Where have I been?

Sorry about last week -- I've been totally absent from the blog... but, I have been working and have a bunch of updates for you.

First off, I have to send a big shout out to Jason S. (known as CHECKTHEMIC on Candystand). Jason has been a HUGE help to the Candystand team in perfecting the new Billiards game in finding lots of little bugs. Thanks to Jason, performance on Billiards is way, way better now than when we had launched it. I'm sure all of you join me in thanking Jason for his contributions!

This blog has now been around for about a year -- it's been awesome to get to know so many of our loyal users. As always, shoot me a note if you find bugs, have questions or whatever. I'm pretty good about getting back to you the same day.

RC RALLY RELOADED: This game is coming along. Frankly, I thought we'd have it out by now but we have found a few troublesome bugs that we are still working out. I feel reasonably confident it will be out later this week, but won't know for sure until tomorrow/Wednesday. News will be posted here, first!

TOURNAMENTS: One of our biggest projects is nearly complete. Later this week, our testers will be competing in a test tournament --- then, let the games begin! I'll dedicate an entire post to explaining how Candystand Tournaments will work. For now, think of it as massive single-elimination tournaments in many of our games -- the winner will get a special trophy for his/her trophy room. I can't wait to see some of you go head-to-head in Billiards and Mini Golf... it's going to rock!

CANDYSTAND BASEBALL: We're pretty focused on getting this out before the Playoffs start. Not only will we have a new, 9-on-9 game but we'll be giving you and chance to enter to help us design our next baseball game (fly to New York and hang with the Candystand team!)... more info on that soon, too.

MORE NEW (OLD) GAMES RETURN: In the next couple of weeks, you'll see the return of some old favorites to the Candystand. We'll publish a release schedule as soon as they're ready.

That's it for now. More news soon.

Candystand Canada is live!

Quick update today geared to our friends North of the border. We've launched a version of Candystand just for you.... introducing Candystand Canada!

You'll find all of the same games available on Candystand US and UK with the option to view the site in French and English. We've also got some exclusive sweepstakes available that are worth checking out!

I'll have more news later on about the launch of RC Rally Reloaded.

A trip down Candystand memory lane...

Candystand.com has had a number of looks through the years. To jog your memory, I've posted each of them below. Use the poll-feature to vote for your favorite.

BTW, more new games on Thursday!! Info coming tomorrow.

Candystand 1.0 (1997-2001)

Candystand 2.0 (2001-2004)

Candystand 3.0 (2004-2006)

Candystand 4.0 (2006-present)

Way to go, Juan!

You may have heard that Juan Pablo Montoya, one of our Wrigley's Racing Team drivers, took home the checkered flag in yesterday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 in Sonoma, CA (you can read about it here).

As you can imagine, we're pretty pumped up about the win (though not as pumped up as Mr. Montoya and team!!) and are looking forward to more of the same when he drives the Big Red car in a few upcoming Nextel Cup races (Chicago, Watkins Glen and Fontana, CA -- click here for the full team schedule).

While we're on the topic of NASCAR, this morning we launched our Car Customizer Contest. It's a pretty cool program. You log-in and create a custom design for a Dodge Charger. Once you've tweaked it just right (and there are TONS of options), you can upload it to the gallery and let others' rate your work. If it's good enough, you might qualify for a chance to win a Dodge Charger SRT8.

A few updates!

Believe it or not, I HAVE actually been working since Vector TD came out! It's the rest of the team that hasn't...... :)

Seriously, though, there's quite a bit of news on the way. Here are some updates.

FreeKick: This game is just about finished. We had some last minute things to get fixed up and we're ready to roll. It will be out early next week!

Updated games: We're rolling right through some of our old content and the next few updates should be pretty welcome. First, we totally overhauled Tennis Open. We've also redone Air Hockey and are working on Downhill Skiing and 3D Snowboarding (perfect for summer, no??). We'll have screens for Tennis (now called Match Point Tennis) tomorrow. Oh, and my personal fav, RC Rally which I am super pumped about.

New (old) games: I get lots of "what ever happened to...." emails. Well, we're bringing back some goodies from the Candystand archives. We've got three football games coming back in addition to RC Boats. The graphics engines in these classics are being redone, but the gameplay will be exactly the same.

Tournaments: Tournament mode is almost ready for testing... if we could only find some people that wanted to test it our for us.... HINT HINT!! If you're interested, email me, and I'll add you to the list.

New stuff: Paintball Titans is still in development (very big project) and should be ready later on in the summer. We've also got a new Baseball game and a sweeeeeeeet SuperBikes racing game that will be along before the 4th of July.

See... we ARE busy! Now, I need to get back to Vec...er...work.

Thanks for all of the emails -- check back here soon for all the latest.