ToppsTown: demo video

Check out this awesome demo video that the team put together to promote the world! This is ToppsTown, in case you haven't signed up and have been living vicariously through me and my posts.

And if you'd like to see a higher-quality version, check out our homepage (for now).

ToppsTown: new Friends area

Remember when the Friends section was inside your ToppsTown Binder? No more, my friends! Look for a new Friends button in the same place you'd go to visit your Clubhouse or play games.


This gives us a lot more freedom to start adding interactive features. Visit any one of your friends to see their Clubhouse, send them a Heckle or remove them as a Friend. You can still flip their cards to see stats such as how many trophies they've earned, or their highest rank on the Game Zone leaderboards.

ToppsTown: more football updates

Here's the rundown of some major additions to ToppsTown... we're now in the football phase of things, and there has been plenty of growth in the past week or so.

New games have launched! The games landing page has changed a bit so that you can now see our full offering of games, divided into sport. In the graphic above you can see three thumbnails for the new football games. The games are:

-->Halfback Hustle: a game where you must duck and weave as the opposing team tries to tackle you. Rack up points by how many times you make it to the endzone and how many yards you cover. (Use your new ToppsTown football cards on this one-- choose the player with the best speed.)

-->Pigskin Pileup: a more puzzle-y game... Elaine describes it as "reverse Tetris."

-->Perfect Pass: wait until your teammates are open and then snap the ball to them. Also playing along are mascots, fans and more. (Use your ToppsTown card with the best accuracy on this one.)

Once you've raided the new games you can break the bank with a whole mess of new football items in the ProShop. Also look for two new themes for your avatar-- a full robot ensemble and a haughty heiress type.

You can print your own Avatar card now. Simply click on your card to pop it up, then choose the "print" option (see below).

BTW, how do you like Sir Sushi Sushi's makeover?

And a huge change I probably should have started with... football cards! You have an entire new Binder at your disposal-- just click on My Binders in your left-hand bar and it will drop down your options. You can choose to launch the Binder, or just change it so that you can trade with those cards. The Trading Zone is still fully functional, and the Topp Card of the Week has changed to football.

And your hard-earned baseball cards are still within reach, so fret not. You can toggle between football and baseball Binders at will.

There are still more updates I haven't covered, but I need to pace myself! Anyone interested in getting a more in-depth look at any of the games?

Check here for other posts about ToppsTown, including other football updates.

ToppsTown updates by the boatload

Are you starting to think about football? WonderGroup definitely is, as it's time to start transitioning ToppsTown from baseball to football.

Expect a good chunk of ToppsTown update posts from me in the coming weeks, because there are a lot of new features rolling out. I've pulled a few to show off today, in case you haven't logged on to notice them yourselves.

First up: you can now customize the color of your avatar border. (In the Friends tab of my Binder, I can tell who works at WonderGroup by whether or not their border is still blue.) It's simple to change it-- just head to the Avatar Builder, and under Frame there's a new Border option.

Another big customization feature takes place in the Clubhouse, where you can now change your ceiling color, floor color, and wall color independently of one another. Again this is simple to do: go to your Clubhouse and open the tab where your items are. Scroll all the way down and you'll see your color options.

Here's a closer look at the color options:

And then there are some adjustments in the Trading Zone. There's an entire new section called My Recent Trades, where you can see a list of the 20 most recent swaps you've made. I am excited about this new addition-- I think it makes the Trading Zone much more functional.

And here's a small little tidbit: trades now expire in two weeks. You can see how many more days your trade has on the Accept/Review tab, at the very bottom of a trade you've requested (see below).


That's not all, but unfortunately that's all I have time for right now. Log on and see if you can find some of the other additions (hint: check your Avatar items) and I'll be back later to clue you in on what you may have missed.

Free ToppsTown codes @ SI Kids!

Oops! I told Elaine in *June* that I would mention the Sports Illustrated Kids promotion with ToppsTown. It's very cool if you're looking for a quick ToppsTown code: just play their Home Run Derby game, and depending on how well you do they will award with with a standard code or an elusive Gold Card code. Ooh la la!



At WonderGroup I have a reputation about being cut-throat when it comes to ToppsTown (scores, codes, my Clubhouse, etc). I'm sure I'll get hell for posting pictures of my home runs here, but someone's gotta show it can be done...

ToppsTown: BaseballCardBlog

No lengthy post today... just a shout-out to a blog that heaped some praise on ToppsTown, specifically the Binder, our trading process, the anonymity that each user maintains, our graphics, and not being completely tied to reality.

That's quite a mouthful of good stuff... now we just need to tone down our sound effects a bit, perhaps?

ToppsTown: Topp Card of the Week!

Have you been paying attention? If so, you might have noticed a new piece of navigation in the Trading Zone in ToppsTown: Topp Card of the Week.

The Topp Card function means that suddenly even your so-so virtual cards could suddenly have a lot of worth. Our inaugural Topp Card, Tim Lincecum, is displayed in this section... this card is now worth 400 ToppsPoints, a freakin' sweet trophy, an underwater backdrop for your Avatar, a skull table for your Clubhouse, as well as four new ToppsTown cards for your Binder. Right now, this is the only way to get new cards without entering codes or trading for them.

We must be mad to make a trade like this! Used-car-salesman-on-TV mad! "I'll club a seal to make a better deal!" Anyone?


I'm thrilled about this function because I think it invigorates trading. Suddenly it's not just about collecting your favorite team (go Reds!) or getting a better pitcher so you can play Fastball Blast a little bit better. Now there's a capitalistic rush... but is that so different from the hobby? Aren't there cards that skyrocket in value for various reasons?

Each week, a new Topp Card will be announced. I'm curious to see if it will catch on, and if that card will become a particularly hot item. Right now I can tell you I'm seeing a lot of requests for ol' Tim in the Trading Zone...

P.S. I'd love to show you what it looks like when you redeem the card, but I can't get my hands on one. I'm telling you, we get no perks. ;)

ToppsTown: Crazy Cam

Woo! Time to talk about my other favorite ToppsTown game, Crazy Cam. All told I have about ten favorite games, but this is my favorite of the favorites. ;)

I have plenty to say about this one. It went through several iterations, and I am so happy with the way it ended up.

In terms of cameos, I'd like to mention that one of our copywriters, JP, is the crazyfan (red guy). Also, LaunchForce's Brett is the crazy dancing guy and Mark is the cowboy. Studs, these guys.

So let's talk game tips. Here's a screenshot of how awesome I am... #1 on the leaderboard at this moment, as my avatar Sir Sushi Sushi. Like my awesome pig arm? That cost me a pretty penny. (Yeah, you'd think I'd get some in-game perks, but nothin' happenin'.)

Playing the game well is easy. First off, find the crazyfan. When you see the red guy on the screen, hunt him down with great vigilance! He's worth 10x any of the other characters (500 points, I believe!).

My only other tip is to move in chunks. Instead of scrolling all over the screen, move a few inches and pause, then move a few inches and pause again. Why? Because all of the characters are animated to move slightly (or in Brett's case, flailing wildly), and your eye will pick it up much more easily if you stop the board from moving around. Personally I move along the bottom, then up along the top.

If there's an exception to this rule, it'd be the mascot (tiger). He stands out enough that you can usually just flounder around looking for him. The hardest to find, which you already know if you've played at all, are the baby and the grandmother... they just blend right in to the majorly blue background.

Did that help?

Here's a link to previous Topps Town posts.

ToppsTown: Bazooka Blow

While I'm not trying to turn this into a ToppsTown blog, the site is really fun to blog about. There are so many behind-the-scenes stories that I want to tell you about, and as close as I am to the project there's still so much that's a surprise to me. I guess that speaks to how much combined effort goes into a virtual world.

Today I logged on and noticed that Bazooka Blow is the featured game. Huzzah! While I enjoy all of our games, this simple twitch game makes my day. (Besides entering ToppsTown codes, it's also probably the easiest to rack of a few quick points.) In case you haven't played it, I'm posting a few screen grabs.

Charlie did an awesome job with this guy's expressions. (Oops! I originally said it was Evan, who also does amazing work, but this game was in Charlie's court. Oooops!) That's what makes such a basic game really stand out: the style behind it.

We also developed the music for the game-- you can thank Mark for the goofy, classic arcade-type music that loops throughout the game.

And I think there's a great finishing touch on the bee and the claw, both which fly in randomly to pop your Bazooka bubble. TIP: If you haven't noticed yet, they don't automatically pop the bubble. Sometimes if you wait just for one super-tense second, they might... might... fly back out of frame, leaving your bubble intact. As far as I can tell, the claw is more likely to vamoose than the bee (whom I repeatedly curse to high heaven).

Question to anyone still reading: are you interesting in hearing back-stories on other Topps Town games?

ToppsTown: flattery

Today Nick found a bit of flattery at a blog called Game Guts, and coming from someone else in the biz it means all that much more.

Here's a part I agree with:

...if you're going to be selling the product anyway, and you're going to have a website anyway, you might as well have the two working together. This is particularly true of collectible and entertainment products.

I love talking about this site as added value! This is one thing I love about it-- people who already buy the Topps cards have this new experience at no additional cost.

Now here's a part that I'd like to expound on:

Toppstown looks to be a pretty modest site. Good for them. Keep costs down, make the thing do what it needs to do, and don't sabotage a good thing by breaking the bank.

Adam (author) is right, for the most part. Topps Town is modest-- we spent much of our effort making the Avatar builder streamlined and fun, into making the Clubhouse customizable, into tweaking the Trading Zone. But the part that I would like to add is that the site will grow. We believe that the site needed to be built on solid legs before pumping it full of stuff-- if the functionality isn't there, how can we expect users to come back long enough to see it grow? While I can't give away anything about what is coming in the future, I can say that football launches at the end of the summer and there are surprises to come.

ToppsTown: just for kids?

Well well well! ToppsTown launched this weekend (soft launch on the 30th, with a harder hit on the 1st and more users discovering it every day). So far so good, though every site has its glitches in the beginning. Overall I am pleased as punch, and so happy to hear that users are exploring it.

Because I'm a snoop, I've been keeping up with what people are saying about ToppsTown... not much press has broken yet, but Brandweek and blogs such as Virtual Worlds News and Virtual Worlds Forum Blog have mentioned the site. (Ooh, looks like the press release has hit... turns out you get a lot more if you search Topps Town [with the space].)


But of course I'm most interested in what individual people are saying-- at least more than seeing how many places the press release turns up. For instance, here's a blog that jumps to ToppsTown's defense regarding the privacy of the site. And even though no one asked me to, I'd like to respond to the question that was posed: is ToppsTown just for kids?

Topps Town was created for kids, to bring a whole new facet to baseball cards. The times, they are a-changing, and this site is about bringing trading cards back to a new generation of baseball fans.

That being said, of course we expect and encourage adults to explore. First off, we want parents to be able to see the world that their kids are involved in. Secondly, the site is fun and engaging, so why limit that to children?

Thirdly and maybe most importantly, it's the adults who are going to get kids back into trading cards. It's the dads and uncles and big sisters and older friends that are going to cause the spark in kids that makes them want to trade, collect and drool over their baseball cards (or whatever hobby they get into). This is just a new iteration of that passion-- bringing some of the time-honored tradition online, a new expression of a much-loved idea.

Alright, I've blabbed on enough now. To all you adults out there, especially the kids-at-heart, go log on and have a ball (pun intended). And if you want to add me as a friend, I'm Sir Sushi Sushi.

ToppsTown

I just did a quick search, and there are only a few blogs pointing toward the placeholder page for ToppsTown.com, most of them with vague speculations about what the site will be. Well, naturally-- what else could there be at this point?

In light of the fact that the site launches tomorrow (is it June 1 already?!), I thought I'd do a quit post of my own-- though I'm sure I'm not allowed to give much more away. ...Now that I think about it, am I allowed to say anything?

...It's where your cards come alive... that much we know...

Well surely I can say what is already out there on the web, and only a Google away. From an eBay lot:

ToppsTown is a virtual world that brings normal sports cards to live [sic]. Consumers log onto toppstown, enter the special codes listed on Topps trading card product and they can unlock virtual cards which can be collected and traded with friends, play sports related games, create an avatar and earn Topps points to design their personal clubhouse.

This information almost definitely came from a code card, which can be found in the Topps Series 2 trading card packs.

Another thing that I can tell you is that the team is excited to see this baby go live. This project has been a labor of love for so many people (aren't they all?). I look forward to posting again after launch, when I can be less cryptic...