Tapulous

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.

Virtual gifts have finally come to Tap Tap Revenge… just in time for Valentine’s Day! You’ll now be able to give your friends roses, kisses, cookies or hearts for Valentine’s Day through the Avatar Store! Show someone special that you care… or make it up to them for beating their top score on Riddim Ribbon! Either way, here are the three steps for how to share the love with a dozen roses, or ten kisses cookies and hearts!

Step 1: Go to the Valentine’s Day Avatar Store
Step 2: Get a pack of roses, kisses, cookies or hearts (available for coins!)
Step 3: Go into Chat and type /gifttype followed by your friend’s username. (example: /rose user000 or /kiss user111)

A special message will appear in chat to let everyone know you gave a gift and the gift will go to your friend’s inbox! Happy gifting!

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.

The Band: DATAROCK

The Jam: Fa-Fa-Fa from the album “Datarock Datarock”

Did you know that Tap Tap Revenge has built in GPS capabilities? No, no…not THAT kind of GPS, the global positioning system. We pack in our own type of GPS, the Guaranteed Party Starter. TTR doesn’t have to be something you do by yourself, headphones on, slumped in the corner. Here’s a quick guide to using your TTR GPS:

1. Download this week’s block-rockin’ featured track from DATAROCK
2. Crank up those teeny-tiny iPhone / iPod speakers, or better yet, plug into your boombox’s line in. (Note: all cool people carry a boombox wherever they go)
3. Go to a public place and start tapping.
4. Get your head noddin’, your booty shakin’, and your feet stompin’. If you can, occasionally moonwalk.
5. Watch the party form around you!

There it is, the magic of Tap Tap Revenge GPS. However, it doesn’t work without the crazy-fresh electro-rock of Datarock’s Fa-Fa-Fa. So it’s lucky we have it FREE this week!

Hailing from Bergen, Norway, a mountainous town known as “The City of Rain,” Datarock members Fredrik Saroea and Ket-Ill came together with a simple goal: To alter the face of contemporary music as we know it, by transforming themselves into what they call “the peak of pop evolution.” Or, as Saroea once explained their formation, “We fell in love. He became pregnant and gave birth to a small Casio watch. As our love grew, the Casio watch grew to become a Casio keyboard. And that’s how we became Datarock.”

Now you will experience Datarock. Once you’re plugged into the Datarock machine, tap over to datarockmusic.com, and check out all their videos, albums, and remixes.

The Datarock Contest

OK, so the slick disco beats of Datarock’s “Fa Fa Fa” have got you covered musically. But what if your fashion is lacking? Well, they’ve got you covered there, too. Literally. Part of this week’s grand prize is an official DATAROCK TRACK SUIT! Now you can look as awesome as these guys:

But that’s not all! They’re also throwing in a STEINBERGER GUITAR! Wow, these guys rule! 5 runners-up will also receive an autographed copy of the Datarock CD. Here’s all you have to do:

This one is easy. Download and play Datarock’s Fa-Fa-Fa in Tap Tap Revenge 3. Every score you submit ABOVE 250,000 points counts as one contest point. The player with the most contest points at the end of the contest is the grand prize winner. The next 5 players with the most points get the runner-up prizes. You can play on easy or hard — as long as you get over 250,000 points.

The contest runs from Friday, January 29th at 12:01 AM through Tuesday, February 2nd at 11:59 PM. You must submit your scores in Tap Tap Revenge 3, while online, during the contest period for entry into the contest.

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.

Just letting y’all know that we’ll start using TapTapRevenge.com more in the coming weeks.  In particular, we’ll start using the Announcements section for company updates about minor bug fixes (like fixes in content bundles etc).  So if you love Tap Tap Revenge, make sure to visit TapTapRevenge.com frequently!

Update, 11:30 AM PST Thursday 1/7: A couple more things to point out here, not worth an entire blog post.

1) The TTR3 inbox is back.

2) Twinkle is almost back, but not quite.

3) The Tap Tap Reporter hasn’t reliably gone out in the last couple of weeks, and I forgot to mention to you in yesterday’s blog post why that is. Well, the trouble (but it’s the best possible kind of trouble to have) is that our subscriber list has grown by 10X in three weeks’ time, and our old method for sending the Reporter out isn’t going to scale to that number of emails! We’re identifying a new way to send the emails today, and hope to have the Reporter restored this coming week.

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Three days into being fully staffed back at Tapulous HQ, and three days further along in fixing up the issues that cropped up over the holidays. As such, it’s time to give you all an update!

First, the big ticket items from Bart’s update on Monday that have been completely or mostly addressed:

1. Lady Gaga Bundle: We found and fixed the cause of the repeated charges for the Lady Gaga — Bad Romance bundle. The bundle is back up for sale. In the next day or two, we’ll circle back and identify all those who were charged more than once for this bundle, and issue credits to compensate you for the overcharging.
2. Coins, points and levels: These should be stable now, without any further dropping to zero or default values, or really, dropping of any kind unless you spend coins. We did our very best to restore everyone’s proper levels and coins, although the coin restoration was imperfect for some folks. We tried to err on the side of giving you too many coins.
3. Incorrect or negative credits: As with coins, points, and levels, these should be stable and only go up, unless you spend them!
4. Importing premium content: With the exception of Christmas with Weezer and Dave Matthews Band Revenge, premium game content is now importable into Tap Tap Revenge 3, provided you purchased the premium game from the App Store, installed it on the same device on which you have Tap Tap Revenge 3, and ran it at least once while connected to the Internet. The remaining two apps are coming soon, and we’re also aware of a few tracks in Lady Gaga Revenge and Metallica Revenge that need a little fixing up. But, the good news is, the feature is generally functional now, and most of the content is available and working properly.
5. Leaderboards: In the Monday update, Bart noted that we’d fixed the sorting problems on leaderboards, but that we’d discovered a new problem with scores not submitting properly. We have since fixed this problem, and believe that leaderboards are working well.
6. Credits for purchasing premium Tap Tap Revenge editions: We’re just about caught up on this, having processed about three quarters or more of the email submissions requesting credit. We’ll finish this up tomorrow.

Next, other big ticket items that still need addressing:

1. Twinkle & Inbox: A problem cropped up this afternoon that caused us to disable Twinkle temporarily, along with your Inbox in Tap Tap Revenge 3, to ensure that other services would remain uncompromised. We’re hoping to bring Twinkle and the Inbox back tonight.
2. Achievements, weapons, and feed discrepancies: Just like with points, coins and levels, what we’ve been displaying to you for your achievements, weapons arsenal, and feed has been somewhat unpredictable lately. The same process we undertook last night to stabilize points, coins and levels will be undertaken ASAP, likely overnight tonight, to stabilize and restore your achievements, weapons arsenal, and feed.
3. Credits for placing in the Ultimate Tapdown, or for winning one of the contests run via Facebook and/or Twitter during the holidays: We awarded a bunch of credits for these, and then managed to misplace them thanks to #3, above. We’ll reissue these credits as soon as possible, before this week is out!
4. Problems redeeming credits: The problem doesn’t seem to be widespread, but we have had reports of folks redeeming credits for a track pack, and then instead of being able to immediately download the track pack, they’re returned to the pack details page with another opportunity to redeem credits. We’ll try to track this down in the next couple of days.
5. Premium online rooms: We’re still having a problem where, even if you own a premium track bundle that should allow you access to a premium online room, you may find that room locked. Again, this is high on our list, to be addressed in the next couple of days.

How to get help:

Lately, we’ve been doing everything we can to monitor several different channels you’ve been using to contact us for support. It’s going to be a lot easier for us to more reliably get you the support you need if you contact us in just one of two places:

Get Satisfaction, or support@tapulous.com.

The former is the preferred means, because not only do a bunch of Tapulous folks (including myself) monitor that and help to respond, but legions of devoted players hang out there helping out too!

Please do not use Facebook comments, comments on this blog, or the forums on TapTapRevenge.com to seek customer service or support, and expect to get a reply from Tapulous employees. (The great thing about the forums on TapTapRevenge.com though is that, just like with Get Satisfaction, a lot of very knowledgeable players hang out there, and might just have the answer you’re looking for.)

We’re all back at The Shop.  Everyone is still alive, and the place didn’t burn down from the overheating over the holidays!

All we’re doing today is fixing remaining issues and taking care of people with problems. Here are our top priorities for the next day or two, as well as an update on other issues that people have reported over the last week: