Digg Mark 1 blog, hurrah!

Yes, it's true! Digg mark 1 finally has a blog! It includes Kong news, Digg Mark 1 interviews, a 'Hall of Fame' to show the best users, voted by the users (i'm in the top 5 (for now!))!

Ducklette interview

Fastest space between interviews and fasted editing I've done so far. DC's template used :)

Wizky

Bonjour Ducky! Interview tiem!

Ducky

bonjour, monsieur wizky. i am prepared to be interviewed!

Wizky

Note: DarkChameleon's interviewing template is being used

Wizky

When did you sign up to Kong, and why?

Ducky

I signed up for kong in late august of last year. i had just moved to a new city, i hadn't started classes yet, and i had a lot of time on my hands. so i figured i'd squander it by playing computer games! :)

Wizky

=P And do you remember any of your first friends on Kongregate?

Ducky

my very first friend was notagamer, who has since "left the building." but there was also unproductive, and AlisonClaire, and trickyrodent, and the rest of the Old Van Gang, so to speak.

Wizky

Do you have any particular 'Best friends' on Kong? *coughcough*

Ducky

ZOMG, there's this one kid naemd WIZKY and he's SOCOOLOMGPONIES!!!!!111!!one

Wizky

He sounds like an ass

Ducky

nah. i mean, only sometimes.

Wizky

D:

Ducky

XD

Wizky

K.. how long do you spend on Kong every day?

Ducky

every day? wow, this is going to be embarrassing....i suppose the average is anywhere from 2-4 hours? give or take. sometimes i'm not there at all, of course.

Wizky

Lul.. and, what's your favourite room?

Ducky

haha, do you really have to ask that? i spend most of my time in the van, and enjoy it. now that i've been modded, though, i get to spend some time in other rooms, which i enjoy. i mean, i enjoy it when i'm not called in to ban somebody...

Ducky

i think i just typed the word "enjoy" like 6 times. go duck.

Wizky

Well newbs don’t know this stuff do they ¬_¬ Although newbs probably wont be reading this, but still

Wizky

XD

Ducky

good point. SPECIAL NEWB MESSAGE: find duck in teh van!

Wizky

ROFL

Wizky

Anyway moving on D: What's your favourite game & why?

Ducky

favorite things are always hard for me to pick...i barely ever have one favorite anything. but among the games that i like are mardek chapter 2 (i know i'll get some flak for that, but i like it, so shaddap), the super crazy guitar maniac deluxe games (because the only thing better than practicing a real instrument is practicing a fake one), and whatever all else is on my favorite's list.

Wizky

Hehe

Wizky

And what's your current favourite Kong feature and what are you looking forward to?

Ducky

I must say that as elementary as it is, the chat on kong is brilliant. you meet great people, and what's more important, you meet great people who are better than you at games and will sometimes help you with them! what i'm looking forward to...i could say kongai like everybody else, but i'm really not sure. but i must say i'm usually a big fan of any improvements administration makes.

Wizky

Lots of people who agree with ya there ^__^

Ducky

that's because i'm always right, OBVIOUSLY. XD

Wizky

XD

Wizky

Anyway, game questions; do you play a lot of non-Flash games?

Ducky

not recently. i used to live with somebody who had a wii, and then i sure did! i was a super big fan of zelda twilight princess, and wii tennis. also, when i'm feeling more mellow, i like the myst games for pc. they get my mind working and have gorgeous graphics.

Wizky

And what's your favourite console?

Ducky

so far, the wii. i must say i love swinging my arms around to simulate whacking things. a lot of people would prefer a ps3, but i'm not so hot on first person shooters. i prefer to bop cute things on the head and whatnot.

Wizky

Haha

Ducky

i mean, i cherish all living things...

Wizky

:P Alright, straight on down to mod questions ^__^

Wizky

How long have ya been a moderata?

Ducky

not very long at all - perhaps about two weeks now?

Wizky

I thought it was like, 1 week.. but ok

Ducky

ok, a week and a half?

Ducky

haha.

Wizky

Fine, fine. And how did you feel on becoming a mod? (surprised, happy, shocked..?)

Ducky

hmm, I was a little surprised, but mostly happy.

Wizky

Is there anyone you've seen that you thought should be a mod too?

Ducky

well *that's* a loaded question if i ever heard one! there are people who i've thought would make good mods. but being a newb mod, i should probably have some time to hone my mod-dar before my opinion counts for anything.

Wizky

Hum.. I suppose I'll ask the same questions I asked Nick

Wizky

If a troll/spammer was trolling/spamming, what's the advised action to take:

#1: Mute

#2: Ask to stop

#3: Modcall

#4: A combination (state which)

Ducky

i'd say a combination, and here's what it is: first, i'd suggest *politely* asking said troll/spammer to stop. in the event that they don't listen to you, and depending upon just how offensive they are being, or how many rules they are breaking, either just mute them, or get a mod (who may or may not tell you to just mute them). but remember, mods are always here to help. even if you're not sure if something needs attention, it's always better to ask us than not.

Wizky

^_^

Wizky

Also, cookie, pie, or cake?

Ducky

cookie, closely followed by pie. cake would be good if it weren't a lie.

Wizky

K, 2 more questions; What's your advice to any future moderators?

Ducky

let's see...ASK QUESTIONS! mods are often made mods because they are friendly, helpful people. as i'm new, if i'm ever in a situation that i'm unsure about, i usually ask advice from a more experienced mod. the styles of different mods are (surprise) often different, but soak up whatever information you can, and use it to create your own style.

Wizky

And.. what's your advice (again!) to anyone who would like to be a moderator (almost everyone o.o)?

Ducky

yay! people like duck's advice! let's see, what i usually tell people is to learn the rules, obey the rules, be accepting and friendly towards most everyone you meet in chat, and show to us that you can be helpful and a good example. it also helps if you're around pretty frequently so we know who you are. that's about it, i think.

Wizky

And that's it for the interview too! ^_^ Thanks for participating etc

Ducky

thanks for having me etc. hehe.

ItBeNickYo interview

Another post, finally =\ This time with an interview on ItBeNickYo, room owner of ItBeARoomYo! and mod of DM1.

Can also be found on the new forums

Wizky
Interview starts: Now! *snaps that board that movie-directors have*
ItBeNickYo
Lawls
Wizky
HAI NICK
ItBeNickYo
HAI WIZ
Wizky
When did you sign up to Kong, how, and why? ^_^
ItBeNickYo
I joined up in June of 07, i was on Armorgames and was searching through there links of other gaming sites and click on Kongregate. Main reason i joined was because i loved the idea of a card game.
Wizky
;D And can you remember your first few friends on Kongregate?
ItBeNickYo
Yes, actually im still friends with them now. Dazb, Spartakips, & Outrightchaos.
Wizky
Any particular best friends on Kong?
Wizky
*COUGH COUGH*
ItBeNickYo
Yes, a couple really. Sparta and Wizzy.
Wizky
B)
ItBeNickYo
=]
Wizky
And how long do you spend on Kong every day? =]
ItBeNickYo
O god, way too much time. ANYWAYS, at least 4 hours off and on.
Wizky
That's all? Hahahaha
ItBeNickYo
Hahahaha, probably more.
Wizky
Suuuuuuuure
ItBeNickYo
I am!
Wizky
I believe you. Really.
Wizky
Anyway, moving on
Wizky
What's your favourite room? =D
ItBeNickYo
ItBeARoomYo! & Digg Mark 1
ItBeNickYo
I love them equally.
Wizky
WE LOVE YOU TOO NICK <33333 style="font-weight: bold;">ItBeNickYo
=]
Wizky
Anywayz, what's your favourite game on Kong?
ItBeNickYo
Hmm, I’m not sure. If i had to pick one, it would probably end up being either Sonny or Idle 2!
Wizky
Idle 2? Hahahahhahahhaaha
ItBeNickYo
YES!
Wizky
I mean; great choice (!)
Wizky
=D Cool, down to 1 question in the Kong set. What's your current favourite Kong feature and what features are you looking forward to?
ItBeNickYo
I love the badges system. i pretty much cant wait until the card game is completely done.
Wizky
Probably same case as at least half of Kongregate right now :p
ItBeNickYo
Were all the same.
Wizky
Anyway, do you play a lot of non-Flash games? ^_^
ItBeNickYo
Not really, I used to though.
Wizky
And what's your favourite console?
ItBeNickYo
Mostly Nintendo Stuff.
Wizky
Ok, down to mod questions my moderator amigo
ItBeNickYo
Thats me!
Wizky
Who else :P
Wizky
(No guys, I'm not a mod, we just work together on getting people banned. ROFL)
ItBeNickYo
hahaha, yes!
Wizky
Soooo, How long have you been a mod?
ItBeNickYo
Almost a month.
Wizky
And how long have we been working together?
Wizky
ROFL
ItBeNickYo
About 3 weeks now, i think.
Wizky
=D
ItBeNickYo
=]
Wizky
And how did you feel about becoming a mod? (Happy, shocked, etc)
ItBeNickYo
I was happy about it, i knew it was coming so i coudnt of been shocked.
Wizky
I know pretty much everyone thought you were a mod already :p
ItBeNickYo
Haha, yeaaa.
Wizky
And is there anyone you have seen that you have thought should be a mod too?
ItBeNickYo
Hmm, i used to think Severeflame was a mod. we all know what happened there.)
Wizky
:P And what's your advice to any future mods?
ItBeNickYo
Um, try harder would be my advice
Wizky
And what's your advice (we ask a lot of you, dont we) to anyone who would like to become a mod?
ItBeNickYo
Never ask to be a mod, always keep the rules in mind. Arguements can never happen.
Wizky
And seeing as a lot of "moar modz plz plz plz" threads seem to pop up recently, answer this question =D
Wizky
If there was a troll/spammer in the room, what is the advised action to take?
#1: Mute
#2: Ask to stop
#3: Modcall
ItBeNickYo
If there isnt a mod in the room already, it would have to be #3
Wizky
And when should that action be taken;
#1: Instantly
#2: After a few minutes of asking to stop
ItBeNickYo
It depends on how bad the troll/spammer is.
ItBeNickYo
Usually #2
Wizky
Oh, and user-contributed question; what's better, Cookie, pie or cake?
ItBeNickYo
Cake!
Wizky
Ok ^_^ Last set; Room Mods!
Wizky
Do you feel that owning a room makes people look up to you?
ItBeNickYo
A little bit yea.
Wizky
How much time do you spend in your room, in comparison to the time you spend in others?
ItBeNickYo
Usually i try to be in my room most of the time. Unless my room is dead, then i go visit my peoples in Dm1
Wizky
I would ask what rooms do you like to visit if not your room, but you've answered that ^_^ So we're done!
ItBeNickYo
=]
Wizky
Thanks for participating in the interview!
ItBeNickYo
No, Thank You.
Wizky
BAI NICK!!
ItBeNickYo
BAI WIZZ!
Wizky
=]
ItBeNickYo
=]

BADGE RSS!!1!

Woot! Kongregate user tehniobium made us the Kongregates Badges RSS that we've all been updating!! It runs on his servers, updates every 10 MINUTES, and shows the 20 latest badges so you don't miss them! I've added the RSS to the sidebar, and you can add this to your personal toolbar by visiting here!

Thanks tehnobium! :D

BoomsticK review

Yes, we finally got a review! Done by SuitedCriminal over at GIFlux.

This shooter, developed by innercircus, from Abduction Studios Inc., is one of my personal favourites – not only because I like saying “boomstick” (I like doing redneck impressions: “Martha! GIT ME MAH BOOMSTICK!!! Etc). Its gameplay is very simple; control your character (who to me looks like a sort of astronaut/ninja), shoot your shotgun’s glowing squares at the floating, and also glowing, shapes, and collect the ammo they drop. Each kill drops much needed ammo – quickly grab it before it disappears and your ammo runs out or it will be game over for you. The art style on this game is very simple, yet very professional – the glowing effects on the enemies and the bullets is like a miniature light show, and you can’t help but try to create the best display while playing the game.

The game is very addictive; the simple controls, the amazing graphics and the brilliant music and sound effects all combine to form an enjoyable experience, blasting the evil floating shapes. The accuracy and rank you attain, displayed after every round, make you want to improve your ranking, if only to brag that you managed to get over 200% accuracy (which I have done! Check the screenshot!). Although the shapes can’t hurt you until later in the game when they sometimes fire red lasers at you (getting hit by these lasers makes you lose 5 of your precious ammo) or the purple balls try to squash you, your main problem is the lack of ammo. Blasting away at the shapes in the sky, you tend to forget you have limited ammunition and run out, losing the game.

The music’s electronic sounds are futuristic – techno music suits the game perfectly – the whole art style and the music go together very well making the game a visual and aural treat.

Now for the criticisms: the lack of ammo offers a challenge but if you blast away in the first tier, you have ruined the game for yourself, ensuring a game over in the next few levels, for new players this may seem “stupid” and they may just change games because it is too hard for them. Also, the fact that you have to click the menu button to pause instead of just pressing P is very annoying, especially when you click to shoot; accidentally miss the menu button by the tiniest gap and you have wasted your ammo – the same goes for the level select and unpausing the game – a possible solution could be a delay before allowing the player to shoot when choosing the level, and pressing P to pause instead of clicking. The game could also have more variety; there could be options to change your character, change the colour of the bullets you fire, change the background… but these do not make the game any less brilliant. The repetitiveness of the game is also an issue, it is just a case of shooting and moving around to pick up the ammo the enemies drop, more powerups could change this however.

Overall - 11/15

New badges!

Badges overload recently with 11 BADGES in 2/3 days! 7 were ranked EASY, 1 MEDIUM, and the last 3 HARD

Games that got badges:

'You Have to Burn The Rope': 1 badge (Easy)
'Mardek RPG: Chapter 2': 4 badges (1 Easy, 3 Hard)
'Understanding Games Episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4': 1 badge each (All Easy)
'Warlords: Call to Arms': 2 badges (1 easy, 1 medium)

Any comments, ideas/suggestions, remember to comment! :D

Art forumz

OK, after my other failing art thread until recently revived (here) - I made another one, made purely with MSPaint! I done 2 wimminz and a set of smilies so far. See here for the thread - Remember to post (and comment here ;D)!

Interviewzorz w/ smigbob

Woot! My first interview! XD Thanks again, Wizky, for letting me post here! Our interview for today is with Kongregate's very own smigbob!

smigbob: You're running the show, start interviewing!

kirbyviper93: Alright, first question: When did you first sign up on Kongregate?

smigbob: In July, Yahoo had a feature about free indie games. DTD was featured, along with Dark Cut, Dwarven Fortress, and a few others, but DTD got me hooked. I accidentally clicked the "Play More Games!" link. The rest, as they say, is history.

kirbyviper93: you pretty much answered my next question, which was gonna be, "What brought you to Kongregate?" What chat room do you originally hail from?

smigbob: Digg Mark 1, born and raised. However, during my "teenage" years, I joined the high and mighty in teh Van, and was immediately made into one of the Kong 31337.

kirbyviper93: do you remember some of your first friends?

smigbob: Renny141 was my very first friend. Many of the other DM1 residents soon followed, such as Dragoness188, spartakips, and ItBeNickYo.

kirbyviper93: sorry if I take so long to respond, I'm trying to juggle an interview and a conversation with my girlfriend at the same time

smigbob: OMFG! A KONGREGANT HAS A GIRLFRIEND!?!?!?!

kirbyviper93: I know, it's unheard of, right? >.<

smigbob: lol, jk. I've got one too.

kirbyviper93: haha anyways... What are some of your favorite games?

smigbob: Well, not DTD! After using it to find Kong, I started to hate it. But I love Streamline, and a lot of the adventure and RPG's.

kirbyviper93: how many impossible badges do you have?

smigbob: Right now, 5 or 6. Line Game, Streamline, SCGMD2, Orbular, Gravitee, and Fold.

kirbyviper93: wow, you've got me beat, I only have the Streamline and SCGMD2 impossibles...

smigbob: Next up: Hexiom

kirbyviper93: Next question: You frequent the forums, yes?

smigbob: I used to a lot more than I do now, but I'm starting to come back.

kirbyviper93: what annoys you most on the forums, other than the obvious? (trolls, flamers, spammers, etc.)

smigbob: Bad spelling and grammar. 1337speak is one thing, but just typing everything like you only have three seconds to write it is frickadickulous.

kirbyviper93: agreed. now then, next topic: real life

smigbob: Arrg. IRL, I R Cookie! Not really.

kirbyviper93: I want a cookie now... ANYWAYS When you're not on Kong, what can you most often be found doing?

smigbob: Sleeping. I have a real exciting life outside school and Kong.

kirbyviper93: as indicated by your answer >.<

smigbob: But at school, I'm in the musical, so that takes up a lot of my time.

kirbyviper93: awesome, what's the musical?

smigbob: The Music Man. Takes place in Iowa in 1912. That's right, I'm a song-and-dance guy. Call me gay for it, I'll Web-kick your ass.

kirbyviper93: dude, the guys that get into theater are the smart ones. great place to meet girls

smigbob: I know! There's 42 girls to 12 guys.

kirbyviper93: exactly!

smigbob: Including more than half the cheerleading squad.

kirbyviper93: of course. we should get back on topic

smigbob: Right.

kirbyviper93: What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you?

smigbob: Ever? I dunno. I shook the President's hand at a campaign rally in '04...

kirbyviper93: that's pretty cool

smigbob: I really haven't had anything special happen to me, I have a fairly ordinary life. But not necessarily boring...

kirbyviper93: yeah, that's always the case, I think. What else do you do, outside of school and Kong?

smigbob: I have lots of animals to take care of, I enjoy a good book, movie, and most importantly, METAL!

kirbyviper93: \\m//

smigbob: lol

kirbyviper93: Alright, last section is just whatever I feel like asking

smigbob: Mkay, shoot.

kirbyviper93: True or false: there are no wimmenz on teh intarwebz.

smigbob: False. I know of a few...

kirbyviper93: good answer. What other games do you play, other than things on Kong?

smigbob: Ancient Domains of Mystery. It's a rougelike RPG, meaning no graphics, but the gameplay is as good as it gets. And a few others, but that's by far my favorite.

kirbyviper93: what can you not stand to see happen?

smigbob: A girl get put down by her "boyfriend". It just sickens me watching "lovers" hurt eachother.

kirbyviper93: agreed. to everyone reading: if you really love your bf/gf, don't put them down

smigbob: But that doesn't mean be creepily complimentary. Just treat others how you would like to be treated. It's amazing how that first grade golden rule comes to bite us in the ass later on in life.

kirbyviper93: This has been a public service announcement from kirbyviper93 and smigbob. What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep, and why were you up?

smigbob: I'm going on it right now. I haven't slept since Friday night, and won't until Wednesday.

kirbyviper93: just trying to set a personal record, huh?

smigbob: No, that's just the way things go. In AAA-AAA-AAA-AAAL-BUQUERQUE!

kirbyviper93: haha

smigbob: Weird Al FTW! They see me rollin', they laughin', and rollin' their eyes 'cuz I'm so White and Nerdy...

kirbyviper93: haha I used to know all the words to that

smigbob: My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored...

kirbyviper93: I memorized Holy Grail really well, I can recite it right now, and have you ROTFLOL

smigbob: I got a business doin' yadda-yadda, can we get back on topic?

kirbyviper93: yeah, that's probably a good idea. speaking of music, name a couple of your favorite bands (like how I tied that in there? ;-D)

smigbob: Iron Maiden (hence the avatar), Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden, and did I mention Iron Maiden?

kirbyviper93: uhh, you might have =P

smigbob: And Metallica, Black Tide, Avenged Sevenfold, Anthrax, etc.

kirbyviper93: A7X FTW

smigbob: Beast and the Harlot the the best metal song so far this millenium. By far.

kirbyviper93: for sure. now then, to wrap this interview up, is there anything you'd like to say to people reading this?

smigbob: I am a paranoid schizophrenic, and you're fly's down.

kirbyviper93: nice way to wrap that up there

smigbob: I know. Actually, I want to say one thing to all Kong users: QUIT THE STUPID CHATROOM ROLEPLAYING! IT'S ANNOYING AS HELL SOMETIMES, AND NOBODY CAN GET HALF AN INTELLIGENT REMARK IN! Sorry. /rant

kirbyviper93: and with that... [/interview]

smigbob: Thanks kirby! Bye now!

kirbyviper93: thanks for putting up with me =D

smigbob: Barely...I mean, it was a pleasure!

April Fools!

Heh, happy (or not so happy) April Fools' Day. :p

Also, KONGREGATE RELEASED KONGAI!! CHECK - here - and a news post here about it!!



Please comment as usual btw!

News!

Ok, 2 lots of news ready to be posted.

News #1: Kongai-Final is being played by admins Damijin and BenV - I've also been told by damijin himself Kongai is not far around the corner!

News #2: I gave permission to Kirbyviper93 to post here; He'll be our new interviewer! He also has his own blog, Kirby Speaks Out -- I recommend you to view that also!

AlisonClaire Interview

Ok, well, I got access to my interwebz again and interviewed AlisonClaire. Interview took FREAKING AGES so it took about half an hour to edit. Anyway, here ya go.

The1Wizkid
Ready for super-duper-awesome interview now? :3
The1Wizkid
(btw don't use MSN smileys, takes ages to edit out)
AlisonClaire
if by 'super-duper-awesome' you mean 'totally boring and lame' then sure.
AlisonClaire
WHY MUST YOU STRANGLE MY CREATIVITY!
AlisonClaire
*insert MSN angry face here*
The1Wizkid
I'm sure I can make it interesting for ya ; )
The1Wizkid
Sooo. When did you sign up to Kong, how, and why?
AlisonClaire
April of last year, found the site through StumbleUpon and Fancy Pants. Signed up because I then started playing bloons and had a question about something. Started chatting because damijin was in chat and I wanted to tell him what a great site is was/is.
The1Wizkid
And do you remember your first few Kongfriends?
AlisonClaire
Yup. Most of them have vanished actually but it was the majority of the old school vannites. Mastry, d ijin, valkyrie, Kitten20, LoneRonin, Darwin
AlisonClaire
etc.etc.
The1Wizkid
Whoa.. And how long do you spend on Kongregate every day?
AlisonClaire
Oh lord. I have no idea. It really depends on the day. Much less now that I'm in school but I'll go with 2 hoursish. That's probably too low of an estimate but I will make myself too sad if I admit the actual ount of time I spend with you fake cyber people.
AlisonClaire
No more than 2 in chat but I tend to check the forums throughout the day.
The1Wizkid
Cool, hum..
The1Wizkid
What's your favourite chatroom?
AlisonClaire
Duh. Clearly Mostly Harmless. There is no competition!
The1Wizkid
(except The Van)
AlisonClaire
But up until the creation of my room I was a Vannite.
AlisonClaire
I dunno man, The Van is too schizophrenic for me now. I can't keep up with you young folk anymore.
The1Wizkid
=p
The1Wizkid
^o^ And what's your favourite feature on Kongregate?
AlisonClaire
Chat. It's allowed me to meet all sorts of wonderful people!
AlisonClaire
....and you.
The1Wizkid
I'm not wonderful? :' (
AlisonClaire
Nah you're ULTRASUPERFANTASTIC
The1Wizkid
^o^ Wewt
The1Wizkid
Ok, so. Before we continue, one last rumour to find the answer to:
AlisonClaire
No I am not pregnant.
The1Wizkid
Are you REALLY a 40 year old man called Ralph who lives in his mom's basement wearing a trenchcoat?
AlisonClaire
Oh, that one. Well yes, clearly.
AlisonClaire
And I live in Wisconsin and spend a great deal of time eating deep fried cheese curds. And playing Kingdom Hearts.
AlisonClaire
And Runescape
The1Wizkid
OMG! Runescape! best game evar.
AlisonClaire
I totally agree. You wanna come over to my house and play it sometime?
AlisonClaire
I'm a level eleventyseven mage OMG PHEER ME
The1Wizkid
OMG! Of course.
AlisonClaire
I'll get my mom to bake us cookies.
AlisonClaire
Man, I hope Chris Hanson doesn't show up to ruin the fun this time!
The1Wizkid
Hehe ^o^
The1Wizkid
Ok, so... Mod questions <3
The1Wizkid
How long have you been a moderator? =)
AlisonClaire
This is a matter of some debate. I thought since early July but someone said it was earlier. So sometime between June or July.
The1Wizkid
How did you feel on being appointed?
AlisonClaire
I was pretty stoked. That was back before The Van was the land of the mods so I frequently had to go find someone to ban trolls which, as I'm sure you know, is quite annoying. Plus I'm a huge kong fangirl so I was glad there was a way for me to help make the community stronger
The1Wizkid
^o^
The1Wizkid
Hum.. Any people you've seen who you think should be mod? *wink wink nudge nudge hint hint*
AlisonClaire
I have seen huge numbers of people that would be fantastic mods. I seriously think 90% of the regulars in my room would be azing mods.
AlisonClaire
It's just a question of need and oversaturation in certain rooms.
AlisonClaire
Plus greg has this rad new system he wants to implement that would put much more power in the users hands so we will become obsolete
The1Wizkid
: (
AlisonClaire
Oh what are you : ( ing at
The1Wizkid
Nothin'
AlisonClaire
OMG YES WIZKY I THINK YOU WOULD BE A FABOO MOD!
The1Wizkid
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
AlisonClaire
(is that what I was supposed to say? : P It is true though)
The1Wizkid
^o^
AlisonClaire
Except that you might ban your brother for no reason
The1Wizkid
Now gogogogo do your studying or w/e
The1Wizkid
Guess I must say thanks.. *rolls eyes*
The1Wizkid
Thanks for participating in the first interview for Kongiophobia V2, yada yada
AlisonClaire
yup no problem. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me whenever
The1Wizkid
Ok.
AlisonClaire
kthxbai

See y'all

Well, I gone and got myself banned for a week from the interwebz because I've been on Kongregate too much, so.. See y'all then. Wizblog will probably die by the time I get back, though, so current posters.. PLZ PLZ PLZ POST DECENT STUFF.

Oh yeah, if you need me for anything, comment here or shout me on my profile on Kongregate.

Survey!

Yay! On Kongregate Homepage, there's a new Quick Survey to fill in.

arcaneCoder said this about it: "In my opinion, by better knowing the interests of their demographic they can better tailor both the content of the site and the advertisements to fit the interests of those playing. They also learn which features of the site everyone enjoys best. Knowing what we like allows them to give us what we like."

So, go fill that in for better Kong stuff. :)




Also, posted in forum about The1Wizblog. Hopefully more viewers, yay!

GREG INTERVIEW! WOOT!

Hey guys! I'll post now my interview with Greg, that happened lots of days ago. It's originally posted (portuguese translated) at KongBR blog (http://kongbr.com.br). It's a Brazilian blog about Kong. You guys should take a look someday, even if you don't understand a thing! Cause we are really really cool. Comment there please. B)

Ok, no more chit-chat. Here we go! Greg interview! Woot!

1) How long have you worked at Kongregate?
Kongregate is a full-time job for me, so I work at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I started working at Kongregate back in August 2006 as the first full-time employee.

2) What is your job at Kongregate, exactly?
I do lots of stuff at Kongregate, and sometimes it fluctuates a bit from month to month. I probably spend the largest chunk of my time reviewing potential game sponsorships, then working out the arrangements for the ones I like. I also spend a pretty significant amount of time working on new achievements (and the weekly challenge). Whatever time I have left over goes to keeping up with community issues and appointing new moderators.

3) Did you expect that Kongregate would be so big and popular?
Modestly aside, well, yes. I spent a couple of months working for NHN USA ( www.ijji.com ) straight out of college, and I left to join the Kongregate team. Working for NHN was pretty great, and I would not have left if I didn't believe that Kongregate would grow to be incredibly popular. I certainly have no regrets about my decision and it's tremendously exciting to see how much the site has grown, but we still have a long road ahead of us if the site is to be truly successful.

4) What is the criteria for choosing a game to recieve a badge/card?
User ratings! I can't emphasize this enough. Developers contact me all the time asking for badges in their games, and they usually have less than 3 stars. When I go to add new badges, I sort all the games on the site by rating, and pick the top ones first. Games that are quick and easy may get badges sooner than incredibly long RPGs, though, just because I play games as much as I think is necessary before deciding what the badge should be. Putting badges in Anika's Odyssey and Balance Balls 2 took about 10 minutes, while designing/implementing the badges in Monsters' Den and Protector took about 2 days. Even for the Monsters' Den badges, I wish I would've spent a third day on it, just because the impossible badge turned out to be a little easier than I intended. In retrospect, I probably should've made it a hard badge at 20 levels. Oh well.

5) What is your opinion about "Corporative games"?
I think they're all right. Flash developers can earn a lot of money from them, and I know for a fact that some developers on Kongregate have developed games for corporations in the past as a way to pay the bills. What's a little sad, though, is that most Flash developers are essentially forced to either "sell out" and create advertisement games or start doing "real" programming if they want to make a living in the game development industry. There are a few exceptions to this (Hero Interactive, for example, is making a living primarily off of sponsorships with his consistently terrific creations), but for the most part, it's really hard to make a living developing games in Flash unless you're doing it to sell a product. Sponsorships have become more lucrative lately, though, and Kongregate's premium games program is offering a lot of money to independent Flash game developers, so hopefully this won't always be the case!

6) What do you think about the Kongregate/Newgrounds comparisons?
I think they're a little silly, honestly. Newgrounds deserves a ton of respect for paving the way for Flash portals in general, and I visit the site pretty frequently myself. I can understand that some Newgrounds fans are a little annoyed with Kongregate being called the "YouTube of games," since Newgrounds has essentially been the same thing for the past decade. "YouTube of games" is used to describe Kongregate for people who know nothing about the Flash world. For people who DO know about Kongregate and Newgrounds, though, they understand that Kongregate offers a lot more than a standard YouTube model -- we have chat, achievements, challenges, etc. Most of the content on Newgrounds is in the form of movies anyway, and their standards for acceptable content are a bit more extreme than Kongregate's. Just the fact that both sites host user-uploaded Flash games is pretty much the only similarity. I certainly don't think Newgrounds needs to worry about Kongregate, also -- Newgrounds will always be around regardless of Kongregate's success.

7) How hard is it to manage this great Kongregate community?
Incredibly hard. Impossible, even. I wouldn't be able to do it without the help of both Damijin and the entire team of terrific volunteer moderators across the site. But unfortunately, the whole system of "Greg appoints every moderator on the site" is horribly outdated for the amount of traffic that Kongregate has worked its way up to, and it's no secret that the community is a bit of a mess right now. Lately I've been working on the plans for a system of moderation on the site that involves normal users voting out trolls and spammers, and this should see some development once our programmers aren't so busy finishing up the card game.

8) What is your impression about the Brazilian community?
I unfortunately don't have a strong impression of the Brazilian community on Kongregate, since I can't speak Portuguese. This language barrier makes it incredibly difficult to moderate Brazilian rooms and to appoint Brazilian moderators. I know that the Brazilian room has had a lot of problems with trolling/spamming in the past, but I don't think this is representative of the Brazilian community on Kongregate -- the English rooms would probably be the exact same way if they didn't have any attention from moderators.

9) Have you already visited Brazil? If not, do you plan to visit someday?
I haven't visited Brazil. I would definitely like to, but the thought of traveling in a foreign country without being able to speak the native language is a bit intimidating. It's stressful enough just traveling within the United States! I went to Europe once with my dad when I was 15, and it was pretty stressful just watching him trying to communicate with everyone around us. If I ever did go to Brazil, it would probably be with a group or something.

10) How do you feel about being the "Kong sex symbol"?
Haha, I don't think this is true at all. You sure you're not thinking of arcaneCoder?

11) And what does Alison think about it?
Thankfully, I don't think Alison believes this is true either -- she probably wouldn't be too happy about it.

12) Well, can you give us a short description about yourself?
Let's see... I worked at GameStop for 3 years in high school, and I graduated from college about 2 years ago. I majored in psychology and human development, though I spent most of my time working at the student newspaper doing copy editing and reviewing video games. After I graduated, I worked for NHN a bit, then moved on to Kongregate. So video games have been a huge part of my life, both for entertainment purposes and regarding my employment. Other than having a lucky streak of cool jobs, I can't say there's anything about me that's too exciting. I will say that I'm a huge nerd when it comes to grammar, though, and I spent a ton of time playing World of Warcraft. What were you saying about "Kong sex symbol" again?

13) How long have you been together?
Alison and I have been together for about 5 years now. We met while we were both working at GameStop -- she was actually my boss at the time.

14) How is your relationship with the other people from the Staff? And the mods?
Everyone in the Kongregate staff gets along really well, at least as far as I know. I've never really worked in a "normal" office environment, but Alison has commented about how refreshing it is to work at a place that doesn't have any office drama being gossiped about behind people's backs. Jim even loaned me his Audi when I wrecked my car on the freeway (a truck in front of me decided to drop a ladder), and Alison and I have looked after his dog, Nikki, a few times. I get along great with most of the mods, or at least they act nice when I'm around! I really wish I had more time to get to know a lot of them better, though. Most new moderators are appointed more by recommendation than by my personal experience with them.

15) Is it true that Kongregate pays a trip to a resort for you every year?
No, I'm not sure how this rumor started! Alison and I recently came back from a trip to Hawaii, but that wiped out my savings account pretty thoroughly. The Kongregate staff had an off-site trip to Ashland a few months ago, but we spent the whole time working.

16) What is your: Favorite food? Favorite movie? Favorite music style? Favorite book? Favorite site?
My favorite food is sushi. I mean real sushi, not California rolls. Most Americans who say they like sushi really mean that they like fake crab with avocado and mayonnaise wrapped with rice, and I'm sure the Japanese are laughing about it behind our backs. I'm not sure what my favorite movie is. Probably Jurassic Park, Heat, or Sideways. For music, I'm really not sure. I'm part of the .00001% of the human population that's just not really into music that much. There are a few songs I like, but I can't say I've ever been really excited by a particular group or style. My favorite book is probably "The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett, or Jurassic Park (seeing the movie when I was 10, then reading the book really got me into literature at a young age). My favorite website (besides Kongregate of course!) is probably YTMND.com.

17) Do you have any message to the Brazilian community?
Yes, I do! Tremendous thanks to Willian for helping out with moderating Orgulho, but I know that the room can still be a bit messy at times. Hopefully user moderation will especially help out the foreign-language rooms, where it's more difficult for the Kongregate staff to have a direct influence.

Wizzy edit: OMG! WIN! 2 KONG STAFF INTERVIEWED! NOW FOR DAMIJIN >:)

*yawn...*

Well, uh.. Nothin' new really.. I need more posters and bigger fanbase, so.. This won't be updated very often, really. Until Missy and Will actually do stuff!! >: (

Also, please check out The Deadly Quiz by Deadlyman. It's pretty awesome.

So.. Template?

I changed the template around, and Cocokiller made me a banner for us! The template looks a little better now (I hope) just to cope with the size of the banner ;D Anyway, if you like it, COMMENT BELOW!

Again, huge thanks Coco!

KONGSTAFFINTERVIEW ON... matt!

I was lucky enough today to finally interview a Kongstaffmember! And he was matt! w00t! Anyway, here's the interview. Enjoy, it's rather long.. He had too many topics to cover. :p

The1Wizky
ello

matt
ello ello

The1Wizky
Ok, soo...

The1Wizky
When did you sign up to Kong, and why?

matt
november 06, damijin/mike found it on a gaming blog and we came to check it out. the only people in chat (there was only one room) were like, emily, greg and jim. So we stuck around and talked to them because they seemed neat.

The1Wizky
Haha. And do you remember your first friends on Kong? (apart from them, obviously)

matt
a few! some people from the first bunch of members have my screen name and we talk occasionally.

The1Wizky
Cool - And do you have any particular "best friends" out of them?

matt
I would like to call mrcredsalex my best friend but I’ve lost contact with him.

The1Wizky
: (

The1Wizky
And how long do you spend on Kong every day?

matt
probably around 6 to 8 hours, but I work for them so that might skew things!

The1Wizky
Niiice

The1Wizky
And, what's your favourite room on Kong?

matt
clearly The Van, rocking out since April or something.. We lose track of time.

The1Wizky
w00t. 3 Vannites. X)

The1Wizky
And what's your favourite game on Kong?

matt
hovercrafty

The1Wizky
Hehe.

The1Wizky
What's your favourite Kongregate feature?

matt
unequivocally, chat!

The1Wizky
Yay. Any new up-coming features you're looking forward to? :premium games, etc..

matt
the premium games should be pretty neat, i want to see more multiplayer games and see how the community or sub-communities develop around them. I’m mostly interested in watching how things develop as the site grows, that's kind of ambiguous.

The1Wizky
Yeah.. It's cool to see it go from 4k to 10k in a few weeks :p

matt
it's even cooler seeing it do it in a few days ;p

The1Wizky
K, last one in the Kongregate section..

The1Wizky
How awesome is Kongai? : D

matt
totally. I’m undefeated in it, atm. Just thought I’d let you know.

The1Wizky
:O Show-off

The1Wizky
Ok, Game questions now

The1Wizky
Do you play a lot of :non-Flash games?

matt
i suppose, not quite as much as i used to.

The1Wizky
What's your favourite gaming console?

matt
i can't decide between the wii and the virtual boy. to be honest, i prefer pc games to consoles though.

The1Wizky
Yea! And which consoles do you own?

matt
eeh, Atari 2600, nes, snes, genesis, Sega cd, ps, ps2, n64, Xbox, Wii. Some various stages of the gameboy and I had a DS somewhere but i can't find it, if you're counting handhelds.

The1Wizky
Whoa.. Haha.

matt
they all work!

The1Wizky
=O

The1Wizky
(if you can remember at all), when did you start playing console games?

matt
not really sure, pretty young though, like 6 or 7, or earlier. Though I’m not sure how much you can consider someone to be playing a game when they're spastic and little and pressing buttons randomly

The1Wizky
Lmao

The1Wizky
Ok, next topic. What do you do when you're not Kongregating?

matt
argue with people over trivial things, college, hang out with friends.

The1Wizky
Haha.

The1Wizky
Aaand, do you have any particular hobbies?

matt
I play guitar and sing angelically. slowly learning some actionscript in my spare time. Flipping through Wikipedia pages until I wind up somewhere and don't know how i got there.

The1Wizky
Sounds fun. :P

The1Wizky
Seeing as you work at Kongregate, do you have any set hours?

matt
not at the moment.

The1Wizky
Alrighty, new topic. Especially for you, Kongstaff <3

The1Wizky
How long have you been working at Kongregate?

matt
only about a month

The1Wizky
o_O I thought you worked here waayy longer. ;D

matt
no, my awesome demeanour just gives people the impression that i've had long-standing authority.

The1Wizky
Rofl

The1Wizky
Anyway. How did you feel on being, uh, hired? (surprised, happy, etc)

matt
surprised and happy.

The1Wizky
K, cool. Any mod recommendations?

matt
I’m not sure what you mean, recommendations for mods?

The1Wizky: Yep

matt
leniency is better than oppression!

The1Wizky
And, hm.. Any people who you have seen who you think should be a mod?

matt
i decline to comment!

The1Wizky
:O

The1Wizky
K, last in the topic - Any advice to anyone who would like to become a moderator?

matt
try not to do anything that would get you banned, since that tends to reflect poorly on you. though people can get better over time. just be active in chat, friendly, helpful, all those wonderful magical things. try not to overreact to everything. in general, try to stay respectable.

The1Wizky
Yay :D Okies, 2 more questions.

The1Wizky
What area of Flash developing do you work in, Design, Programming or both?

matt
i've worked with damijin and some of our friends, helping to design some games, and i've made some music. we've nearly completed one that should eventually be up on the site. like i said earlier, i'm working on learning some actionscript as well. i've got one sterling example of my progress that you can find on my profile on Kongregate. it's pretty incredible, i don't understand why it doesn't have a 5-star rating.

The1Wizky
Haha. Nice.

The1Wizky
How hard/easy is it, in your opinion, to make a Flash game?

matt
it obviously depends on your experience with programming. Most of the people i know have taken comp sci classes or learned programming concepts on their own before. the newer version of actionscript seems like it would have a steeper learning curve than previous version, but i would recommend anyone new to Flash game making to try to learn AS3 eventually if not first, because it's more object-oriented and has a similar structure and syntax to the common programming languages you'd be working with if you were going to make non-Flash games. if you've got any degree of math or logic ability you should be able to learn how to program. it might take some effort at first, but once you learn the concepts you can apply them to pretty much every programming language, so it's worth it. of course, if you've already got a programmer or some programming ability, then you have

to come up with the idea for the game itself, which can sometimes be the most difficult part

matt
needs more longwinded answers.
The1Wizky
Yeah. :P

The1Wizky
Anyway, that's the end of the interview.

The1Wizky
Thanks for participating! And, thanks for being the first mod/staff to be interviewed :D

matt
that was longer than 10 minutes btw, you liar

The1Wizky
I know I know - But I didnt think you would have such long answers! =P

matt
:-[

The1Wizky
And because you're a developer AND mod it took longer. =P

matt
i obviously do too much for you people.

Test

-POST REMOVED FOR CLEANER VIEWING!! (well, not really, I just don't want insults on my Blog. :D-

New badge-games on Kong

Tarnation

Utter shite. Complete bullshit.

Anyway, it's easy. Except lvl 10. And lvl 11. Sort of. But the other ones, just fire those seed things like crazy and you win. Woo.

Platform Racing

Better. It's easy. Just win Infernal Hop using that teleport shortcut, or the Mine glitch to get through the final wall. To beat "Going Down", just jump to the left/right and move back inside the map after the layer of bricks. Then win. The other ones are pretty easy.

Also, I NEED MORE CONTRIBUTORS ='( Posting on my own makes me lonely. All you have to do is do anything decent and you're in. Even copy a walkthrough/interview from somewhere else.

Sprout walkthrough

Well, a walkthrough from Marh this time, for Sprout!

Coconut.

Learn Dandelion.

Dandelion.

Coconut.

Learn Bush.

Dandelion.

Berry Bush.

Dandelion.

Dandelion.

Coconut.

Dandelion.

Coconut.

Dandelion.

Coconut.

Bush.

Coconut.

Learn Vine.

Vine.

Bush.

Vine.

Dandelion.

Bush.

Coconut.

Coconut.

Vine.

Coconut.

And finally, Learn Acorn!