Hi everybody!

I just wanted to officially announce that the Manhatttan Babycastles adventure is over, and we're kind of "cleaning up." This includes things like building a website with more information on these four months (well, you'll see.), finishing paying game developers 50% of all income, publishing a comprehensive finances document to assist future arcade projects, and starting today, fulfilling everybody's Kickstarter Rewards.

Thank you for being a part of this.

As we hide & finish the 42nd Street adventure, we also have a few other projects you can check out.

Global Game Jam 2011 Arcade @ Silent Barn (Ridgewood)

These games were curated by Arthur Ward Jr. & the NYU Game Center, playable at every game
Here are some pictures of the opening party, at which Anamanaguchi, Nullsleep, Starscream, George & Jonathan, and J. Arthur Keenes Band played music.
http://motherboard.tv/2011/2/7/anamanaguchi-friends-bring-babycastles-and-a-qwop-bear-back-to-silent-barn
http://nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/02/13/nyregion/13joint.html

Dadamachinima @ Devotion Gallery (Williamsburg)

Curated by Walter Langelaar of WORM (NL)

DADAMACHINIMA explores tactics of emergent gameplay, disrupted modes of interactivity, and brute-force hacks of contemporary (video)game interfaces and environments.
http://areyoudevoted.com/

Dadamachinima Party with Loud Objects / Lord Scrummage / Phil Stearns / Rifle Recoil

http://www.facebook.com/event.php...

Babycastles Benefit Show @ 285 Kent Avenue (Williamsburg)

with Crystal Stilts, Beach Fossils, Widowspeak, La Femme
This is amazing music, and towards our new Babycastles HQ space opening at the same location in April.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php...

Super Crate Box Party @ Silent Barn (Ridgewood)

http://www.facebook.com/event.php...

Kill Screen & Copenhagen Game Collective Party @ GDC (San Francisco)

We're presenting a Cyborg edition of B.U.T.T.O.N. in collaboration with the NYC artist Mark Stillwell, who also presented work at our 42nd Street gallery.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/killscreen/were-throwing-a-scandinavian-indie-games-party

If you're interested in knowing more about Babycastles in the future, just write meow@babycastles.com to join our mailing list.

Dear supporters,

Good news!

We've extended our lease into the new year for at least another month. We will be at 217 east 42nd street, between 2nd avenue & 3rd avenue, until January 28th, 2011. We're currently hosting an IndieCade curated exhbition through New Year's Eve, and two more games exhibitions in January, including work by Israeli-American artist & UCLA professor Eddo Stern (http://eddostern.com/).

Good new year!

Extending our lease also means that we are working on some sort of insane New Year's Eve concert-LARP zodiac animals game in collaboration with Nick Fortugno of Playmatics / GameLab / Parsons, right on 42nd Street, in the middle of the madness, as hinted here:
http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-new-york/644645/showpaper-gallery

If you're in the area, maybe plan to join this somewhat historical moment! Starts at 10pm on 12/31, ends at 6am, $10 admission.

Good old year!

Thanks to your support, we've hosted, supported, & publicly exhibited Experimental Gameplay Project, Attract Mode, IGF, and an entire new work Eric Zimmerman, including a history of GameLab. To get a glimpse of the specific ways your support has enabled these exhibitions, please look at this preliminary budget analysis: October Budget Analysis (PDF). There will be much more budget analysis to follow as the project concludes.

BAD BABYCASTLES

I've received a wave of recent emails inquiring about Kickstarter rewards. I"M SORRY EVERYBODY!!!!!! When we talked about it initially, we thought that the holiday season would be the appropriate time to make sure you all received something in the mail. As it's reached late December now, we're still working on putting together our New Year's Eve concert & live game, and we'd love your understanding that we'd like to continue to dedicate time to this. Getting Oscar Castle to sign 267 Babycastles T-shirts is going to be a timeful undertaking, but he's up to the task: We are rescheduling our holiday shipments for February, right after this world of madness we call Babycastles Arcade @ Showpaper 42nd Street Gallery comes to an end.

Thank you for your support! Thank you for your patience!!,
LOL Chef / Babycastles

PS

Oh yeah here's Syed of Babycastles on Saturday night.

▒ This Friday ~ Babycastles: A Retrospective Opening Party

Nicholas Kuszyk just painted a cabinet!

BABYCASTLES: A Retrospective (October 8th - 17th)
Opens Friday, October 8th, 7pm - 11pm

GAMES: NIDDHOG (by Messhof), CANABALT (by Adam Atomic), BIT.TRIP RUNNER by (Gaijin Games), DECEPTIVE PLATFORMER (by Fish-Kabob), KILLJET (by Tristan Perich), ULTRAQUEST (by Marc Arenas)

with a DAS RACIST DJ Set, Juan Wauters from THE BEETS, and INTERNATIONAL TAPES playing music for the night.

BABYCASTLES: A Retrospective is an exhibition of 6 sidescrollers made in the last three years by independent game developers in New York City, Austin, TX, & California. Nidhogg (2010) by Mark Essen was commissioned by NYU Game Center for No Quarter gallery. Canabalt (2009) by Adam Atomic was an entry in Experimental Gameplay Project's Bare Minimum call for works. Deceptive Platformer (2010) by Fish-Kabob was Best Overall Game at the NYU Global Game Jam. KILLJET (2007) by Tristan Perich was a guerilla inclusion in Kokoromi's Gamma 256 party. Bit.Trip Runner (2010) by Gaijin Games is a music game in collaboration with New York band Anamanaguchi. UltraQuest (2008) by Marc Arenas was created for the first Babycastles exhibition at Death By Audio.

The arcade and gallery space is designed by Thu Tran (of IFC's FOOD PARTY), with art by Paul Koneazny & Brian Dun, and arcade cabinets by R. Nicholas Kuszyk, Andrew Ross & Tommy Coleman, Chris Mackris, Sto (of Cinders Gallery), Practical Wisdom, & Thu Tran!

More information @
http://babycastles.com/
http://facebook.com/event.php...

▒ Hi!

I'm writing this from the back of a box truck I shouldn't be riding in at 4:17am on 42nd Street!

Thank you to so many people supporting us in so many ways,
including our 225 backers in our Kickstarter campaign,
an incredible anonymous donor, a donation matching program by IGN,
the best game-related night I've ever been to with Copenhagen Game Collective, and all the press and attention encouraging us to continue what we're doing.

After our opening, we'll get started on handling all the things we all want to send you in return for your support. I can't wait for the tshirts… For now, here's a video of some french tourists crashing our install at about 2AM from Hotel Helmsey across the street.

Meow,

Kunal / Babycastles

THANK YOU!

Thanks to some many and very generous supporters, we have all the funding we asked for to run the new Babycastles Arcade @ The Showpaper 42nd Street Gallery. While we'll be hosting music, game, lecture, and workshop events continuously throughout the year, see if you can come out to our opening party this coming Friday! I just hung out with Thu Tran from Food Party on IFC, who is spending the week making crazy new furniture and designing our October arcade.

Come see ! Friday night, free!
Info @ http://www.facebook.com/event.php...

INDIECADE @ BABYCASTLES!

We're really excited to be in talks with IndieCade towards hosting an IndieCade curated games exhibition. This would be our closing exhibition, and will be up a little longer than the rest, from December 16th until our closing party on December 29th. IndieCade is an annual international festival and a series of exhibitions, conferences, and curated happenings for the future of independent games, and has hosted the work of many game developers on the Babycastles team since 2007!

This year's IndieCade starts next weekend, October 8th - October 10th, in Culver City, California.
(The same weekend we open our Manhattan location!)
Info @ http://indiecade.com.

LAST WEEKEND SALE

I'm about to reduce donation pledge amounts on everything Kickstarter.com lets me. Take a signed Katamari Damashii, somehow! Take an Atari 2600 Guru Meditation Cartridge! Signed sexy pictures sold out. You have all of this weekend until the wee morning on Monday, and then it's done!

COPENHAGEN GAME COLLECTIVE @ BABYCASTLES TONIGHT

Starts Early! 7 - 9pm ~ Game Talks by Frank Lantz of NYU GAME CENTER, Katherine Isbister of NYU POLYTECHNIC, The Copenhagen Game Collective. Music by Knife City of ANAMANAGUCHI. Crazy Danish Games and Alcohol and Candy: including DARK ROOM SEX GAME, BUTTON, FUCK YOU IT'S ART. Ends around 1am

Tonight, $5
Info @ http://www.facebook.com/event.php...

Meow,
Kunal / Babycastles

IGN Entertainment has partnered with Babycastles to match 100% of all funds raised today until the end of the fundraiser on October 4th.

We want to take care and affirm that IGN's support comes with absolutely no strings attached,
and follows their recent Indie Open House initiative (http://bit.ly/bmg9C4 ) to support the indie games communities in San Francisco, New York City, and worldwide.

Please let your co-workers, friends and readers know that they can support Babycastles twice as much now when they donate.