first,” Sarge says. He sweeps the ringstained maps from a trunk and takes from it a chunk of plasticine. The lieutenant looks at him for a moment before nodding. They arrange to meet at the outskirts of camp in fifteen minutes, and Sarge leaves for the doctor’s to cancel his prescription.

It was a maze of barbed wire and trenches stretching to the east and to the west. It smelled like a latrine. Sentries were fast asleep at their posts, guns pointed at the ground. A dog has died days ago, its bone etched flank squirming with maggots. When Sarge arrives, he finds the lieutenant with some guns, two packs of rations, and what little fresh water he could find. They look at the world their grandfathers left for them. Sarge spat on the ground.

“Let’s go north. I hear elk hunting is good at this time of the year,” says Sarge, pressing the detonator. At the center of camp the dwindling supply of heroin goes up in a pillar of fire, and the traitorous pair can hear the keening moan of the vast junkie army left without a fix. “The fresh air’ll be good for us,” the lieutenant says, smiling for the first time in years.

With Christmas right around the corner. Target was able to get ahold of a handful of exclusives for the Disney CARS line. I was lucky enough to find out the maximum information about these items and wipe out every target store with 50 miles. The Final Lap series is EXCLUSIVE to Target, and the first case offering had 3 NEW TO MARKET CARS: Blowing Bubbles Mater, Polly PuddleJumper, and Skip Ricter.

We had a couple birthdays at Appy Entertainment’s Secret Worldwide Headquarters last week, with Paul O’Connor blasting well past middle-age on the 29th of September, and Sarge notching another misspent year on October 1st.

Given that the birthdays of these two larger-than-life characters fell just a day apart, we of course designated the day in between — September 30th — as Fat Bastard Day!

Sargie down at the pub, proving the sun shines out his backside

The day was marked by drinking, singing, boardgames, and random acts of violence.

So, yes, just another normal day at the office …

แผ่น Install : http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/debian-installer/

Repository 3r8 และอื่นๆ : http://archive.debian.org/debian/

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Today, Sarge and I had the extreme pleasure of going to our boy’s school for a parent conference. Before you think the worst, we were just there for a quick check-in as it appears my boy cannot pronounce the “R” sound.

For example, he says our new puppy’s name “Bwando” not “Brando.”

So his teacher is going to give him a little extra help to work on this skill.

The plus side is he used to not be able to say his “Th” sound. As in “thunder” sounded like “funder.”  We have now conquered that sound without any outside help so he will hopefully get that “R” sound lickety-split.

But in the course of our conference, we had a few interruptions. During one such pause, as we were waiting for the person who was taking notes to come back, Sarge turns to me and says, in front of witnesses,

“I knew this was somehow going to be your fault.”

I was aghast.

Thankfully, the rest of the room knew he was joking as did I but still, I was a little miffed.

In fact, if we had been alone, or even among friends or family, I probably would have hauled off and slapped him on his arm or chest. I have a tendency to do this often when I am in an agitated state.

And as Sarge was wearing his bullet proof vest today at the conference, it wouldn’t have even hurt him.

But since we were in our boy’s school and there were staff members present, I restrained myself. It was difficult though.

I did get a little revenge though just a few minutes later.

My boy’s teacher was telling us how attentive our boy is at bus call.

You see, he had the unfortunate luck of missing the bus one afternoon less than two weeks after school started. He was so upset that day at having missed the bus and he was really scared that Sarge would be angry with him.

Thankfully, Sarge made sure he knew it was no big deal.

Nonetheless, his teacher relayed to us that he now listens very carefully every afternoon for his bus to be called. During bus call one such day, my boy turns to his teacher and says,

“I have to make sure I ride the bus home because my daddy is a police officer and he pays good money for me to be able to ride the bus.”

Now, I can personally attest to the fact that Sarge hasn’t ever really said anything like this.

I also just had to check with my boy when I got home to see if he recalled saying this. And yes, he confirmed that he did indeed make this statement.

It was quite justifying to have Sarge ratted out (even though it was falsely done) by his own child in front of the same witnesses that were present when he tried to throw me under the bus. No matter how jokingly Sarge’s comment was said.

So yes, my title of my public humiliation being complete still stands.

But I do not stand alone.

(This photo was taken today around noon by a friend of mine of a street sign in her neighborhood.)

Today should have been a great day for us. For our family.

Today was the day Sarge was switching to the day shift and we were going to resemble a normal family with a normal schedule for only the third time in the nine and a half years since we had kids.

But Sarge had a little difficulty making the transition from the graveyard shift last night. Apparently, at about 1:30 a.m. this morning, he got out of bed because he couldn’t sleep. Then, lo and behold, a short 30 minutes later, a thunderstorm of what could only be described as having biblical proportions started.

Take note that I used the key word “started” here. Because this was no little flash thunderstorm that would pass by quickly.

Oh no, for the next two and a half hours, our house was pelted by massive amounts of rain and wind. Along with this lovely drenching, we had a lightning display to rival even the most spectacular Fourth of July fireworks.

I woke up around 2 a.m. and tried for about 45 minutes to keep Sarge company while we kept vigil over the storm. Miracle of miracle, my kids (although they were sleeping together) barely batted an eyelash and proceeded to sleep through the whole thing.

Unfortunately, a mere 15 minutes after I went back to sleep, Sarge came in to let me know our roof was leaking and water was coming in through the ceiling in our den. For the next two hours, Sarge was in the attic trying to stem the tides of water coming in while I looked on and asked what I could do to help.

All I got for my offer to help was a smarmy comment from Sarge of “Well, go back in time and don’t let us buy this house.”

In the end though, there really wasn’t a whole lot we could do except watch the water pour down.

The really sad, pathetic thing is this whole debacle meant that Sarge never really went to sleep last night. He then went to work this morning at 5:30 a.m. and had to keep working until 6:30 p.m. tonight. There was so much flooding and so many roads damaged and completely unpassable due to the extreme amount of rain, mudslides, rain, road debris, rain, and more continuous rain.

It truly was one of those days from Hades for him. But that still isn’t sufficient enough to capture how truly horrendous his day was.

I think Sarge himself sums it up best, per this quote:

I would like to thank all of the drivers who thought they could drive through anything today, you sure did make work exciting.

I have been seriously geeking out on puzzles recently. I have amassed quite a few from the seriously easy to the somewhat difficult. I don’t know why the urge to work puzzles, maybe I will start crocheting soon too…weird…

Lenticular Versions:

Some simple 48 piece selections

And recent grabs that haven’t been worked yet.

Yep, they’re letting us out in public again. Appy Entertainment will be part of a round table discussion on the casual and mobile games industry, along with representatives of Qualcomm and Sony Online Entertainment.

Unlike next month’s talk at GDC Austin, this conversation will be open to the general public, which is perhaps why Paul O’Connor has replaced Steve Sargent as the speaker (despite what it says in the official details). Letting Sarge out in public poses too grave a hazard — you’ll have to settle for Paul’s blatherings (who is also writing this blog post, and fast vanishing into a third person maelstrom!).

Anyway, if you’re in the neighborhood, c’mon by and make rude noises, then stagger up after the round table and say howdy!