I play a game called Kingdom of Loathing. Some of you may be familiar with it. Some of you may not care. A care. And it's my blog.
KoL (as it is known amongst its constituents) is a free, online game, that is basic in every way, but it's design. The art is stick figure drawings; the all the text is in Arial; basically all you have to do to play is choose an option, point and click. The game itself is actually pretty complex, with lots of quests, items, areas, events, pop-culture references, etc. If you haven't played it, it's worth checking out (www.kingdomoflothing.com). If you have played it and don't like it, hey, I don't like seafood or tomatoes, so no biggie.
I was introduced to the game a few years back by a previous girlfriend, but only recently have I started to explore other aspects of the game and the communities associated with them. One of these aspects is a radio show that is run by people who play or have played KoL. This radio program is freem and streaming on line 24/7/365. You don't even have to play the game to listen to the radio. But if you DO play the game, you can log into the radio chat channel and talk with the DJ's and whoever else might happen to be logged in as well, which personalizes the experience a bit. Eventually you get to know some of the DJs and some of the other people that hang out in chat. Aw, faceless online friends that you interact with...kinda like Break a Leg!
The DJs are from just about anywhere in the English speaking world. We have several Americans, but also Brits, Scots, Dutch, Welsh (Fun Fact: did you know people from Wales are not called "Walers"?), etc. All these different people bring with them different tastes in music and different styles of DJ-ing. For instance: some people will just talk and play music. Nothing wrong with that. Other people will play games during their shows: which gets me closer to my point.
Some of the games are based on random elements: i.e., one DJ has a secret code that he will play at various times throughout his show. Then the people that send him a message with the correct answer when they hear the code are in the running to win a prize. Then he will randomly determine which of the people with the correct answer will get a prize. Then that person has to pick from 1 of 3 "mystical prize doors": basically three prizes of the DJ's choosing - one crappy, one good, and one awesome. Anyway, there's lots of different contests played at different times.
Here is where I've created a niche: some DJ's like to have contests that require some vocal skills and the ability to record them in a playable format. I figured these were more my style. You may remember a while back where I pirated a copy of some audio software and put a couple songs together. As usually happens, my patience for putting those songs together along with my already deficient attention span caused my production of those songs to fall off. But since finding out about these contests, I've had a renewed interest in recording stuff.
The first contest was what a particular DJ called "Skaraoke". She made a post on the KoL forums announcing the contest and that all you had to do to enter the contest was to post on that string in the forums. Then on a predesigned date she took all the people on the list and randomly assigned them a song. Each enteree then had to record themselves singing along to that song, karaoke style. I got coupled with Every Breath You Take By the Police. Now, my singing voice is ok if I can use all of it, i.e. belt it out there. But having roommates, neighbors, and a crappy microphone means I have to tone it down a bit. Plus, I couldn't hit the same octave as Sting with a Howitzer. So I cheesed it up and threw in an impression of Gizmo, Kermit the Frog, and a Gregorian Choir.
I won the contest.
And that was just the beginning.
I have won every Radio KoL contest in the last 5 months that required some sort of vocal recording. It's gotten to the point where people are A) asking me if I'm participating to gauge whether they should bother or not, and B) asking me for advice on their recordings.
Now, you'd really think this would be some kind of sign that YES, I should be pursuing voice acting, and you'd think right. And I say to that: I'm working on it.
Anyway, play games, listen to music, prizes: Kingdom of Loathing, people.
Oh, and just to show how close a group of friends we have become just from playing the game and listening to the radio: a bunch of people that are local to the SF Bay Area are meeting up at Wondercon in San Francisco this weekend. What will happen once we get there, I have no idea. Probably geek out about KoL. That's what geeks don. They geeks out. That's why they call it geeking out. It's done by geeks. And damnit, I'm a geek.
Happy Jenday!