Ive extended the final submission date of my "Draw me nude win my Wacom Tablet" contest. the contest now ends April 1st, due to the fact ill be at GDC for the last week of march.

There have been some amazing submission so far, check them out here http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/10 33214

heres the contest info for anyone that missed it:

ART CONTEST: Wacom Nude Portrait Contest!

I recently got a new wacom and want to give my previous tablet a new home, i thought what better way to give one away then making a contest where people draw me nude to win it!?

WHAT TO DO:
Draw me nude.

I dont care what you use, or how you make me look. just draw a picture of what you think id look like nude, best drawing gets my personal standard Wacom Intous 3 Graphics Tablet.

THE RULES:
1. The picture must be of me, and i must be nude in it
2. No one else can be in the picture.
3. Humor is awarded above technical skill.. this is for a wacom tablet so i encourage all you mouse wielding maniacs to bust something out and win this thing.

DEADLINE:
Entries must be posted by 11:59pm on March 18th.

PRIZES:
1st Place: My Personal (aka used) standard Wacom Intous 3 Graphics Tablet, and a signed copy of my CD, This is a Cry for Help.
2nd Place: A signed copy of my CD.
3rd Place: An unsigned copy of my CD
4th Place: A piece of paper that says fuck off loser on it, signed by me.

--------------------

In other news last week i turned 29. For the 1st time in my life i feel about my age, and feel pretty good about turning 30 next year. The past year has been a huge learning experience and i just wanted to reach out and say thanks to everyone here that's supported my work for the past 8 years on NG and/or purchased my CD from the NG store.

I ended up renting out a karaoke bar for my birthday party, heres a little vid of the events that followed, it turned into a whos who of indie gaming.. i added info text due to constant comments asking who everyone was, enjoy!.

.
/* */
-Edmund

I just posted the Wacom Nude Portrait Contest, in the art forum.
heres the link.
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/10 33214

and heres the info:

ART CONTEST: Wacom Nude Portrait Contest!

I recently got a new wacom and want to give my previous tablet a new home, i thought what better way to give one away then making a contest where people draw me nude to win it!?

WHAT TO DO:
Draw me nude.

I dont care what you use, or how you make me look. just draw a picture of what you think id look like nude, best drawing gets my personal standard Wacom Intous 3 Graphics Tablet.

THE RULES:
1. The picture must be of me, and i must be nude in it
2. No one else can be in the picture.
3. Humor is awarded above technical skill.. this is for a wacom tablet so i encourage all you mouse wielding maniacs to bust something out and win this thing.

DEADLINE:
Entries must be posted by 11:59pm on March 18th.

PRIZES:
1st Place: My Personal (aka used) standard Wacom Intous 3 Graphics Tablet, and a signed copy of my CD, This is a Cry for Help.
2nd Place: A signed copy of my CD.
3rd Place: An unsigned copy of my CD
4th Place: A piece of paper that says fuck off loser on it, signed by me.

---

Here is what i look like. (do note that under those clothes im fat, hairy and tattooed)

Here's an example of a drawing i did of myself nude:

Would you guys rather play Super Meat Boy on your PC or the Nintendo Wii?

anyway...

So first off the unveiling of the Super Meat Boy Teaser trailer on gametrailers.com. Created by a good friend of mine James Id, the teaser is a huge throw back to those early 90s animated MTV video bumpers, Liquid Television and NES video game commercials. Meat Boy screams early 90s nostalgia, so i thought it would be perfect to do a teaser in the same vein, and James did a really great job here.

Lets Watch!In other news Cube Craft just posted a paper craft of Meat Boy, its quite awesome, hes sitting next to me as i type this.

Download him here: http://cubeecraft.com/cubee/meat-boy

Tommy and i also did an interview with Destructiod about SMB, another nice read for this super meat filled day.

-Edmund

.
/* */
A time lapsed video of me drawing a Zombie virgin Mary for a local gallery.

it took about 2 and a half hours to draw, cut down to 8 min for the video.

Check out a semi finished export here.
http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.
com/2009/02/zombie-mary-time-lapsed-dr awing.html

Questions are welcome.

-Edmund

So im sure most of you know that Super Meat Boy is scheduled for a Wiiware release sometime this year, a few detectives found the website early and the info made its way around the net before i could send out my official press release.. but for the hell of it i thought id post my official press release here (to show you all how a real press release is written!!!)

------------------------------

Are you a fan of small cubes of animated meat?

Do you enjoy the sound of buzz saws?

When you hear the term "wall jump" do you get excited?

Well, what if you woke up to find you were made of a lump of juicy raw meat, your girlfriend was made of band-aids and to top it all off she had been kidnapped by a fetus in a jar wearing a suit and monocle? Would that be totally awesome? or just kinda awesome?

Well I'm hoping you chose totally awesome, because that's basically the premise of Super Meat Boy.

In Super Meat Boy you take the role of a small animated cube of meat on his quest to save his lady love Band-Aid girl from the clutches of the evil Dr. Fetus! Sliding his way through saw mills, salt factories and even hell itself, Meat boy jumps into action in this fast paced and extremely challenging platformer that will "melt your face off".

Super Meat Boy is based off the popular flash game Meat Boy hosted by Newgrounds.com. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
472826
Super Meat Boy will be completely remade from the ground up for its release on Wiiware%u2122 and will feature over 100+ single player levels, insane boss fights, competitive vs modes, beefy co-op play and a slew of unlockables that are rumored to fill your life with great happiness!

SMB (best abbreviation ever) is being designed by Gish co-creator Edmund McMillen, Tommy Refenes and "Big" Jon McEntee.

We will be documenting Meat Boy's rebirth for Wiiware on our development blog via Supermeatboy.com so feel free to pop in and tell us all your lame ideas we will never use!

Thanks for the support! and keep indie gaming alive!

-Team Meat

Nintendo trademarks used under license. WiiWare is available only through the Wii console.

--------------------------

Tommy and I will be updating the SMB dev blog weekly, most of the info wont be posted here so if your interested feel free to subscribe to it as well.

So at this point my work load is obviously packed, i have 2 more flash games planned for release in the next month, but after those it will only be SMB, No Quarter and (secret unannounced console title) till the end of the year.

Wish me luck! and spread the word!
-Edmund

The following image is from a big project ill be throwing a lot of my time into this year, a little game called Super Meat Boy!. It will be programmed by the trophy hungry programmer extraordinaire Tommy Refenes. Jon McEntee will also be on call for development and i hope to get Danny B to remake the music for it.

I attached an image of Dr. Fetus bellow, but you can see the rest of the cast on my blog
http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/

Super Meat Boys release platform is still a secret... but im sure a few of you can assume how we intend to release it. Either way it will still be released for PC and maybe Mac by the end of the year.

My 2nd big secret is still under wraps, but i hope to announce it in the next 2 months on the Cryptic Sea blog. But till then you should all be playing A New Zero, an amazing multiplayer battlefield-esque experience by the now legendary Sir Alex Austin.

-Edmund

So the IGF finalists were announced last night at 6am. I ended up going to bed at 3 then waking up at 6 again to check out who made it. To my surprise i found out that Coil was nominated for the innovation award.

http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html

Now that's all fine and dandy, and i feel like i should be happy that a game i put my heart into made it to the finals, but the IGF has left a bad taste in my mouth that just wont go away.

At first glance when you read through all the finalists you instantly realize.. you dont know any of these games. then after watching the trailers for them (CarneyVale Showtime for game of the year?!) you realize that most of the games that made it will be easily forgotten shortly after the awards are over.

Now id love to just say, hey i guess it was just a bunch of shitty games that were submitted this year... but that's just not the case. There were quite a few very solid indie games that are just way better then the ones that made it and ill give you a few perfect examples.

I wish i were the moon (for innovation) - far beyond all of the games that made it into the innovation finals
A new Zero (for technical) - a 3d multiplayer flight sim that fits into a 800k file wtf?
Aether (for innovation) - my most critically acclaimed game and by far my best work of art.
Arc Aether Anomalies (for art) - look at the fuckin trailer for fuck sake! how didn't that get in for art?!
Goo (for Tech) - this game won the Intel award...

also

Mighty Jill off
Mondo Nation
Calamity Annie
storyteller

Now im either extremely out of touch with what a good indie game is (and that might be the case) but im starting to think the judging for the igf is broken and in bad need of fixing.

And as usual we have the larger indies entering that already have their games published on console and dont need the money or attention, im looking at you pixel junk eden... you have a huge budget game designed by a company that's almost 2nd party to sony made by 20+ people going up against games made by teams of 2 people with no budget. I guess its a moral issue, but if i had a team of 20 people with any budget at all and i was making games exclusively for sony.. i wouldn't view myself as indie anymore, and even if i did i wouldn't try and steal the thunder/attention/money of a smaller dev just so i could puff up my chest and show off a game thats already quite popular in the mainstream... dude, lame.

anyway i felt the need to rant, i still appreciate the nomination and im still going to gdc... i just dont get it, i really feel like people got shafted.

Congrats to cortex command, you're the one game im really happy to see make it to the finals!

i hope you guys will enter your flash games next year! we only have 3 flash games out of the 22 finalists, represent the flash scene and enter your work!

-Edmund

I finished another game!

Grey Matter

I made it with Tommy (of Goo! fame), he was awesome to work with and had some great input that really made the game (ie the trinity attack). I'm very proud of the outcome, its unlike anything else ive done.

Read all about it on my new super cool dev blog
http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/

Spread the word!
-Edmund

UPDATE: You can edit your maps by clicking load level, mousing over your map and hitting enter.!

So Jon and i are currently looking for the 60 best meat boy maps, and we are looking to the newgrounds users for the best!

The contest is simple, make a really cool meat boy level and send it to me (souldescen@aol.com) along with the title of your level and your name. The top levels will featured in the next installment of Meat boy in mid nov.

The due date is Nov 1st!

Basic guidelines:

-Only 1 band aid per level
There can only be one band aid pickup per level in this map pack, so dont go filling your level with them.

-Dont make your levels impossible
We are making the level sets into categories, east, med, hard, expert... we dont need 50 expert levels, so try your hand at some easy ones too.

-Make sure your levels work
Beat your level before you send it, and if it took you 100+ trys to beat it.. im probably not going to add it.

-Read the instructions in the map editor
All the info you need to make levels is in there.

Ok, now get to work!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
463241

-Edmund

Just wanted to say thanks to newgrounds for voting Aether as the top game for last month and helping us each the million plays mark last night! Its not the most accessible game in the world, but with your support we have not only been able to get a ton of press from word of mouth, but are also currently talking to Nintendo about taking the full version of Aether to wiiware late next year.

If you havent played it yet heres a link:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
459147

Again thanks for playing, it was a very fun game to make and im glad our vision came through.

-Edmund

Here's what the critics are saying:

"Hauntingly beautiful"
-Wired
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/09/br owser-game-a.html

"Endearing"
-Kotaku
http://kotaku.com/5044770/gish-creator -enters-the-aether

"Personal and a bit different"
-1up
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=31 69750

"It's everything you want an "art game" to be. A uniquely personal, touching game that we can't wait for you to try."
-Joystiq
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/08/the-
joystiq-free-game-club-aether/

"Gloriously imaginative"
-Jayisgames
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2008/09 /aether.php#comment-panels

"Beautiful"
-Rock paper shotgun
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/0 9/04/aether/

"It's like an arty, philosophical...Bionic Commando...with gravity and physics!"
Go Nintendo
http://gonintendo.com/?p=55205

"A gentle loneliness"
-Play This Thing
http://playthisthing.com/

"Unique"
-Mac world
http://www.macworld.com/article/135394 /2008/09/aether.html?lsrc=rss_main

"Very personal and revelatory"
-TigSource
http://tigsource.com/articles/2008/09/
08/aether

"Heavy stuff!"
-Channel 4
http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/
games/review.jsp?id=2116