Tapulous

Who? ROGUE WAVE

What Song? Good Morning (The Future) from their brand-new album “Permalight.”

How’s your winter going? Are you frozen and buried under 10 feet of snow or waterlogged from an El Nino deluge? Certainly, the foul elements are good for your Tapping regimen. Long stretches of uninterrupted hibernation, just you and your avatar shut indoors, racking up countless hours and massive coins. But a lack of sunshine will turn your skin to paper, and there is a danger the touchscreen will no longer register your taps.

Fret not! The thaw is upon us, and soon we’ll be basking in the glorious sunshine of spring, leading directly to summer 2010: The Summer of Tapping. To help usher in this eagerly anticipated transition, we’ve selected the deliriously upbeat GOOD MORNING (THE FUTURE), the first single from the brand-spanking new album from ROGUE WAVE!

Northern California indie-rockers Rogue Wave are emerging from their own cold season, having in the past two years weathered the liver transplant of drummer Pat Spurgeon and near paralysis of singer Zach Rogue, debilitating medical challenges that would have broken up lesser bands. Instead of surrendering, they rose from their infirmaries, and have returned with an album that is their most upbeat, joyous, and danceable yet, a bold rebellion against the dark times through which they’ve come. GOOD MORNING (THE FUTURE) masterfully captures the current global mood: a realistic view of the world as it is, but also a harmoniously optimistic anthem to what it can become. And just in time, because we all need some sun!

Play ROGUE WAVE for free right now! Click HERE for TTR3 and HERE for TTR2. You must be on your iDevice and have one of our tappity-apps installed. Once “Good Morning (The Future)” has infiltrated your being, tap over to roguewavemusic.com, and find out where you can see the band out on tour this spring.

The Rogue Wave Contest

After seeing the online video of a rogue wave taking out the crowd at this year’s Mavericks Surf Contest, we thought we had this week’s contest: send in a video of yourself playing TTR while surfing at Mavericks, site of the mainlands biggest waves. One small problem: great whites are HUGE iPhone fanatics, and will evidently bite off your hands to get one. I’m actually writing this with my toes.

So instead, here’s this week’s legally-approved, dry-land challenge, THE ROGUE WAVE CONTEST!

The LOOT: One grand prize winner gets a brand new iPod touch preloaded with Rogue Wave tracks and music videos! Five runner-up winners get Permalight on CD AUTOGRAPHED by the band!

How to win: It’s a battle contest! Send & play battles on Rogue Wave’s “Good Morning (The Future)” in Tap Tap Revenge 3. You can send battles to your friends in Tap Tap Revenge, post them to the public battles board, or even send them to any email address. Each battle you send gets you one contest point. Each battle you play from someone else also gets you one contest point. Rack up as many points as you can — the player with the most contest points at the end of the contest is the grand prize winner. The next five players with the most points are the runner-up winners.

The contest begins on Friday, March 5th at 12:01AM and runs until Sunday, March 7th at 11:59PM Pacific Time. All battles must be played on Rogue Wave’s “Good Morning (The Future)” in Tap Tap Revenge 3, while online, for entry into the contest.

We are delighted to announce that Tap Tap Revenge 3.2 is now out, the final part in our big push our quality and reliability. The new version includes a number of bug fix and performance improvements. Performance has also gotten a boost, and we now let you turn off avatars in Online Play for a further performance boost. We’ve also removed 16x from online play, and more finely throttle the amount of weapons that are deployed online. We display the prices of items in the store in your local currency. We’ve made it easier to flag offensive users, and improved the filtering of offensive words. The list of tweaks goes on and on… and it all adds up to the fastest, most reliable and polished Tap Tap Revenge experience yet!

Happy tapping.

The Band: LADYTRON

The Jam: GHOSTS from the album “Velocifero”

There is a fast-spreading, ultra-contagious virus infecting the vast labyrinth of hallways at Tapulous World Headquarters. Once you begin working here, you are completely infected, with no known antidote or cure. The resulting disease? GENRE BLINDNESS!

See, we at Tap Tap HQ don’t hear music in terms of musical style. People tell us, “I only want to hear black metal! Or alt country! Or dubstep, nintendocore, or throat singing!” To which we say, “Hey baby, it’s all good! We love music, period. If it’s got a nice beat, and you can tap to it, we’ll get it in the game!” Just free your mind, and your fingers will follow.

A great example of that philosophy is this week’s track “GHOSTS” from UK electronic-rock trendsetters LADYTRON. Since their influential 2001 debut album “604,” this pristine foursome has used their museum-quality collection of vintage synthesizers to create sweeping pop narratives, and earned themselves a worldwide cult following. This week’s free feature track “Ghosts” immediately launches you into a hypnotic zone of bouncing tribal beats and slyly layered sonics. Lush with secretive vocals, tense harmonies, and skyrocketing vintage synth sounds, the track takes you on an ecstatically relentless ride you’ll never want to get off.

Get this week’s free track “Ghosts” by Ladytron NOW! Click HERE for TTR3 and HERE for TTR2. You must have our killer app installed, and be on your iPhone / iPod touch. Once you’re feeling sufficiently Ladytronic, tap on over to Ladytron.com, and get your groove on.

Be sure to give Anoesj a big shout out for assisting Ernest with his programming expertise in the Ladytron theme!

The Ladytrontest

“Why aren’t I winning the contests?” That is the question we get the most, besides “When is the Tap Tap Revenge breakfast cereal coming out, because I’m starving.”

First, the cereal is in Beta; as for the other question, the answer is, “Too much competition.” There are literally millions of people playing TTR now. The trick is to start disrupting other peoples’ games. Anytime you see anyone, anywhere, tapping a touch screen, give a tap on it yourself. If they’re playing TTR, it will surely mess up their perfect game. If they’re not playing, well…better safe than sorry.

Follow that tip, and the prize will be in the bag. Literally! This week’s LADYTRONTEST prizes are red Ladytron “Velocifero” cloth tote bags, stuffed with goodies like a “Ghosts” vinyl 7″ and Ladytron button packs. The Grand Prize winner will get all that plus the entire Ladytron catalog!

Here’s how to win:

It doesn’t get any easier than this. Download and play Ladytron’s “Ghosts” in Tap Tap Revenge 3. Each score you submit to the global scoreboard is added to your contest total. The player with the most total points at the end of the contest wins the grand prize. The next five players with the highest total are the runner up winners. You can play it as much as you want, on any difficulty, just remember – scores are only submitted on completed games!

The contest begins on Friday, February 19th at 12:01 AM and runs until Monday, February 22nd at 11:59 PM, Pacific Time. You must submit your scores in Tap Tap Revenge 3, while online, during the contest period for entry.

The Man: TIËSTO

The Jam: “KNOCK YOU OUT (FEAT. EMILY HAINES)“

OK people, this is not a drill. This is go time. We are now less than a week away from the launch of our brand-spanking new game, RIDDIM RIBBON, on February 8th!

Are you ready? Have you been eating your carrots, to improve your eyesight? Cleaning out your ears, to hear those beats? We hope so. To get you extra pumped up, we’ve completely redesigned this week’s featured Tiësto track “Knock You Out” with a SUPER-FRESH RIDDIM RIBBON THEME! That’s right, two powerhouse games, come together for one glorious song! It’s like King Kong and Godzilla having a dance off!

And no other DJ could handle the soundtrack to this massively magnificent mash-up but TIËSTO! If you’ve ever emerged from one of his sets, sweaty and squinting into the sunrise, then you know that he is a true innovator and master of mixology. Named “World’s #1 DJ” for 3 consecutive years by DJ Magazine, Tiësto is the unofficial muse of the Tapulous crew. His epic runs of house and trance music seem engineered specifically for tapping, and now for RIDING!

After your mind has been blown by the triple play of TTR, Riddim Ribbon, and Tiësto, check out the Tiësto 6-pack premium bundle in the Tap Track store, featuring the original theme for “Knock You Out,” “Ten Seconds To Sunrise,” and more!

The Tiësto Contest

Just north of Tapulous HQ, up in San Francisco, there is a billboard towering over SOMA. It features a giant picture of TIËSTO, watching over the cars as they come careening off the Bay Bridge, and advertises his concert at the Cow Palace this past November 2009. Seeing as it is now February 2010, and he long since rocked the house, we figured no one would miss this sign, and it would make an awesome grand prize this week. So we sent Ed up on a little stealth mission, to score that sweet pic.

24 hours in jail and $7500 in bail later, we decided to change the prizes. But they’re just as awesome, and can be yours in THE TIËSTO CONTEST!

The loot: One grand prize winner gets a pair of DJ-style headphones and a free copy of Riddim Ribbon! Five runner-up winners get a Tiësto album.

How to win: Challenge your friends on Tiësto’s Knock You Out (feat. Emily Haines). Each challenge you send with a score OVER 300,000 points counts as one contest entry. The player with the most entries at the end of the contest is the grand prize winner, the next five players are the runner-up winners.

The contest runs from Friday, February 5th at 12:01 AM PST until Monday, February 8th at 11:59 PM PST. You must send the challenge while online, during the contest period for entry into the contest. Sending the same challenge to multiple players only counts as a single entry!

Hey Tappers –

It’s been a crazy month here at the Tapulous Shop, focusing almost entirely on quality and customer service! Here’s a quick rundown of the most recent happenings:

1. Online Games: Some of you sent us some messages that this was getting a bit laggy… well we hear ya. We doused the servers with WD-40 last night, you should see things moving a bit more smoothly.
2. Online weapons: Don’t like all the weapons in the online rooms? Cruise over to online play for some smaller, more intimate games — and more “No Weapons” rooms.
3. Facebook: It’s back in Tap Tap Revenge in all its glory. Connect up with Facebook and post your top scores and personal bests on each song.
4. Remember all that tapping you did in TTR2? Well we do, and it wasn’t for nothing. We’re bumping up your level so you can access more free songs. Check out your Tap Tap 3 news feed this weekend for the news.
5. Were you one of those folks that got Tap Tap 3 for $.99? Aside from the fact that you’re some of the coolest people on the planet, you also get a bunch of extra stuff — unavailable to the rest of the world: First and foremost, you get NO third party ads (well, almost all of you…), you got the game 60 days before everyone else, and you had access to an entirely different and unrestricted collection of music.  Now, in addition, and as promised, you also get a one-of-a-kind avatar item: THE CROWN, and to top it off – 15,000 coins to spend at your leisure. But, best of all — you get a huge THANKS from everyone at Tapulous.
6. Are you a premium user and bummed that you never got one of the SWEET Supernova guitars for 400,000 coins? OK, we hear you. IF you have over 400,000 coins by Monday, you can buy this guitar for 400,000 coins. If you qualify (premium user + 400,000 coins), we’ll send you a feed message on Monday with how to buy the instrument.
7. WHERE IS THE ULTIMATE TAPDOWN?? Due to the large portion of players and finding new creative ways to hack Tap Tap, we had to postpone the greatest tournament of all time. Well it’s on the way… The dev team & the beta crew spent the last few weeks working out the final kinks to ensure a fair tournament. The update is on the way — THEN IT’S TAPDOWN TIME.

There is plenty more to do, and we haven’t forgotten. Keep us in the loop and let us know what’s on your mind.

Meanwhile, get ready for Riddim Ribbon, which is now just one week away!  Head over here for another quick video, more wallpapers… and we’ll be making a special Riddim Ribbon avatar item available in TTR3 this weekend.

See you in February!

PS: Check out the awesome, newly redesigned David Guetta premium bundle theme.

UPDATE: Congrats to the winners! Grand prize winners: The_Offspring and Biblekid2! Runner up winners: Chris_Liquid, KATIEHIGGINS, Shun_ENDO, bernardjoseph, SoFresh_SoClean, and Papas_Con_Chile!

The Band: THE FEATURES

The Songs: LIONS and WOODEN HEART from the new album “Some Kind of Salvation”

America and England. Such a long, crazy history we’ve had with each other. Sure there was that one really bad dust-up in the late 1700’s, and we sent that Werewolf to London in the 1980’s, but we’ve had a very useful relationship, too. For example, we’ll often send over our unknown musicians, you’ll go wild over them, give them back to us, and say, “Hey dummies, these guys are awesome, and they’re yours!” Like Jimi Hendrix, or the White Stripes. We’re still not sure what you did to Madonna…

This week’s artists are a prime example of this phenomenon. THE FEATURES are a very American band, much beloved in their home state of Tennessee. But they’ve found greater success in the U.K., gaining fans, winning awards, and earning glowing reviews from NME and The Guardian. Now it’s the rest of the world’s turn to catch on to their Southern-souled, blues-soaked power pop. When their musical compatriots Kings Of Leon started a new label with Bug Music, The Features were the first signing, and “Lions” the first single. So the band comes well recommended.

Once you’re completely smitten with their uber-catchy, genuine rock and roll, tap over to TheFeatures.com and become a super-fan.

The Features – Some Kind Of Contest

The LOOT: This week you’ll be competing for TWO GRAND PRIZES: Two winners each get an brand new electric guitar — AUTOGRAPHED by the Tapulous crew AND a vinyl copy of Some Kind Of Salvation autographed by The Features. Six runners-up will win signed copies of the CD.

People often ask us, “What does it take to win a contest?” Our answer is always the same: Relentless tapping. For example: If you’re just quickly checking your mail on the iPhone, go ahead and knock out a dozen games. If you’re sitting in class, try a “blind tap” under the desk. If your boss is talking to you, put up your hand, say “Hold that thought,” play a quick game of Tap Tap, then say, “Continue.” We promise he’ll laugh.

If you follow those tips, you’ll be well on your way towards winning THE FEATURES – SOME KIND OF CONTEST.

Now here’s the scoop: Download “Lions” and “Wooden Heart” in Tap Tap Revenge 3. Go hang out in The Features online contest rooms, take down some opponents, and rack up some points. For every online game where you get 1st place — you get 1 contest point. The top two players that have the most contest points at the end of the contest win the grand prizes. The runners-up are the next 6 players with the most contest points.

The contest begins on Friday, January 22, and runs through Tuesday, January 26th. That’s 120 hours to secure these sweet prizes

Lunchtime is a very serious affair here at Tapulous. Having employees from all over the world, with a variety of culinary tastes, we found it necessary to “persuade” (definitely not “kidnap”) one of the Bay Area’s surplus rock-star chefs to come set up shop in the Tap Tap Kitchen. He has taught us that between our courses of Torta Espanola and Waterzooi, it is very important to “cleanse our palettes.”

Cleansing the palette is exactly what we’re doing with this week’s FREE featured track. We’ve had ALOT of synth-pop last week between La Roux and Ke$ha, so it’s time for a complete 180. We’re gonna break it way on down, and get back to the basics, the nuts and bolts, AND the brass tacks with the fundamental flow of MOS DEF!

QUIET DOG comes from the Brooklyn freestyle legend’s 2009 release “The Ecstatic,” which landed on numerous critic’s top album lists, and was for many fans a musical throwback to the glory of Mos Def’s breakthrough group, Black Star. “Quiet Dog” is a deceptively stark, intensely rhythmic affair, that initially sounds like a studio jam session gone really right. But don’t be fooled by the sparse instrumentation: once Mos Def effortlessly unleashes his lyrical mayhem, you have a global club-banger on your hands. And when the song is in Tap Tap Revenge, that means literally.

For more Mos Def, check him out at mosdef.com. Or go watch him in a movie, ’cause he’s also an actor (he was Ford Prefect!), or hear him on the Gorillaz album next year. Just make sure you heed his advice, stay cool, and maintain the rock!

The Mos Def Contest

The question was emailed to us, “Can you Tap too much?” The short answer is no, and the long answer is NOOOOOOO! Remember, there’s always some punk right behind you, ready to snatch that global high score, so you’ve got to tap more. And this is no week to slack off, because you’re mos def going to want to win THE MOS DEF IRON MAN CONTEST:

You and your fellow Tapaholics are competing for a Mos Def / Downtown Records GRAND PRIZE: 5 CD’s of your choice from the Downtown Records library, a vinyl copy and digital download of Mos Def’s album “The Ecstatic,” and an Mos Def T-Shirt! Runner’s up will receive a vinyl and CD copy of “The Ecstatic.”

How to win: Submit a score on each day of the contest above 100,000 points on Mos Def’s “Quiet Dog” in Tap Tap Revenge 3. The contest begins at 12:01 AM on Friday, January 14th and runs until Tuesday, January 19th at 11:59 PM PST. That means you need to submit at least 5 scores (one per day) to qualify in the contest! The winners will be chosen from the pool of all players that qualified.

You must submit your scores in Tap Tap Revenge 3, while online, for entry into the contest.

The Band: THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT

The Jam: WISHING WELL, from their self-titled debut album.

Sometimes playing Tap Tap Revenge is social experience. You’re online, talking trash and dropping bombs, tapping out suckers left and right.

But sometimes, it’s a very intense, passionate affair, and you become Tap Tap Possessed. The song infiltrates your consciousness, and you visualize the music. Your fingers flawlessly find all the Tappers, your score rolls higher, and the fever builds. You decide to let dinner burn, or postpone sleep for another night, or retake the entire semester.

This week’s FREE track WISHING WELL is the perfect soundtrack for that magical game of TTR. Birthed in the Los Feliz area of L.A. in 2006, The Airborne Toxic Event are rapidly becoming indie-rock superstars, due their abundance of unapologetic emotion, undeniable melodies, and unrestrained talent. Moving beyond the rigid verse-chorus song structure, they’ve found a place where the songs create their own life, pulsing, pumping, and climbing to a powerful, cathartic release. In the year since their debut release, they’ve toured the world, taking the stage at Coachella, SXSW, Lollapallooza, and the Fuji Festival. These guys (and girl) are The Goods.

THE AIRBORNE TOXIC CONTEST

UPDATE: Congratulations to the winners! Grand prize: Chris_Liquid. Runner up winners: flipfox, iPANPAN, 2old2tap, griffindoor, dunniehigh.

Believe it or not, some people were upset there was no TTThursday track last week, despite the abundance of new free music available in the game itself. And we’re happy about that. It means the subliminal code in the graphics designed to get you desperately addicted to Tap Tap Revenge is working, and we will soon turn on our Tap Zombie Army.

But before that happens, we’re going to run this week’s give-away, THE AIRBORNE TOXIC CONTEST:

The Loot: Grand Prize: AN AUTOGRAPHED ELECTRIC GUITAR!! Runner up prizes: Five copies of the Airborne Toxic Event’s latest album, signed by the band.

How to win: It’s a battle contest! Send and play battles on Wishing Well by Airborne Toxic Event. Every battle you WIN counts as one contest entry. It doesn’t matter if you sent it or played it off the public battle board — any won battle on the featured track counts in this contest. At the end of the contest, we’ll take the top 50 players with the most entries and draw the winners.

The contest runs from Friday, January 1st at 12:01 AM PST through Tuesday, January 5th at 11:59 PM PST. You must complete all battles while online, during the contest period. Any battles played or sent outside the contest period will not be counted.

The Band: NO DOUBT

The Jam: HELLA GOOD from the multi-platinum “Rock Steady.” Also available in the No-Doubt Premium-Track Pack.

Northern California, home of Tapulous Enterprises and Tap Tap Revenge, has given the world so many amazing inventions: Silicon Valley, and all that compu-magic. Blue jeans, made for miners in the Gold Rush. The fortune cookie, created for San Francisco’s Tea Garden.

But our greatest creation is the word “hella.” Gwen Stefani picked up on it during No Doubt’s early tours through the Bay. Let’s all make an effort this week to really work “hella” into our vocabulary. Examples:

“Oh man, that track on Extreme was hella hard! My finger’s burnin!”
“I saw the Tapulous Holiday Party at the Lady Gaga show. They were gettin’ hella rowdy!”

Trust me, people will respond positively. Speaking of positive things, this week’s track, “HELLA GOOD,” is certainly hella good. No other band from the modern ska revival has achieved the heights of No Doubt, and it’s not just because they lack international fashion icon Gwen Stefani behind the microphone. No Doubt brings the best influences of punk, pop, dancehall, and new-wave back to the O.C., mixes them up, and puts them back out in songs beloved by millions of fans around the world.

Go get HELLA GOOD now in the Tap Track store!

THE HELLA GOOD CONTEST

Alright, get your fingers warmed up, because you’re going to be doing hella tapping this week, yo! The winner of the No Doubt HELLA GOOD CONTEST is going to win…A LIMITED EDITION CITY POSTER, SIGNED BY THE MEMBERS OF NO DOUBT! Five runner up winners get the entire No Doubt catalog.

Here’s what you’ve got to do:

You have to have hella skills to win this one. Between Friday, December 18th and Monday, December 21st, play against Ed’s challenge on No Doubt’s Hella Good in Tap Tap Revenge 3. You can find it in your Tap Tap news feed or in the featured page in the store.

The grand prize and runner up winners will be drawn from the TOP 50 players who beat Ed by the most points. He plays on hard, and he’s pretty good — so practice up! You must play through the entire challenge, while online, during the contest period, for entry into the contest.

The Band: FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH

The Song: WALK AWAY from the album “War Is The Answer”

Friends, let me ask you some questions: Have you worn out the Metallica, Godsmack, and Korn in TTR3? Have Thursdays been a bit “soft” for you lately? Would you rather live in a city made of shadows than one made of owls? Well step right up, because I’ve got the cure for what ails you, a big bottle of liquid metal to rock your foundation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this week’s track is the foolproof solution to your light-rock doldrums; a vital, volatile voice of voracious, visceral, and simply volcanic Rock And Roll! Look no further, for coming straight at you is FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, and it’s going to get you right again. Winners of Metal Hammer Magazine’s Best New Band of 2009, 5FDP are a force to be reckoned with, and are proving that by climbing the charts and churning mosh pits around the world. Formed in 2005, this L.A.-based band features members of U.P.O., W.A.S.P., Motograter, and Anubis Rising. BE CAREFUL: this is not the song with which to introduce your grandmother to Tap Tap Revenge.

When you have been thoroughly rocked and need a break, head over to fivefingerdeathpunch.com and see what these guys are up to. I think the album cover of “War Is The Answer” might make a sweet wallpaper.

THE FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH CONTEST.

We all know Tap Tap Master DXChain has his own signature “DX Grip.” In honor of this week’s band, we had him work on developing a special “Five Finger Death Tap.” Unfortunately, the test track we gave him was 1.5X speed, and…it didn’t work out. We’re happy to say DX is healing perfectly, and the Tapulous Lab needed a fresh coat of paint anyway. Get your best grip in order, and bring it to this week’s contest:

“The Five Finger Death Room!” We’ve created a special online room for this week’s featured track. Get in there, meet some people, do a little chat, and then play a game. Every game completed is a point. Rack up as many points as you can. Every day we’ll award one prize to the top earner. At the end of the contest, we’ll draw the grand prize from the top 25 point earners. The contest runs all day Friday through Tuesday, Pacific Time. Simple, huh?

The 5 daily winners will receive an an autographed copy of “War Is The Answer.” One Grand Prize Winner will receive a special SKATEBOARD DECK SIGNED BY FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH! Nothing is more exciting than playing TTR and trying to skate down a bumpy sidewalk. Remember: always wear your helmet, and always put your iPhone in a titanium shell.