Wednesday 28 May 2014

Kings of Spun the 31st

Spun Salutations! Uncle Spun's weekly missive must be brief today as we are somewhat behind with the delivery of the next Spunland update and so one moves swiftly to our new Kings of Spun... All Hail onewingedmenace, 31st EU King of Spun and abhraham_us 31st NA Spun Majesty! Spun Congrats to both!

Spunland EU was pleasingly busy and the contest fierce. More than a few previous Kings of Spun did tussle with new contenders for the Spun Crown; sam_reynolds01 and  MAXMALO had their turn, and for a while it looked as though erstwhile majesty luukhoekstra would be crowned King again, one imagines GlassReaver would also have laid claim to the crown were it not for an unspun M11 error. Gah. onewingedmenace prevailed in the end and as you can see posed regally in the form of a giant Robo Spunner! Callooh, Callay!

In North America Spunland was if anything even busier. The throng of bustling spunlings was full of familiar names, and as with the EU there were quite a few Spunland costumes present. For much of the time our previous Glitchkings did dominate; lilmonstersmiler and Darth-Matt92 seemed to pass the crown from one to the other whilst wearing their Spun Crowns from past wins (what manner of name do we give this, one great crown floating above the other?). In the end their naughtiness was but play as abhraham_us won the title for the first time, having entered the contest after its penultimate harvest! Special mention must be made of TammieBARBIE who clearly put up a good fight and to dxkills16 and A70CHARGER who also each managed a fair shot at the crown, not to forget Ren_Echo our 30th NA King of Spun who watched graciously from the side. Uncle Spun must extend big Spun thanks to all of those who tarried at the end to pose for Spuntastic pictures and chat (Akina8373), there were at least 5 Spun Crowns present (perhaps a record) and both a Happy and an Angry Spunling - how very appropriate for the coronation!

One final thing; Big Spun Congratulations to May2099, winner of the AlphaZone4 Spunland Art contest - we were Spuntastically impressed by all of the entries (big Spun Thanks all of you!) and you should all be able to get your AlphaZone4 Picture Puzzle featuring May2099's artwork (see below) at about the same time as the next Spunland Update goes live - sometime around the middle of June, specific date coming soon...

Next week, tuesday the 3rd of June will feature the 32nd Coronation Contest. EU: 8 - 8.30pm BST and NA: 4-4.30pm PDT, 7-7.30pm EDT. Have a Spun week!



























May2099 Winning Picture Puzzle Art Contest Entry
www.spunland.com

Wednesday 21 May 2014

The 30th Kings of Spun and more news!

Spun Salutations! Today we announce the 30th Kings of Spun and some other random spunbits...

All hail GlassReaver (EU) and Ren_Echo (NA), our 30th Spun Majesties - details in a paragraph or two...

Today we launch our 10th Commerce Item release, bringing the Spunbots to Playstation Home! Yes, buzz around in one of our new Spunbot Saucer LMOs, or get those roller Spunbot legs (complete with their own anim pack) for graceful gliding and expressive roller-ing. You can take a peak at the spuntasticness of all this right here.

Tomorrow is the last day of the AlphaZone4 Spunland Art contest, so if you want to get your artwork/screenshots or whatever other type of image you can produce squeezed into a Spunland Picture Puzzle Reward, get spunning and submit here! We will be running another facebook share type contest very soon so keep an eye out to that too...

Finally - big Spun thanks to all of you who got involved with your opinions and observations following Uncle Spun's controversial post last week, the madmunkis may not be sane, but they always appreciate your input even if it is prompted by a need to vent at some unspun mistake on our part. From the fairly lengthy exchange which took place on the forums, and on comments right here and elsewhere we have a list of fixes we will try our hardest to get implemented for the next Spunland update planned for the middle of June. Big Spun thanks again!

And so to the Spunland highlight of the week - our coronations. Judging by the tactics at play last night many of you heeded Uncle Spun's hints last week on how to maximize Spun Points - there were more Spunland costumes in play, and noticeably more spunlings dropping out of the game to use their LMOs during the rabbit infested Spun Storms!

EU Spunland started out busy. After an initial panic on our part things quickly settled into a very competitive rhythm, indeed Uncle Spun's notes on all who held the crown span a spun page or two! GlassReaver fought valiantly from the first, seeing off previous Kings (luukhoekstra, sam_reynolds01 and MAXMALO) and new, spuntastically attired contenders such as julihs in the form of Spun-On-A-Stick, pomeranian94, PRAVY and gamberritah. The madmunkis must apologize for not being able to enjoy your company for long after the contest, as an unspun bug had been announced in the intervening time and had to be dealt with immediately, consequently we forgot to find out what score the right regal GlassReaver won with...

All things Spun were a little quieter on the other side of the Great Atlantic. For the most part RacerXJuggalo dominated, tussling with lilmonstersmiler, abhraham_US, lady_zombie25 and dxkills16 for ownership of the crown, then after the 3rd Spun harvest Ren_Echo entered the fray and took the title with 17,710 Spun Points! Big Spun congratulations to Majesty Ren_Echo, and at the risk of stirring up another controversy Uncle Spun must say that it was nice to see a new face win - which is not to discourage previous Majesties from competing! Final words on the 30th Coronation: big Spun thanks to lilmonstersmiler for her graciousness and to dxkills16 for enlivening the occasion by competing in the form of a Happy Spunling!

Next week - our 31st Majesties will be decided on Tuesday the 27th of May. Spunland EU: 8 -8.30pm BST and Spunland NA: 4-4.30pm PDT/7-7.30pm EDT. Have a Spun week!



























www.spunland.com

Wednesday 14 May 2014

Glitchkings of Spunland and much news...

Spun Salutations dear reader. Uncle Spun generally tries to devote a similar amount of words to his reporting on the Spunland Coronations on both sides of the Great Atlantic, but today he is not even going to try as he is still SPUN OUT by the 29th North American coronation which is going to require quite a few words to cover... So before launching into this tale of spun trauma let us get all of the announcements out of the way: All hail luukhoekstra EU King of Spun and lilmonster-Matt92 the two headed North American majesty!

Later today we will announce the winners of the Spun Fun One competition, begin a new competition and point your considered attention to this other Spunland Art competition being run by the spuntastically lovely people at AlphaZone4 - who (we only found out last week) announced Spunland as the best Home Game of 2013 according to their users! Callooh, Callay!! Big Spun thanks to all! Oh and the winners of the Spunland Cottage competition have not yet claimed their rewards, so if you happen to know Chica La Bonita or Shannon Offer could you please tell them to contact us via facebook so that we can send them their codes. Many Spun thanks.

There has been much clamoring of late for new rewards to spend spun points on and we are pleased to announce that such will be arriving with the next update to Spunland, coming in the middle of June, to be followed not long after by the next big Spunland Event which will be... Independence day!

For anyone who owns Spunland Picture 4 - the slidy picture puzzle game (Minigame / wall hanging), it was pointed out to us by the ever perceptive Sam Reynolds that the final puzzle is unsolvable. This has now been fixed, but the fix will not go live until the next Spunland update in June (specific date to follow) - to make up for our shoddiness here there will be an extra puzzle and reward added when the update goes live. Oh, and similarly should anyone have found the picture puzzle on the Spunland website impossible, well it is definitely fixed now too!

Finally - as of this week we are spundiferously excited to announce the debut of actual Spunland merchandise - now you can wear the wonder that is the Flusho on your very own chest in real life! Callooh, Callay!! This and more can be found here if you are in the US, and probably here if you are in the EU...

And so to the 29th EU coronation. It was a quiet affair this week, contested mostly by familiar faces and yet far from acrimony free. Majesty luukhoekstra successfully defended his title against sam_reynolds01, MAXMALO, GlassReaver and a handfull of other spunlings. And this I am afraid is all Uncle Spun will say as he has to get on to...

The 29th North American Coronation. It happened thus: Uncle Spun found his way across the Great Atlantic, in to-be-honest a not entirely sober state. He arrived in Spunland to find it worryingly busy, the more people, the more chance of an unspun crash. Anyway, he set to work revealing trees and then took up his usual position by the shop. There was no sign of Spun deDuke, or even of many familiar names, despite the mass of spunlings. How very spun, he thought. Then a couple of minutes before the appointed time his phone rang. It was Spun deDuke. deDuke was in another instance, and so after a very quick discussion we thought; why not run two coronations at once, after all that meant if anyone else appeared they would at least be able to join in one contest. No sooner did Uncle Spun begin the event than he started to wonder at the wisdom of this, for now we would have two 29th NA Kings of Spun...

The contest itself is simple to relate, as it was dominated by Darth-Matt92 in a way reminiscent to StealingHearts first win some time ago, which is to say almost no one else got a look in, other than bambina-chocola, our only Harvest King of the contest. Yes, Darth-Matt92 lead Uncle Spun a merry dance as he weaved his way through Spunland on his skateboard. Then on being crowned he explained that perhaps he should not have won as he was cheating, he thought. Our 29th Majesty had glitched his way to the top of the regal tree on his skateboard LMO. Uncle Spun must express his respect at Darth-Matt92's honesty, and thank him for enlightening Uncle Spun on the subject of glitching, of which more in a minute, but first here are the words written by Spun deDuke on the Coronation which he conducted:

Glitch winner this week in the second instance of Spun-King Competition is lilmonstersmiler.

Miracleloves and tiekiller had a good go at claiming the crown for short periods of time - each about 4 goes -  due to double points from the shop and killing the spun while wearing the crown lil' kept the game well in her court while rocking about Spunland at great speed with her already won Spun King Crown LMO via 'glitch'.

Well there you go - you find ways to win and use them - it's all about survival of the fittest - if you can't beat 'em  clean, cheat 'em mean.

Xuter5 and SuperAlexstar and defo505 for a quiet moment got the crown - but with 20,200 points lil' ruled the land with regal cheatin'.

So on the first occasion when there were 2 coronations running, both King's believed themselves to be cheating. For this reason we have our portmanteau King - lilmonster-Matt92, it seems most appropriate. One must stress that they 'believed' themselves to be cheating, as Uncle Spun is not so sure that they actually were, let me explain...

Whilst we were creating the first version of Spunland Sony brought the wonder of LMOs to Playstation Home, which as I'm sure you know, among many other wonderful features, enable the player to move up to twice as fast as normal. We thought that this was just great, but at the time (and I think it is still the case) LMO's could not be used in 'Minigames', presumably due to issues regarding memory and the assignment of animations to avatars. Anyway, we wanted to make sure that players could use LMOs to catch rabbits, indeed the idea of creating an environment where the players could have fun playing a game on their LMOs, rather than just being able to use them to navigate the avenues of Home filled us with much excitement, and so Spunland was created in an unusual way. This is why Spunland automatically attaches you to the game when you enter Spunland, and also why you can 'quit' Spunland and continue to play. Indeed you can only play Underspun if you do this. The only things you cannot do when you quit the game but remain in the space are: plant seeds, take the Spun Crown or visit the Bank or Shop. If we could have, we would have set up Spunland  such that you could use your LMOs at any time.

So glitching is not entirely cheating, it does in effect let you play in a way that we would always have liked. It is however a little unfair on all those who do not do the glitching thing, but all that it will do is give the glitcher a slight edge to earning Spun Points, but no so much of an edge as some may think. Sam Reynolds, who has won the Coronation Contest more times than anyone, has to our knowledge never glitched and he takes full advantage of quitting from Spunland in order to use an LMO during the Spun Storm for rabbit catching. And so, this brings Uncle Spun to his next point, one which he has thus far avoided, but as deDuke blurted it out above, and as there has been much complaining of late at people winning multiple times, and now with admissions of 'cheating' nevermind accusations it would seem worthwhile pointing out a few tactics to help level the playing field:


  1. If you are currently the King of Spun you can 'kill' the Spun Hopper by running into it - doing so will earn you 200 spun points.
  2. If you enter the shop and 'inspect' an item the shop bonus will become active when you leave the shop. The bonus will double any Spun Points you earn for the next 4 minutes
  3. If you visit Spunland by using the relocator in the Spunland Cottage you will have a 'daily bonus' active - on a tuesday the bonus doubles any points you get from planting Seeds
  4. If you are wearing any of the Spunland Full body suits (only the commerce ones, not rewards) you will only lose 20% of your score if hit by the Spun Hopper, rather than the usual 50%


Finally, if Uncle Spun has not already broken the internet by typing so many words he must risk a few more - what happens in future when we have two or more Kings of Spun?

Well, we will not be able to add any new logic to cope with this until the next update planned for mid June, so for the time being we will deal with it in an ad-hoc manner as the Kings in question allow. Next week if we end up with two Kings, both will obviously win their purple crown, but only one will be named as 30th King of Spun - we will invite them to our Spunland Cottage to compete in a short challenge there to settle the matter - if they wish that is.

Phew. Uncle Spun is most impressed if you get down to here. So, next week - same time, same place. The 30th Kings of Spun Coronation contest will take place on Tuesday the 20th of May, EU 8 - 8.30pm BST, NA: 4- 4.30pm PDT, 7 - 7.30pm EDT. Have a truly Spun day.



























www.spunland.com

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Kings of Spun the 28th and other Spun business...

Spun salutations dear reader! Today is a day of many announcements, but first and foremost is our new Kings of Spun. All Hail luukhoekstra (EU) and shadowdemon_4 (NA) our 28th Spun Majesties! Today also sees the release of the latest Spun commerce, bringing you the Spunaloon LMO, irreverent new avatar interaction animations for the pranksters amongst you and acrobatic interactive animations for the sportilly inclined. Then we also have the winners of the Spunland Cottage competition (announced on facebook a little later today), and another, new competition begins today! Oh and the spunland website has an upgrade or two too. Callooh! Callay!

So to the coronations. Our 28th EU Spun majesty seemed to easily dominate the competition. Several times Gio_Schooter played the role of the Harvest King, that is to say he grabbed the crown when it respawned at the beginning of the harvest, and held it for just as long as it took luukhoekstra to reap the Spun Atoms in the sky and return to the ground. MAXMALO also managed to steal a short spot as King, but luukhoekstra, in the form of a great wolf claimed the title as his own. Following the regal wolf, bedecked in spiral spun particles reminded Uncle Spun of the beautiful game Okami. Ah those were the days, when the Spun Queen was still in our midst... And so luukhoekstra was crowned 28th EU King of Spun with a spuntastic 18,415 Spun points.

Just as luukhoekstra dominated the EU, so too did shadowdemon_4 dominate the NA contest, almost from his very arrival. And as with Spunland EU, it was only Harvest Kings who got a look in; animeotaku007, lady_zombie25, KingofBoxing and bambina_chocola all managed a brief jaunt with the Spun Crown as shadowdemon_4 took care of his business upstairs. As is often the case lilmonstersmiler graced us with her presence and by so doing brought glamour to the coronation pictures as you can see below. Majesty shadowdemon_4 won with 18,154 Spun Points, which is not only incredibly close to our EU majesty, but also an anagram of the same numbers! How very Spun.

Next week's conest will take place on tuesday, EU: 8 - 8.30pm BST, NA: 4-4.30pm PDT and 7 - 7.30pm EDT. Hope to see you there. Don't forget to check the spunland facebook later for the cottage competition winners, and take part in the new competition... Stay Spun!



























www.spunland.com