You gotta play Uncle Slam to win (an iPad or iPod)!

PAX Prime is just a few days away! Can you feel the excitement in the air? If you haven't heard already, here's what you need to know-

• We are showing off Uncle Slam at Booth #6014 on the 6th floor (click here for a map)
• We are giving away all sorts of stuff from t-shirts and buttons, all the way up to an iPad 2!
• If you can't make it to PAX, you can keep up with all the action by visiting UncleSlam.com (We'll be live streaming all the action in the booth during show hours).

So how can you win the iPod Touch or the iPad? As it says up top, you gotta play to win!

1. Visit booth #6014 sometime on Friday, August 26th
2. Play Uncle Slam and win!
3. Tell us what you think of the game and sign up for our mailing list
4. Check your email on saturday morning to get the secret code phrase
5. Follow the instructions in the email and return to booth #6014 at the designated time
6. Tournament participation will be first come, first served
7. Participate in the "Get Slammed!" Tournament

All tournament participants will get a free copy of Uncle Slam when it launches in the fall (and maybe something else to take home) but second place will get a brand new iPod Touch (Perfect for GAME.minder) and the Grand Prize winner will get a brand new iPad 2!

To make sure you don't miss a thing, be sure to follow @handelabra or like us on Facebook.

See you at PAX!

UncleSlam.com and the countdown to #PAX

Well folks, it's Friday, August 19th. That puts us 1 week away from Uncle Slam's coming out party.We know you have questions-

• Who is Uncle Slam?
• Why should I care?
• Where can I play?
• When can I play?
• Is it true you are giving away an iPad and an iPod Touch?

To answer these questions in reverse order -

YES - To celebrate the first public display of Uncle Slam we will be giving away an iPod Touch and an iPad at PAX Prime. How can you win? Stay tuned for more info this coming week.

August 26th-28th in Seattle - Those are the dates of the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. Whether you are there for just one day, or the whole weekend, come find us!

Booth #6014 on the 6th floor (you can see it here) - Head up to the tippy top floor and look for the oval office in a boxing ring. No, seriously. That's what you're looking for.

Because you, like us, have always wanted to box a President - Uncle Slam is a boxing game for iPad (and also for iPod and iPhone but at PAX we're just showing off the iPad version). And c'mon, who hasn't wanted to punch a politician in the face?

So who is Uncle Slam? That is a question that is going to take a little extra effort. To get a feel for who Uncle Slam really is, you can start by following him on twitter. Maybe like his Facebook page too. And if that's still not enough, just visit UncleSlam.com to get the full backstory. And don't forget to follow Uncle Slam in GAME.minder so you're notified when it's coming out.

Just 7 days left!

We'll see you all in Seattle.

Social Media - your life, as performance art

My wife and I had a conversation last night about social media. She was wondering aloud about how the constant performance brought about by Facebook and Twitter might effect a person, specifically, a younger person. I'm sure there are far smarter people who have broached this subject but as soon as she said it, I realized some behaviors I'd only recently picked up, specifically because of Twitter.I recently retweeted something along the lines of: "Twitter makes you love total strangers while Facebook makes you hate people you actually know". It was a funny, pithy observation but it rang true.  To me, Facebook is a community place where I only accept requests from people I've actually audibly spoken to at least once while Twitter is the grand marketplace of ideas where all are welcome.  And I've realized that I much prefer the latter.  The act of discovery with Twitter, finding other like-minded people via retweets and the like, makes it something I check almost constantly while Facebook has become a place I check in with once, maybe twice a week, if I remember.

I also curate more than one twitter account. @mrjhandel is just me while @handelabra is for the company (and @gameminder as well).  And I realized, after my wife mentioned the idea of the "performance" that I've been subconsciously censoring myself recently on Twitter.  Why would I do this?  Several of my recent follows @mrjhandel have seemed to come from @handelabra and I started to worry that some of my left leaning retweets might turn people away from the business and it is exactly this phenomena my wife was referring to.

Is your social media you - presenting yourself to the world as you are or is it *YOU!* - as you want the world to see and experience you?  My initial foray into twitter was the former.  I was just tweeting away, retweeting whatever deemed repeating.  But then, I started to get people following me that seemed to come from the business side and I started to feel like maybe I needed to "play the part" of a more middle of the road, boring business owner.  Something I failed to consider before this conversation was, maybe those people were actually following me. The me who actually had opinions.  And maybe they like Handelabra because there's actually people behind it that have opinions.  Crazy thought, I know.

But what really bakes my noodle now is - now that I'm aware of this, am I really going to go back to being me, or will being me just be a different kind of performance?

Tonight the part of @mrjhandel will be played by...

GAME.minder 2 spotlight - Social

On monday you learned what's new in general, and yesterday we talked about expansion packs.  It seems you can't go two clicks on the internet these days without tripping over a "like" or a "share" or a "tweet" or a "check-in" so today, let's talk the current buzzword - social.

In GAME.minder 1.2, we introduced the ability to share a game with a friend via email and in GAME.minder 2.0, this is becoming even more powerful.  When you share a game to a friend via email from GAME.minder 2, you get something that looks like this ->

Kinda looks like a RE.minder doesn't it?  What makes it extra cool though is that a single tap on any of those .minders opens GAME.minder and sets the RE.minder for you, with just a single tap!  (The friend you're sending it to has to have GAME.minder 2 for it to work though so make sure everyone you know updates).

Once we had this working in email, we figured we might as well use it elsewhere to and we wouldn't really be talking social if we didn't mention the big 2: twitter and facebook.

If you "like" us on facebook or follow us @GAMEminder, aside from always getting the latest GAME.minder related news, you'll also see new games, as soon as they are added to the system.  And this is where mndr.co comes in.

mndr.co is our new short domain for all things .minder.  When a new game is added, you'll see it posted to the wall and tweeted to the stream with it's own URL.  For instance, when our upcoming game, Presidential Pugilism was added just yesterday, it got the URL: http://mndr.co/g/736.  Tapping that link will bring up the mndr.co page for the game and from there, you can tap a platform (in this case, iOS) to set the .minder.  As GAME.minder 2 isn't in the wild yet, we haven't made those links live yet.  But on Friday, all the switches will be flipped and everything will be workin' like a swiss.... car.

Those links can be retweeted, liked, shared, emailed, you name it. We think mndr.co is really gonna open up how people find new games as friends turn friends onto the next great game.

Well folks, that's about as much as we can tell you.  We're less than 48 hours away from launch and we can't tell you how excited we are to get GAME.minder 2 into your hands.

Don't forget, Handelabra will be at PAX East so if you see one of us milling about (white t-shirts with the Handelabra on them) please say hi!  We'd love to chat, and maybe show you the game we're working on too!

See you this weekend!

\m/

GAME.minder on twitter and facebook

What's this?  Super Mario was just added?  With a link and everything?What on earth is going on?

If you've a keen eye, you may have noticed something popping up on the GAME.minder facebook wall (facebook.com/GAME.minder) or in the GAME.minder tweet stream (@GAMEminder) today.

We've had a lot of requests to give some sort of notice regarding when games get added to the system.  Sending a push to EVERY device for EVERY game would be doable but probably a bit obnoxious.  So rather than an opt-out, push-based solution, we've decided to give you an opt-in, follow-based solution.  Just "like" GAME.minder on facebook or follow @GAMEminder on twitter and you'll be able to see every new game, as soon as it's added to our system.

But wait a tick - what are these mndr.co links all about?

Put simply, they are your fast-track for setting new RE.minders.  We used the custom URL feature of iOS to allow us to give you 2-tap RE.minder setting, right from facebook or twitter!  When you see a game you want to remember pop up on the wall or in the stream, just:

1. Tap the link
2. Tap the platform you want to set
3. There is no step 3

GAME.minder 2 will open up and set the RE.minder for you.

There's only one thing to remember: this super-cool and infinitely nifty feature requires GAME.minder 2 which is coming out next Friday, March 11th, aka -"GAME.minder day", aka "The first day of PAX East", aka "iPad 2 day" (grumble, grumble, Apple trying to steal our spotlight).

So get your downloadin' finger ready and we'll see you next Friday!