TOME Episode 07 Released + Announcements coming soon!

Lotta stuff to talk about!

Still truckin' along on the same freelance gigs. Finished another episode of Game Boys: The Animated Series and working on another one for Brad. Doing various on-and-off things for three game projects and there's even more stuff down the pipeline. Tryin' to work hard!

On the TOME front, after a lovely week on Newgrounds' front page, Episode 07 is now on YouTube. I was SUPER nervous about this one, but it seems that people really enjoyed it! I'm SO proud of -everyone- who helped me make this Episode really special. All of the staff and cast and the special guests worked incredibly hard on this cartoon.



We've reached a milestone of 7500 likes on the official TOME Facebook; the audience keeps growing and growing! I'm in the process of working on something kinda cool that'll hopefully be a big step up for the show in terms of further growth. If all goes well I'll be able to unveil it by the end of this month or early May. Also, once that's been unveiled, most likely we'll be doing another special event contest for the upcoming Gemini Tournament episodes! I won't speak too soon about what the prize is, so sit tight for now.

One thing I CAN announce though, is that we're doing more commentaries! We did some audio commentaries for the first four episodes of TOME a while back, which you can listen to on my soundcloud. We've recorded new ones for Episodes 05, 06 and 07, the "pre-tournament arc" as I've been calling it. These commentaries feature some really cool conversations with the staff behind the show: the music composer, the background artists and the script supervisor. They'll be out next week, so keep it tuned!

What do you want to see out of a TOME game?

Got more of a particular question for you all, this time around. TOME stuff! Episode 07 is about halfway done now. We've also got some completed scripts for a new short, as well as some upcoming Episodes as well. My goal is to finish up to Episode 10 within the end of this year. That said, onto the question...

What exactly would you like to see, if a game was made based on the world of TOME?

Now, what I mean by this is probably not what you're thinking. The most common comment I've received about people who really enjoy the show is that they wish TOME itself were a real game. Honestly; making an MMORPG/Social Networking game is NOT something I'm passionate about doing. However, I've wanted to make a game based on the -concept- of TOME since its earliest incarnation, all the way back in 2004. Even when I was conceptualizing this remake of the series only a few years ago, I originally wanted to do it as an updatable game, with each "Episode" of the show you're watching now being represented by a few levels and a couple boss fights. When I eventually realized it was more that I was trying to tell a story over trying to make a fun game, I scrapped the idea and just went with making a show instead.

So now, here we are, about a year and a half since TOME's first episode premiered. In the time I've been working since graduation, I've had the honor of being part of several video games like Skullgirls, Crisis Heart Brawlers and now Cryamore. Seeing how these large-scale projects all come together has been a great experience...and it's one that's made me become interested in wanting to REALLY try and create a TOME game. However, because the series as it stands right now is still very niche, I want to play this very carefully. I ask you, the audience, what you would like to see out of it?

To start with, I'm assuming people would still want to see/play with the characters from the show. However, another thing that ties into peoples' reasoning for wishing that TOME itself was a real virtual reality game, is that they want the ability to create their own characters. That by itself would probably be too ambitious of an undertaking, but would you be satisfied with just Alpha and the gang, or would you want there to be a customizable character to do with what you please and make your own experience? Further, what genre do you think would be the most appealing based on the concept? I've asked many friends and colleagues; the most general answer I've received overall is a side-scroller with RPG elements. Maybe something along the lines of the "Tales of" games, where the game it set up like an RPG, but Battle is done in real-time and your attacks are mapped to buttons and directions like Smash Brothers.

I have a lot of my own ideas, but I want to know what you guys and gals all think; not because I'm struggling for what to do, but because I want to do what YOU guys would be interested in and would want to have out of a game.

Leave a comment here, or on this post on the Official TOME Facebook page and share with me your thoughts!

Indie Games Funded + TOME Episode 06 released!

Just a WEE BIT of an update!

So first off, Cryamore has not only been fully-funded, but over 400% funded from its original goal ($242,309 in total)! This amazing indie game created by the likes of Rob Porter, Alan Wansom and a whole host of other very talented folks, is not only gonna be playable on all major mobile devices, but all major CONSOLES as well! I wanna thank all of you who chipped in any amount of money to this project. We had a really fun celebratory stream last night with live music by Aivi Tran and lots of Q&A from the crew. We're gonna strive to make this an AMAZING game!

On another note, while I'm not currently involved with Skullgirls, many of my friends and colleagues are, some of which have been hard at work animating and developing Squigly, the first of (hopefully many) DLC characters for the game! In just ONE DAY, they raised over $100,000 in order to complete her, and with a full month to go, your donations will help the team go on to create more and more awesome content! Show them your support!

Now, on to my own business! After two lovely screenings at Almacon and Kamicon, TOME Episode 06 was released to Newgrounds with a VERY warm welcome! It went straight to front page and was positively recieved beyond my wildest expectations! Thank you all for the kind reviews and I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it so much.



It's a tall order, but now that I know I've managed to top Episode 05, I need to do my absolute best to top 06! We're already working on the next one; the actors have been recorded, the audio's been mixed, all of the new character assets are drawn and I've begun animating the second scene. I'm very proud of this next one even just from a scripting standpoint (thanks to Liz for making it a very heartfelt story) and I'm gonna haul ass to make the animation reflect it. Keep it tuned to the official TOME Facebook page for details!

Back to work for me!

TOME Episode 06 at Kami-con tomorrow night!

Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

I'm gonna be at Kami-con this weekend! Tomorrow night, Friday at 8 PM in the Ballroom, I'll be doing another "Flashstravaganza" panel where we'll be showcasing TOME Episode 06.



Martin "Littlekuriboh" Billany will be there, and I'll be around for some of his panels as well! In fact, depending on how things go, if you show up to our panels over the weekend, you might get the chance to have your voice heard IN an upcoming TOME Episode. You'll have to be there to find out. ;]

I'm already working on TOME Episode 07 as well, with a bunch of animation already finished on some of the new characters and almost all of the actors have already been recorded. Episode 06 is all done and ready to go, so I might even get to release it over the weekend if I have internet access. The Nylocke Theme Song will also be put up on Bandcamp for download! Keep an eye on my twitter for details.

After the screening at Almacon last weekend, Liz suggested to make a little video for newcomers that might be interested in getting into the series, or if they wanna introduce their friends to it. So I made this little "About TOME" video, graciously narrated by Edwyn Tiong.



Oh and also, Cryamore is confirmed for mobile support! Thank you everyone SO much who donated. There's still plenty of time to contribute and plenty more awards to unlock!

So happy Valentine's Day everybody...this was my present this year. Thanks Liz.

Weebl & Cinema Snob Toons + AlmaCon Next Weekend!

Oh what's that? It's been a month and literally a million things have happened?

Yeah, good. Okay. Where to start...well I've finished the commission for good mister Brad Jones the Cinema Snob, which I mentioned last post. "GAME BOYS: The Animated Series" is the project he's started up, which I've been hired on board as the animator, with characters designs by Andrew Dickman. It's a cartoon spin on an ol' movie that Brad filmed a while back with his friends. If you're a fan of THE SNOB then I hope you'll enjoy!


I also got the chance to work with longtime Newgrounds artist Jonti "TheWeebl" Picking! "Sexual Marmite" is a sequel to his hit music video "Babies", which I animated for him, along with the valuable assistance of Dave Smith of the TOME/NiN10Doh! Collab crew!


I also did a quick bit of animation for HuHaTV's "Wobble Box" skit show on YouTube, thanks to Weebl again. This was actually very fun to do. I decided to get a little experimental with it since the clip was so short, so I threw in a combination of photographic reference for a more realistic style, as well as trying to emulate Zeurel's insane lipsynching skills.


SPEAKING OF, I've had the pleasure of working with Josh "Zeurel" Palmer recently too, on the Nylocke music video for TOME Episode 06 coming out soon! He did some guest animation for me that turned out really funny. Huge, HUUUGE thanks to the five amazing winners of our cameo event auctions. I was absolutely blown away by the amounts of money people were bidding on to be part of my stupid cartoon. It means a lot to me that people genuinely love the show and are that dedicated. I really hope everyone will like Episode 06; I'm very happy with how it's turning out so far and working hard to finish it in time for AlmaCon next weekend!

On that note, here's my Schedule for AlmaCon in Alma, MI on the weekend of Feb 8th to the 10th:

-Friday, Feb 8th
6:00 PM - Balancing Act: Creating an Animated Short
8:00 PM - How Not to be an Internet Celebrity (with LittleKuriboh)
11:00 PM - Tales of Con Horror (18+)
-Saturday, Feb 9th
11:00 AM - Kirbopher Storytime
1:30 PM - Charity Auction (with LittleKuriboh)
8:00 PM - Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged (with LittleKuriboh)
9:00 PM - Kirbopher's Flashstravaganza (Premiere of TOME Episode 06!)
11:00 PM - Voice Actors 18+ Panel
-Sunday, Feb 10th
11:30 AM - Kirbopher Q & A

I'll be hanging around all weekend with Martin, Cyberlink and Liz, and other guests include the likes of Chris Sabat and Eric Vale of DBZ and One Piece fame. If you're gonna be there, stop by and say hi! Don't miss TOME Episode 06, which will be featuring two special guests Jessi "Nowacking" Nowack and Mike "OneKids" Hecht as the voices of two new characters!

Oh and one last thing! I've had the privilege of working on several really cool video games since I got out of college, including Skullgirls, which just raised nearly $80,000 for Breast Cancer Research, as well as Crisis Heart Brawlers: Clash at Otakon, which is kicking back into production! Most recently however, I've been brought onto ANOTHER really awesome independent game project called "Cryamore", which is currently finishing up its first week with a kickstarter campaign that'll be going on until the end of this month. Currently it's pushed WELL beyond its intial goal of $60,000 and at the time of this post has reached $100,000 in backing! If we can double that amount in the time we have left, there's a very good chance it will be funded to get on major platforms like the Wii U. I'm working on the game as a character animator, as well as the voice/casting director. The game is an Action-RPG inspired by the likes of Zelda, MegaMan, Secret of Mana and general Steampunk awesomeness. It'll be featuring the voices of Erica Mendez, Kimlinh Tran and Marianne Miller as the three lead characters. Check out the kickstarter video for more details!

That's not even everything this time, but it's all I've got to share, so stay tuned for more awesome stuff coming soon!

Nylocke Special Event + Shorty Awards!

WHELP, 2013'S OFF TO A PRETTY DAMN GOOD START FOR ME.

First off, MAGfest was awesome and it was great seeing everybody. It was another great year and tons of fun was had. Tons of great people I got to see again, and meet for the first time, including a bunch of gracious fans (thanks guys)! Played a whole bunch'a games throughout the weekend and was present alongside the BlueCoreStudios folks for three successful screenings of the Sonic film, which I voiced an E-Robot and a certain red guy in. I also had the honor of doing a Voice Acting Panel alongside Duke Nukem, the Sniper, Sheogorath, Moira Brown and Colin Moriarty where we re-enacted the first 20 minutes of Pulp Fiction and then improv'd a video game called "GO FUCK YOURSELF." I was a Robo-Hamster who got shoved up Jon St. John's ass...just watch the video.

SO I'M BACK. I hit the ground running with a ton of work on several different projects. One of which I can finally announce: I'm workin' on a little somethin' for the Cinema Snob, featuring character designs by the lovely and talented Andrew Dickman. "GAME BOYS: The Animated Series". Not sure just yet on a release date, but it's close to being finished, so stay tuned to Brad's pages for details!

On the TOME front, there's a LOT goin' on! First off, we're havin' a little contest!


Long-story short, there are a set of auctions going on throughout the course of January where people can bid to have themselves (or a character of theirs) make a cameo appearance during the music video of Nylocke's Theme Song, which will be part of the upcoming Episode 06. At the time of this blog being posted, we're on our third of five auctions. If you're interested, visit the TOME Facebook page for details!

I'm working as hard as I can this month to finish TOME Episode 06 on time to be shown in its completed form during AlmaCon and Kami-Con this February. We're close to about 3/4's done with the entire thing, so if I keep up this pace between everything else I'm doing, I SHOULD be able to pull it off.

Also, know what'd be really cool? If you voted for me to win a Shorty Award.


Literally all you gotta do is go to the site and tweet "I nominate @Kirbopher for a Shorty Award in #webshow because..." and then type something nice about TOME. I'd appreciate it.

Lastly, I've got one more project in the works that's SUPER secret right now, but if it comes to fruition it could mean really good things for me. Fingers crossed I don't squander the opportunity; I'm gonna give it my all.

Stick with me folks, lotsa good stuff to come this year. Here's to a great 2013!

New TOME Short + MAGfest + Happy Holidays!

Almost ready to say goodbye to 2012!

I hope everyone had a Happy Holiday and a great year. I think it turned out pretty well, all things considered! There's further heights I want to climb to in 2013, but I'm satisfied with everything I managed to do in the last twelve months. Hopefully you guys are too, and look forward to what else I've got in store!

Before we say Happy Birthday to me on the 31st and goodbye to December, I managed to put out a new TOME short called "Minigame Madness" which I'm quite proud of. It takes place between Episodes 05 and 06, but holds up pretty well on its own as a fun little venture. I wanted to do something centralized on Flamegirl, so Liz and I came up with a fun little side-story involving her and her friends, as well as a few clever or not-so-clever app games. We JUST managed to hit 6000 likes on the official TOME Facebook page, so thank you everyone for your support. I hope you guys enjoyed the short and it ties you over for a bit until we get Episode 06 done. It's a bit over halfway finished and I'll be pulling major crunch-time on it throughout January.

HOWEVER, my first order of business with January is going back to my favorite convention, MAGfest! I'll be heading out there with the folks from BlueCoreStudios who'll be premiering their Sonic the Hedgehog feature film starring Jaleel White as the voice of Sonic! I did some work on the movie as well, so keep an ear out for me if you're at the screening! I'll also be there for my 3rd "Voice-A-Palooza" panel, hosted by Wes Johnson (voice of many characters in the Elder Scrolls series) where we'll be improv'ing a video game concept created by you, the audience! There's also gonna be a TON of super-talented Newgrounds & YouTube animators who'll be there, all of which I'm looking forward to seeing! As I've often said, there's not another con that's filled with more pure unbridled fun than MAGfest.

That's about all I've got for now, but once again: Happy Holidays to all and a very Happy New Year to everyone who's followed and supported me this past year!