Kings of Spuno'ween and further controversy...

Spun Salutations dear reader! This week saw the return of Spuno'ween and consequently the crowning of our first Spuno'ween Majesties; All Hail luukhoekstra, 35th EU King of Spun and 1st EU Spuno'weeen King and Spun congrats to smokingpistol NA Glitchking of Spuno'ween! And therein lies the controversy, so before regaling you tales of regal strife and recent news let Uncle Spun proceed immediately to the omnipresent bugbear that is glitching...

By 'glitching' one means the use of LMOs whilst actually attached to the Spunland game. There is nothing wrong with exiting the game to use your favourite LMO for the catching of rabbits, collecting of fruit and other spun harvesting activities, however whilst doing so you will not be able to take the Spun Crown, unless of course you are glitching. As we have covered at length elsewhere Spunland was designed to allow people to do this, but for unspun technical reasons you should not be able to use an LMO whilst actually attached to a game, but the truth is that you actually can, in fact it can even happen by accident which is one of the reasons why we at Spunland mansions are loathe to overly berate anyone for doing so, even if it seems a bit naughty. Let us delve deeper...

There are a number of ways to get your LMO to work whilst playing the game. Arriving in the scene whilst you have an LMO active may work, or leaving the game, equipping an LMO then quickly rejoining may also work, but note that you may suffer unintended side effects and ultimately hasten the unspun crash void to come swallow you - or not, if you are lucky. So in general we advise against it, but as anyone can do this we cannot claim that doing so is terribly unfair, however we are sympathetic to those of you who are particularly riled by such tactics, so let Uncle Spun state unequivocally our position...

From the 4th July Coronation (Tuesday the 8th of July) new event based Spun Crowns will be coming to Spunland. The only time the 4th July Crown can be won will be on that date (the 8th, not the 4th, confusing yes). From the same date Spuno'ween will also finally have it's own unique Spuno'ween Crown, though other than by using the Spunland Portal Reward your first chance of winning this will be during the coronations of October (during which month Spuno'ween will fall on a tuesday). On these special event days glitching will be forbidden, and Uncle Spun will not reward a glitcher with the Spun Crown regardless of how long the contest has run. If it comes to it there will be no King under such circumstances. This rule will be explicitly stated on the event announcements. On 'normal' coronation events it is up to the individual, but do not be surprised if you provoke the ire of your fellow Spunland competitors by glitching.

And so to announcements. Today should see the fix to the AlphaZone4 Picture Puzzle go live, we will confirm this later once Uncle Spun has managed to complete at least part of it himself. Big Spun apologies to all those who suffered headaches from the unsolvable puzzle and super big spun apologies to May2009 who should now hopefully get to see her spunderful artwork!

Work has begun on the next update to Spunland beyond the 4th July Update, this next one will hopefully see the light of day at the very end of July. Should anyone have any suggestions of spun things they would like to see then let us know as soon as possible, indeed on this one Uncle Spun would like to thank SavoDeMort for the suggestion that black Spuno'ween rabbits should be worth more spun points as they are harder to catch. We will do this, but need to think more on whether such will also be the case during coronations - as contrary to what some may think we do actually believe in contests being fair!

Talking of contests... Spunland EU, resplendent in its Spuno'ween colours was as busy as ever last night. pinkkitten86 had the first touch of the crown, but quickly lost it to dogydog4 who barely had it settle above his head before it was snatched by luukhoekstra. sam_reynolds01 (his Spunling Ghost form fitting most majestically in the circumstances), MAXMALO and xesterman (disguised as a Spun Tree!) were the only others who managed to make a claim. For 3 entire cycles of Spun did luukhoekstra lay sole claim to the Spun Crown - quite an acheivement! Spun Congrats 35th EU Majesty of Spun with your impressive 35,812 Spun Points!

Spunland North America was just as busy as it's EU sibling, and even more full of Spun and suitably gothic flavoured costumes. lilmonstersmiler got us off to a brisk start, to be quickly bested by our glitching smokingpistol. Cyberpuck had a brief run but ultimately the contest was a struggle between Jess-dee-dee, SavoDeMort and smokingpistol who glitched his way to victory on his skateboard LMO with a spuntastic 36,842 Spun Points! All Hail!

Following the contest, at the suggestion of our new Majesty the madmunkis summoned the Dukes of Spun in their Spuno'ween form (tis rumoured that one may even have visited Spuno'ween EU earlier in the day). This being the first time that both Dukes manifested following a coronation we were bobified! But I will leave the details of that to those who were present, and say no more!

Next week, the 36th Kings of Spun will be decided on Tuesday the 1st of July. Spunland EU 8 - 8.30pm BST and Spunland NA 4 - 4.30pm PDT and 7 - 7.30 EDT. Have a Spun week!

www.spunland.com

The 34th King of Spun and Much News!

Spun Salutations to all Homies, Homelings, Spunlings and all other lovely people. All Hail MAXMALO, 34^th EU King of Spun, details of his busy coronation and the North American contest can be found far below, but first Uncle Spun has much news to relate.

Today sees the latest Update to Spunland itself, the publishing of the Spunland Mega Bundle 1 and the AlphaZone4 reward items, and other news besides, but in case you have found your way here to see what has changed in the land of Spun have a read of this list:

Spunland Change List

1. 4  New Rewards, including: E-Wots, Spunland Sad Head, Spun Boxing Gloves and the Spunbot Beanie LMO plus the return of the Spun Cloud Head. Note you will only see the new rewards if you already own most of the old ones.
2.  Fruit now worth 20 Spun points for picking up rather than 10
3. Unspun Bug preventing the shop from opening even if all trees are coloured is now fixed.
4.  Bank of Spun exploit removed. Some clever clogs had realized that they could stop someone stealing their Spun Crown if they stood very near the robo Banker. No longer. Sorry Clever Clogs. Nice shoes btw.
5. Illuminating Spun in Underspun is now worth twice as many points during a Coronation Contest. Scoring in Underspun is dependent on how much Spun is currently bobbing around the world, when you illuminate a new ball of Spun you score the number of Spun Balls active (displayed on the interface), plus one, times ten. So on creating the 3rd ball you would get 40 points ( (3 + 1) * 10 ), and on creating the 13th you would get 140 points - during a coronation contest these would then be 80 and 280 points. Confused yet?
6. The return of Spuno'ween! From henceforth one day a week will be Spuno'ween - it depends on the date: the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st of each month. This means that for each month it will be on the same day, but a different day every month, for June that means Tuesdays. Note: the date is taken from the Server Time, which seems to be based on GMT - apologies for any unspun oddness this causes our American cousins - for example if it was Tuesday the 24th of June, under EDT the Spunoween conditions would actually start at 8pm EDT on Monday and end at 8pm on Tuesday. We will hopefully try to improve this in a further update...
7. Rabbits might look a bit shiny sometimes. Don't worry we didn't harm them, we used a very soft cloth for all that polishing.

The Spunland Mega Bundle1 brings a spuntastic collection of Spunland items at a very reasonable price. You can watch the video here. At the risk of cluttering the page with too many lists, the bundle includes:

Flusho Spunner (companion), Spunland Lumino Lamp - Desktop, Spunland Picture 2 (minigame picture puzzle), LMO - Spunland Rabbit Hopper Purple, Spunland Rabbit Head White (male + female), Spunland Character Cube: Head, Spunland Character Cube: Torso, Spunland Character Cube: Legs, Spun Rabbit Head Portable, Constructo Spunner Helmet (male + female), Sonic Spunner Full Body Suit (male + female), Spunims 1 (Dance Pack), LMO - Spunland Jayraf, Spun Moustache Portable (Curly), Spunland T-shirt 2 (male + female: “Follow Me”).

Today also sees the release of a set of new reward items madmunki have created for the spuntastic AlphaZone4, which includes a new Picture Puzzle proudly bearing the spunderful artwork of May2009 as one of the puzzles. You can get your reward codes and all the details on the AlphaZone4 website right here (although at time of writing they have yet to appear).

Talking of Picture Puzzles, we have finally published a fix to Spunland Picture 4. It transpires that the 4^th puzzle was unsolvable and for this knowledge we are indebted to the ever majestic Sam Reynolds (and others). When Uncle Spun created his first Picture Puzzles he was not aware that it was actually possible to create an accidentally unsolvable Picture Puzzle, in fact it turns out that a half of all possible tile layouts in such puzzles are impossible to solve, so it is near miraculous that the first impossible puzzle was actually the last one on our second Picture Puzzle item! To make amends for Uncle Spun’s ignorance we have added a 5^th Puzzle to Spunland Picture 4 and consequently also another small reward for those canny enough to solve it.

Improving all things Spun is a subject never far from the fevered minds of the madmunkis and your help in this quest is always appreciated, to this end Uncle Spun must extend thanks to the Esos Dioses Del Home crew who made many spuntastic suggestions at the Q&A last Wednesday and also to phatso64 who gave Uncle Spun a tour of his spunderfully decorated Spunland Cottage just the other night. We will hopefully not be the only ones to owe thanks to phatso64 as his insight will almost certainly lead to some especially Spun Updates to the Spunland Cottage in the not too distant future. Which leads us to future updates... Yes, Uncle Spun is pleased to confirm that the next new Spunland theme will be that celebrating the eternal spirit of independence in the form of the 4^th July Celebrations . Details will follow soon, but for now one can say that with the new theme will come Special Coronation Crowns which can only be won when the theme is active.

Before moving on Uncle Spun has one final announcement courtesy of the Skeptical Duke of Spun, who would like you to know that you can now sample the first of his madmunki labours; converting Glen Corpes' Topia World Builder to Android, and you can find it here.

And so finally to the Coronations, first we have the least controversial and must congratulate MAXMALO once again, our 34^th EU Spun Majesty! Spunland EU was as busy as ever and Kelly_Kelly_K2 got us off to a bashful start by letting Windfleuchter_74 swipe the crown from her at the start of the contest. Hennryke in huge Robo Spunner form competed with sam_reynolds01, luukhoekstra and MAXMALO in a constant tussle broken only by the advent of an unspun crash which sent Uncle Spun spinning momentarily to the void. The contest was soon rejoined however and despite a Harvest King gambit by Leyre14 MAXMALO stomped his way to victory! Spun Congrats!

Spunland NA was quiet, indeed as lilmonstasmiler2 put it, ‘too quiet’. Uncle Spun finds that he has a predilection not just for the use of big clever sounding words (not to mention small silly words) but also for pattern finding, or perhaps it is just a keen appreciation of synchronicity. For example on the one occasion when we had our portmanteau glitchking Spunland was arguably too busy, that is the one occasion where  we had two instances of the contest running, which seemed most fitting with the outcome, just so with the 34^th NA contest – the lack of competitors was most appropriate for a trollking win.

There were only 3 harvests over the duration of the contest as there were so few clouds being created and Uncle Spun found himself dallying by an unclaimed crown for much of the time. limonstasmiler2, SuperMacho69 and dxkills16 all laid claim at times, and Akina8373 induced some smiles by scouring Spunland in the form of a monstrous T-Rex, but following the final harvest the Troll saw it’s chance and stole the crown. dxkills16 made a valiant attempt to take it back, but alas the Troll won out. For a minute Uncle spun considered what to do, he knew where this path lead, down under the bridge to the dank haven of the unspun uglies, should he follow? On this occasion the answer was no, the rules would be adhered to and the troll could have its crown if it mattered so much.

When a player appears during the Coronation Contest they are presented with a choice to take part or not. In the interests of keeping things brief (admittedly not a rule Uncle Spun follows here) we do not say ‘By choosing to enter the contest you are consenting for the reproduction of your avatar’s image and the use of your PSN id as the identity of the current King of Spun’. We like to think that this is implicit in taking part in the contest, but it seems that Spunland exists within the context of a sometimes scarily litigious culture and ‘implicit’ is not quite admissible in a court of law. How dull and unspun. The troll can keep his crown, defended as he is by a veritable army of unspun lawyers and Uncle Spun will try very hard to keep his brother Uncle Unspun at bay, his sinister sibling whispers to him in the dark alleyways of the night, think what we could do he says, bring on the watchers and release the unspun, let beauty decay as it inevitably must! No replies Uncle Spun, battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss...

And on that cheery note, have a Spun Day! Next contest: Tuesday 24^th of June, when Spunland will be in Spuno’ween form! Callooh! Callay! Spunland EU 8 – 8.30pm BST, Spunland NA 4-4.30pm PDT, 7- 7.30 EDT. Stay Spun!

www.spunland.com 

King’s of Spun the 33rd

Spun salutations dear reader! All hail our 33^rd King’s of Spun – sam_reynolds01 (EU) and abhraham_us (NA). For the past month or two the madmunki’s have been embracing the great spirit of all things random and as those of you in the EU may have noticed, have begun each coronation by ‘tossing a coin’ to determine who will perform the duties of Uncle Spun in the EU and NA. Last night they could not do such as madmunkid was not present at that point and so i-munki had no choice but to take on the responsibility for the EU all by himself, consequently here is what he had to excitably say about that...

Shall we dance? I hear an imaginary ding-a-ling sound. and they're off! And so we start the Spunland dash to see who is to become the 33rd EU King of Spun.

It's to a typical start with people claiming the crown even if just for the opportunity of possessing it as they know that our esteemed regulars are the true heavy weights when on the score chase... and we have a starter;'Undercover_Da' - but wait, we get a steal from 'Imhokh', who takes it all the way through to the end of the 1st storm! Which is Ok if he's OK as I'm Ok with err 'Imhokh'. Aaaanyway...

'MAXMALO' takes up the gauntlet for a short while and 'Imhokh' comes back into it with another claim then has the crown stolen by seasoned veteran 'sam_reynolds01'. Hey there 'Luukheokstra' takes up the charge with a great steal from out of nowhere and goes all the way to the creation of the polynation - and so ends the storm. Uncle Spun takes a break and rests up his wheels ready for the next claimant to the crown in this Game of Spunland Thrones. 'Caster..?' - wait no, 'MAXMALO' steals it! Too quick to read who that was with one second of crownage. The chase is back on; sam_reynolds01 is back, hot on the heels of the currently crowned one and steals it - but wait 'Caster..?' Casterhorloge' has it now - is this a steal? From 'Sam_R..' Uncle Spun blinked and missed that one but it is short lived as 'MAXMALO' is back with a new claim to the title! And so endeth the storm. 

I rock back to crown point and rest my wheels before the new claim begins and we're in! 'MAXMALO' takes it up but there's a storm brewing - and where's the time gone - we've one minute left and the storm is ending, time is dragging out but no one is challenging 'Sam-the stealer- Reynolds01' as he takes the crown from 'MAXMALO' - the storm is about to end, the crown is shrinking we're beyond and now over 30 minutes!!! I see people waiting to claim the crown in a steal from Crown Point - but wait Uncle Spun signals the end and we have our 33rd EU Spun King!!!

sam_reynolds01 with a score of 37,724 points - not quite his standard he most modestly says, as his personal record is 40k!!

Where was Luuk - not so Luuky this night! But well played everyone - a most entertaining event . i-munki

Plinko-plinko!

Spunland NA was pleasingly busy. redunzl_gw began the contest with the first claim of the crown – which tickled Uncle Spun as only the previous night he had spent an hour in Spunland trying to take the crown from redunzl_gw (glitching about on his Spunbot Classic Saucer LMO) and always having at least 700 spun points too few... redunzl_gw kept the crown until the first harvest of the contest following which BRAST-_-TURTLEZ became the second King contestant of the day (and first harvest King) - but only briefly as Darth-Matt92 came glitching by on his LMO and made his first foray with the Crown, which he went on to dominate. Of the other contenders Uncle Spun must mention phillyroger1, bigimpulse, Smokescreen_5 and Happy Spunling Akina8373. lilmonstasmiler2 made her first bid for the regal title after the final harvest (when Darth-Matt92 with his glitching stepped graciously aside) and it looked as though she would win until abhram_us in the final moments of the match claimed the crown as his own with a mighty 26, 138 points! Spun Congratulations to Majesty Abraham_us, who despite his spuntastic score had apparently not intended to win, it just worked out that way...

Before signing off for this week Uncle Spun has a couple of announcements – at 8pm BST today the madmunkis (well at least one of them) will be in Spunland EU for a developer Q&A with these lovely peeps here – come join us! We will also be announcing another Spun competition on facebook later, so look out for that too...

Next week, same times & places... Tuesday 17^th June, Spunland EU 8 – 8.30pm BST, Spunland NA: 4 – 4.30pm PDT / 7 – 7.30pm EDT. Until then – Stay Spun!

www.spunland.com

Kings of Spun the 32nd & The Skeptical Duke of Spun

Spun Salutations dear reader! Uncle Spun here to herald our freshly coronated Kings of Spun. All hail luukhoekstra and dxkills16 our 32^nd Spun Majesties of the EU and NA respectively!

Spunland EU was as busy as ever for the 32^nd coronation contest; the land was packed and the Spun Crown hotly contested. Many were the familiar names and at least 2 erstwhile Kings of Spun did frolic with the spinning throng in their purple crowns (GlassReaver and onewingedmenace). yondi1982 began the competition with the first claim, but then swiftly lost it to chrisabuddy and the contest fell into a choppy rhythm with the regal title flitting this way and that. Of the many who took their majestic turn Imhokh, sam_reynolds01, MAXMALO and luukhoekstra did dominate. Imhokh moved so fast it seemed to Uncle Spun that none could catch him until sam_reynolds01 proved his mettle as always, then deliberately dropped the crown during the first Spun Storm to catch rabbits faster on his LMO. Luukhoekstra literally picked up where sam left off and in the end won the day. Of the many others who tried their luck Uncle Spun will mention only lady-Melanie who took control more than once and Ryanpowellrules because, well clearly it is a name worth repeating.

Then as usual Uncle Spun retired to Spunland Mansions to rest before the call of his North American duties, but no rest was in store as the halls rung with the banging and clanging of Spun Engineers at work in their laboratories below. This was somewhat of a surprise for Uncle Spun, which to explain requires something of a confession... You see one may have mentioned the Spun Engineers on more than a few occasions before, but the truth is that they were not there. Uncle Spun finds that he is often a little befuddled with the constant spinning of the spun, there was once a time when not a night’s sleep could be had within miles of Spunland Mansions for the constant din of a whole army of Spun Engineers at work, but this was back in the blessed days when our gracious Majesty the Spun Queen was still with us. Once Queenless Spunland lost it's engineers like a shivering autumn tree loses it's leaves. When Uncle Spun made previous mention of these industrious spunners, it was really only to the memory of them that he referred and yet here was the unmistakable sound of serious toil...

As quiet as his whirring wheels would allow Uncle Spun descended into the bowels of the mansion and from atop the gantries and behind the girders spied crews of Constructos engaged in all manner of furious activity. Their efforts seemed spread between three prodigious chambers. In the first a Robo spunner was imprisoned in a constantly changing maze of sliding blocks, trapped by his own limited set of instructions and threatened by the infernal bouncing of the Spun Hopper. Uncle Spun did not tarry here long as the cacophony of the second chamber demanded his immediate attention. In this vast hall all of the Spunland inhabitants were arrayed as though on a chess board, facing off each against the other in a most unspun and even threatening fashion. It is a long time passed since Uncle Spun saw such heated signs of Spunner contention.

The third chamber called Uncle Spun not with noise, but with light; a pulsing glow like that issued from the heart of the Spun itself, and the sibilant sounds of dare I say – our Queen! Callooh! Calllay! he thought as he whizzed excitedly towards the opening only to be stopped dead in his tracks by the fearsome Foreman of the Spun Engineers, the Skeptical Duke of Spun himself! Before explanations could be made the clarion call of the North American Coronation rang out and Uncle Spun shot unceremoniously down the great transatlantic pipe of Spun to the Spunland of our American cousins...

And thus in a most spun-out state Uncle Spun attended the NA coronation. Spunland NA was quiet, compared to its EU twin, fighto2247 may have begun the contest but could not compete with glitchking Darth-Matt92 and lilmissNEWORLEANS. Darth-Matt92 resplendent in his glitching two-crown form may well have won, but paused at the final respawning of the Crown and dxkills16 seeing her chance swept in to snatch it and became our 32^nd NA Majesty. Big Spun congratulations to majesty dxkills16 and (not for the first time) Big Spun respect to Darth-Matt92.

Upon returning somewhat weary to Spunland Mansions Uncle Spun was glad to find that all was quiet, and so took the chance to get some sleep and save his questions for another day...

Next week, the 33^rd Kings of Spun will be decided on Tuesdaythe 10^th of June. Spunland EU: 8 -8.30pm BST, Spunland NA: 4 -4.30 PDT / 7 -7.30 EDT. Until then, stay Spun!

www.spunland.com

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

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

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.

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