It took some doing, but the result was a convocation with true drama and gravity, like the Council of Elrond. This stalwart crew put their best foot forward, but unfortunately this exposed the foot in question to magma and licking tongues of living flame. I knew my way around the boss deck a little better this time, to the delight of my deep legion. When engaged in a campaign against that which is good and true, it's nice to know you have the support of upper management.

Sakura-con is coming up in just about a week and Tycho and I will be there as usual. We'll be doing a panel on Friday at 2:30 and we'll have a bunch of our new shirts at the booth. You should swing by and say hi if you're in the area.

Early bird registration for PAX (the only man made convention viewable from space) ends on the 31st which is only ten days away. We're already getting game independent game submissions for the PAX 10 which is great considering how early it is. We'll be taking submissions until May 7th and the top 10 will be presented at PAX. For all the details and rules for submitting your game hit the PAX 10 site. Also, if you have something interesting to say to the PAX audience or you know someone who does please hit the panel/speaker submission page and drop us a line.

Earlier this week we announced the return of the Penny Arcade scholarship. This is our second year doing it and I really enjoy the process. Sifting through the candidates and choosing one is ridiculously hard but I feel like the end result is something pretty special. Basically we want you to tell us how you plan on making an impact in the game industry. We'll give the winning student a $10,000 scholarship. You can get all the details and application forms on the official site located here.

As a funny aside, I actually misspelled scholarship both times I wrote it up there. Turns out there is an "a" in it. Who knew. Anyway, that seemed sort of ironic to me.


-Gabe out

Okay.

We find ourselves at Continuity's dark door again, apologies all 'round, but when Gabe's exterminator rescheduled the comic essentially appeared out of thin air. Let me assure you on behalf of Penny Arcade and the global brands we represent (beneath the umbrella firms "Brazen" and "UltraLith Consumer Lures") that we will observe our creative impulses more keenly in the future. The problem is that continuity, in its dormant state, looks like inspiration.

Gabriel apparently has a tiny boarder, a friendly creature with tidy fur content to dwell out in the garage. That certainly wasn't my experience with the genus, a tattered pageant of misery whose psychic reverberations are still being felt. I recall with unrelenting clarity the beast we secured in a humane trap, rolling and sucking air in its madness, placed on the table in a mockery of polite dinner. It had a musky, unhallowed scent like some primeval mustard, its yellow teeth so long that it could not close its own mouth. Threading its ten fine fingers around the bars, it cried out "We crawl, we swim! We nest and gnaw! We are WE, AND WE DEVOUR!"

We have new shirts for you to buy.

The first new shirt is more of a shirt refresh really. I felt like the old Fruit Fucker design was getting a little stale. I draw him different now and I thought the shirt should reflect that.

We were recently contacted by the Make-A-Wish foundation with the news that a young man had chosen to invest his wish in us. This was no surprise. Well, a wish in Gabriel was a surprise. A wish in me, certainly - I'm an investment. Here are only a few of the things that make me such a winning opportunity:

It's a little inside baseball I guess, but at the same time the story was so delicious that we couldn't leave it be: a District Attorney in Texas is on trial for building himself a sweet rig on the county dime. The machine in question sports "two hard drives, seven fans, high-end video and audio cards, a wireless Internet connection and cables that glow under ultraviolet light."  It's a crime, yeah, but it's an awesome crime.  I make an exception for awesome crimes.

Echochrome is something every PSP owner should certainly check out, and it's easy to do so, at any rate its as easy to get on there as any other demo, which is to say that there are elements of dark sorcery. Creating a folder in a specific subdirectory with the title "NPJG90019" is the sort of thing a crazy person would do. That said, I have it on good authority that we will never survive unless we occasionally indulge in madness.

I have some PAX news to share.

-The PAX 10 site has launched. We thought PAX would be a great place to show off some independent games. Basically the idea is that you can submit your game to us, we'll look at it along with about 50 industry experts and the 10 that we think are the best will get shown at PAX. You can get all the details here.

-We've also put out a call for speakers. If you think you have something that PAX attendees would be interested in hearing about or you have an idea for a panel let us know.

-Early bird pre-registration ends March 31st. So you need to register this month if you want to save $10 and get your 3 day pass for just $40.


In other semi PAX related news, the film Nerdcore rising will be opening this weekend. I say it's semi PAX related because it's a documentary about Nerdcore hip hop and it features PAX regular MC Frontalot. They filmed a pretty long interview with Tycho and I as well as the Front. During part of it they asked us to deconstruct the PA theme song and try and explain it for people who aren't huge nerds. They posted the result up on YouTube as a sort of teaser for the film I guess. I'll go ahead and drop it in here.

As usual I will warn you that this clip features graphic footage of us in our hideous true forms.

Before Army of Two came out, I was having trouble making sense of the reviews I had read. Invariably, the game lost a certain quantity of metaphysical "points" for its Single Player experience, and was redeemed to a great extent by its multiplayer modes, both adversarial and cooperative. I've never considered it anything other than a multiplayer game, taking the name of the game in question as a helpful suggestion.

Just got back from the store with two copies of Army of Two, my mind already blossoming with mercenary exploits, when it suddely became clear that the game has no LAN option.  I repeat, no LAN option.  Even on the same Goddamned network, both accounts need to be Gold Tier Live accounts.  You seriously have got to be fucking kidding me. 

(CW)TB
 

Gygax always struck me as a tremendously sinister name: no mortal name, this. This was the sort of name one earned in the service of horned devils and more primordial shapes of evil, a boon for the loyal servant, placed like a black crown on the bowed head.

So Tycho and I are still playing WoW most nights. In fact, as of this last weekend I think it's fair to say our little five man crew has the Auchenai Crypts on farm. When I was playing before with Dudefella I really only did PvP. This was back when you had to grind honor or risk losing it so I had to play constantly. I had a good time but it meant that I never really saw any of the new content in the Outlands. Now I'm back with a solid group and we're making all the five man instances our main priority. I've never had this much fun with the game and I think it's due to a combination of things. First,  I'm playing a radically different class now. I went from disposable DPS to main healer and I really like it. I've given every class in the game a try and a few of them I've run up past 60. I can honestly say this Druid is my favorite. The other big factor I think is that we have a well balanced five man group we can count on made up entirely of friends. We don't have to worry about PUGs or meeting stones. We've also stacked the classes in a way that means most of the time no one is competing for loot. I won't bore you with too much more about our adventures. I just wanted to say that I'm back in and so the news about an "Art of Blizzard" gallery show to benefit Child's Play really has me excited.

The only bad thing is there is no online component so you'll need to hit the Nucleus art gallery in Alhambra, CA. The opening reception is on March 8th at 7pm. I've spent a lot of time drooling over the World of Warcraft art books so I'm really bummed I can't make it out to this. If you plan on attending let me know. Maybe I can pick something up via one of you guys. I think a giant portrait of a Lich above my fireplace would really tie the room together.

If you're in the area please make a point of checking this show out. I know it's just my opinion but these are some of the best artists in the business and the chance to see their work up close and even own it should not be missed. Not to mention it's all for a good cause.

-Gabe out

The agreed upon comic, in the agreed upon place, according to the ancient ritual.

I think we've got the concerts for PAX pretty well lined up, but I'm always trying to massage the lineup, and I spent part of the afternoon educating myself about W(izard)rock - the odd metagenre/community devoted to Harry Potter.  This is easily done, provided you have sufficient time and interest, by visiting either WizardRock.org (naturally) or by availing yourself of the Wizrocklopedia.  I can't jam in anymore bands this year, not even if I stack them sideways, but I'm keeping an eye on this shit.  I especially enjoyed Ministry of Magic's Snape vs Snape, which features awesome guest vocals from Seattle locals The Parselmouths. 

It's unfortunate that Melt Wizard is no longer a going concern.  I'd fly them out just to play Weis & Hickman over and over. 

On the HP tip, you may also find this trailer interesting: We Are Wizards is a documentary about the surge of fan works dedicated to the series, including Brad Neely's profound Wizard People, Dear Readers.  I was under the impression that I liked Harry Potter quite a lot, but I may have been mistaken.

(CW)TB