Why post just the song when you can dance to it? That’s basically the thought process behind our new mini-version of Loudcrowd’s dance game. You can post it to Facebook, MySpace, or your blog. Do people still even have blogs? Check out the first batch of widgets from the following bands:

MSTRKRFT, Kid Sister,The Sounds, Phoenix, Cold War Kids, CSS, Designer Drugs, and Franz Ferdinand.

MSTRKRFT Widget

We updated the Loudcrowd servers a little while back with some pretty major additions and it’s about time for me to take a break from playing Spark and tell you all a little bit about it…

Spark Game

Loudcrowd’s latest game, Spark, is a music-based puzzle challenge.  Solve the puzzle by lighting up a path to Speakerbot and return power to his lifeless carcass. Check it out by heading to the Party page and choosing a Spark Challenge!

Music Page

We’ve added a new section dedicated to music, so you can stay up to date on Loudcrowd music.  Head here to read the latest reviews, get the playlist schedule for the month, or view information on one of the recent tracks that played.  You can also “heart” and comment on songs now to let everyone know what tracks you dig!

Shop

You got tokens, we got loot.  Spend your hard earned tokens and LP in the new Loudcrowd store to handcraft a killer new outfit or grab some tracks that you have been looking for. Check out some of the new items like the Major Lazer’s Commando Bandolier (YUP, it has an actual laser)  or maybe some sweet pirate pants. Window shoppers are welcome, and feel free to try some items on!

Hi, Internet! We just pushed out another update to Loudcrowd – here’s a list of a few features that we’re excited about:

Impress Game

Our third game, Impress, has arrived! It’s like playing fill-in-the-blank if you were playing fill-in-the-blank with someone that was crazy bananas.  You’ll be quizzed on a variety of categories such as music and general knowledge by a handful of new Loudcrowd characters. Check it out from the challenges screen!

Gifting and a boatload of new items

Got a friend that just joined Loudcrowd with a busted looking outfit? Send them something from your closet to show you care! We’ve got tons of new items that were just added, so you’ll want to clear out some room in there anyways. Don’t forget that if you’re running low on space you can increase your closet size by purchasing some LoudPoints.

Clothing Color

There’s been a long-standing bug with clothing where equipping different items (in different orders) would result in your clothes changing colors own their own. While this made it much easier to acquire matching outfits (in fact, it was nearly impossible to mismatch), it also severely hampered your abililty to be a unique and individual snowflake.

The good news is that this bug is now fixed! You can now mix and match to your heart’s delight, expressing your inner-most desires through your clothing! Beware though, with great color-mixing power comes great responsibilty – please try not to blind your fellow players.

Misc

-The Spin game has undergone a few changes to add a extra excitement.  It’s a lot more fast paced and we think it’s a good improvement.
- Expanded Facebook Support. We’ve made it a lot easier to let your friends on Facebook know what you’re up to on Loudcrowd. You can post to your wall about a song you like, challenge someone to a game of Spin or send an invite for them to check out the site on their own!

So come check out our music games and tell us what you think on our feedback page.

How’s the second game look?

I’m officially very excited about getting all the stuff we’ve been hacking away at out for you guys to start playing with. This past week we invited some of our most passionate private beta users, as well as a handful of folks who have never used the site, to come by the Conduit HQ and give some feedback on the latest set of changes that are about to go live. Or, as we like to call it, the “pizza test.”

One of the first surprises was the extent to which folks who have been playing Loudcrowd a lot have figured out every nuance of the scoring and mechanics, thanks for caring! Then we got down to testing the entirely new site flow that we have been planning to do as soon as we launched our second activity. We took the requisite hits for a few UI inconsistecies and bugs that we have since worked out, but the best news of the evening was the unanimous thumbs up for the next game to hit Loudcrowd. We are pulling a few more late nights than I would like getting this next release out, but I’ve got the suspicion it’s worth it.

First off, if you haven’t played Rock Band, play it, and if you don’t have it, get it. It may be the best party game ever made (rivaling Death Tank Zwei for the honor, anyway). And I’m not just saying that because we have two people here at Conduit who worked on it. If you like music (and that’s pretty much everyone, right?), then you will have fun. It’s so much fun we held off on setting it up in the office until we had finished launching a little Facebook toy we built called Make Me, knowing it would be impossible not to play once it was here.

My younger brother once told me that Sorry! is one of his favorite games, because inevitably, after a game, the players would hate each other for hours. Sometimes days. I mean, how powerful is that? A bunch of silly rules and plastic pieces moving into our lives, evoking real, outside-of-the-game emotions and putting strains on real-world relationships.

Rock Band is that kind of powerful. This story at the Escapist captures what a good game can do perfectly:

“This is not the revolution; it’s just something like it. It’s not about games. It’s about music. It’s a new way of listening, of trying to get in, like following the lyrics in the album sleeve or clumsily learning the chords on a beat-up guitar in the hopes of one day being that guy at a party who impresses the girls who might like the song as much as you do.”

If you can take the time, read through the whole story and count how many times actual gameplay is mentioned—hardly any! It’s about relationships that form through gameplay. Like just a couple weeks ago I was playing Rock Band with some friends; my friend Misty is our bass player. We get to a song with a particularly tricky bass line, and
she fails and we lose it. Stacie takes over for her, and manages to get through it.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” Misty says. “You guys seem to be doing FINE with Stacie on bass.” I sit down on the couch next to her. “Misty, listen to me. Boys Boning Boys is not Boys Boning Boys without you on bass. We need you.”

Misty looks up with these puppy dog eyes, “Really?”.

Needless to say, Misty came back and played, and we rocked. This was one of the most awesomely surreal and hilarious experiences of my life. I love it… and it’s what Rock Band is all about.