Help us get 200 pre-orders for a KIRBOPHER PLUSHIE from the folks at Makeship! Pick one up and spread the word! TOME (Terrain of Magical Expertise) fans deserve new merch and I've always wanted to be turned into a marketable plushie for nefarious purposes :3c

Tune into the premiere of the TOME: Artificial Interference! This will be the first of the “A2Z Trilogy” of compilation films, which will cover Episodes 0, 1, 2, 3 & 4…with 10 minutes of new animated scenes, told from the perspective of Zetto!

At the same time, tune into Rockoon's twitch channel while Rocky and I commentate!

https://www.twitch.tv/devenandrockoon

In celebration of the 11th anniversary of the TOME webseries, “Hard Reset“ is an animated short taking place a short time after the end of the final episode, following the continued trials of a certain ex-villain.

Watch it on my YouTube channel right here!

Tune in after the premiere for a special Q&A with the creators!

Animation & Characters Created by Chris Niosi

Written & Produced by Deven Mack

Jan Aponte as Archy

Deven Mack as Rockoon

Background Art & Character Design by Taï W.

Additional Animation by Faelions

Music:

Thom O'Neil

Pierce Hacquard

Beats by B Mac

Abigail Gallagher

Sound Design & Mixing by Thom O'Neil

"Terrain of Magical Expertise" © Chris Niosi 2011

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https://twitter.com/kirbopher

https://twitter.com/TOMERPG

https://www.facebook.com/TOMEseries

PICK UP THE TERRAIN OF MAGICAL EXPERTISE VIDEO GAME ON STEAM!

As always, QUITE a bit to talk about!

First off and most importantly, I've finally decided to take a stab at crowdfunding, specifically for a second season on my webseries, TOME! I'm looking to raise $15000 to create a total of 6 Episodes. At the time I'm posting this, we've already raised over a 3rd of the target budget thanks to the gracious folks who have donated in the last few days!

CLICK HERE FOR A LINK TO THE GOFUNDME PAGE!

I'm SUPER grateful for the amazing support we've gotten so far. The rewards we're offering seem to be enticing enough, with the promise of a background character cameos, voice requests from many of the show's characters and an exclusive t-shirts! Just as a head's up, I'll be doing a Kirblog for tomorrow making some general announcements regarding my YouTube channel, as well as covering some basic info about the crowdfunding campaign, so if any of y'all have questions, I can certainly give some answers when I record it! Lemme know your thoughts and I'll provide support in any way I can! Sunday we'll also be starting the first of a five eBay auctions for background character cameos that have speaking lines! Keep an eye on the GoFundMe page for updates, but here's the basic schedule:

(ALL Auctions Start/End at 3 PM EST. Dates subject to change!)
SLOT #1 - Begins Sunday, May 4th/ Ends Wednesday, May 7th
SLOT #2 - Begins Wednesday, May 7th/ Ends Saturday, May 10th
SLOT #3 - Begins Saturday, May 10th/ Ends Tuesday, May 13th
SLOT #4 - Begins Tuesday, May 13th/ Ends Friday, May 16th
SLOT #5 - Begins Friday, May 16th/ Ends Monday, May 19th

Regarding some of the other stuff I'll be talking about on the Kirblog tomorrow, I've been keep consistent with updating my YouTube channel 4 times a week for quite a while now! First of all, my unofficial spin-off of "Did You Know Gaming?" has now reached almost 10 episodes!

"Did You Know Voice Acting?" has been fantastic, fun and easy to produce. I've got plenty more in the works, including three particular installments this month that all nicely coincide with each other; more on that tomorrow. Thursdays, I've mainly been updating with "re-runs" of TOME Episodes and Shorts, but I've also been adding in these fun little Anime-style "Next Episode" previews at the ends of each one. Also, with the release of each one, I've also been updating the official website with commentaries on the full Episode videos! We're up to 06 now, with 07 coming out next week!

I also started a little thing called "FLASH-back Friday", which fans of my old Newgrounds work will appreciate the most. Basically I'll re-uploading (in HD) a whole ton of my flash cartoons from the 2000's that helped spread around my name online for a long time. Stuff like Parody Rangers, Rawest Forest...and much more to come this summer!

Then finally, I've been updating each Saturday with Kirblogs as per the usual! Here's a recent one I did all about the recent "Zero Suit Samus controversy" that arose after the Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/WiiU Direct happened a while back (followed by my updated thoughts about new and upcoming stuff about the game).

That's all the major stuff for now, but as always, there's much more to come. Thanks for stickin' with me as usual, folks! Stay tuned and hope you enjoy what's in store!!

2014's off to a decent start. I've had some personal up's and down's, contending with personal issues mainly centered on being too hard on myself. Trying to work through that self-created pressure and find a new peaceful center. There's a lot of changes I need to make this year that I won't go into publicly yet, but I'm sure people've been curious as to what I've been up to.

It's funny, I remember in Elementary school I had a short-lived dream about wanting to run a TV channel with cartoons on it. I gave that dream up because I realized I was more interested in telling stories through shows; so far TOME and my work before it has been the closest thing to being able to live that out. I've kept up on releasing TOME videos every Thursday since the year began.

In tandem with that, I've also been releasing commentary versions of the full episode videos exclusively to the TOME official website. At the moment, the first three have been released alongside the corresponding 3 episodes on the website in the commentaries section (on a dropdown bar on the "episodes" tab).

Going back to the "TV Channel" dream, I've managed to keep up the pace with releasing updates every week to my "Kirblog" videos. For better or worse, I pride myself on honesty and have tried to produce something that's very "me" in terms of my opinions. That said, I've also tried to keep them relatively positive in subject material as to not make the videos a bummer for people - maybe something to look forward to. Here's a recent favorite of mine:

They've been releasing every Tuesday and Saturday consistently since a little after January started. In addition, I've just released the first episode of a new show idea for my channel that I might try to relegate to Tuesdays from here on out. Inspired by the format of "Did You Know Gamin?" from NormalBoots, I'm finally putting my years of voice acting trivia to use.

"Did You Know Voice Acting?" has done pretty well in its first couple days of being up and I've written a total of 8 episodes in the past week. I've also nearly finished a couple more episodes, but I'm also working out some details. Either way, people seem to be interested in the content, so this is something easy to produce that I might try and have in there weekly, if possible.

I've also had my hand in a few more projects, but can't fully go into any of them yet. I put a cap on a new potential series I'm pitching with some other folks that provided the writing, I'm helping with some further kickstarter-related projects again and still looking for freelance work wherever available. That and I've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work on other things - as soon as I can actually talk about any of this stuff, I'll let you all know.

Lastly, as I'm just remembering now, the Alpha release of "A Hat in Time" has just dropped. I provided the casting and voice-direction on Apphia Yu as "Hat Kid", Eileen Montgomery as "Mustache Girl" & "Queen Vanessa" and Jon Jafari as the "Moon Penguins". All of these characters and more can be heard in the game's Alpha build, so go pick up a copy!

More details on everything else, soon. Stick with me, folks.

THE NEW YEAR BEGINS.

Took me a little while before I could get a chance to write one of these, so a lot's happened since TOME Episode 10 came out, but I've been busy!

On my birthday, the last day of the year, I finally finished up TOME's first season with our 7th short. For something as simple as a "clip show" it was actually really meaningful to me. The retrospective given on the events of the show from this certain character's perspective was very personally tied to the production of the show, as well as my life over the last two and a half years. I'm really glad to hear everyone's been enjoying the series and that the season finale was satisfying to the audience.

This past weekend I attended MAGfest and had an amazing time. The con itself is my all-time favorite, both for how well it's run and for all the great people I get to see and this year was no exception. In particular, on the last day I met a bunch of very dedicated TOME fans who were an absolute pleasure to talk to. It really reminded me that I what I do is meaningful, regardless of how many people enjoy it; those who do REALLY take something away from it and I value that a lot.

On that same note, however, my next big step with the series is to try expanding it outward to a new and bigger audience. I announced just recently that I'm now partnered with Channel Frederator's YouTube network. They've been a great resource and have helped me come up with a release strategy for the show. As of this week, every Thursday I will be releasing a TOME video; either a "part" of a full Episode (the HD versions seen on the official website) or a short. This will last over the next several months, in an attempt to draw new people to the series and help grow its viewership.

Episode 01 - PART 1 just came out yesterday and I'm happy to say there's already been a few new very gracious fans that have reached out to me and expressed their love of the show. I'm SUPER grateful for that and hope the older fans will be accepting of this. Speaking of which, I plan on releasing commentary versions of the original full-length 10 Episodes of season 1 on the TOME website. So next week, when Episode 01 - PART 2 releases to YouTube, I'll be putting up the Episode 01 Commentary video on the website that same day! Hopefully this will be enough to tie the long-time fans over with something new that they can enjoy in the meantime.

As for what I plan on doing next, well I've got a few things on my plate. I've been developing some ideas, doing some writing and plan on doing some storyboarding for a possible new project very soon. I can't say for sure exactly what it is, but I'll keep you posted very soon. I want 2014 to be a big year for me and I have to do everything I can to make that happen.

The biggest favor y'all can do for me at this stage is to subscribe to my YouTube channel, since I'll be putting a lot of focus into that this year, and spread the word of TOME! Show your friends; the YouTube uploads are a great way to introduce them to the series. I'll also continue to do my "Kirblog" videos every Tuesday and Saturday, so there'll be a steady stream of content still goin'.

Thanks for sticking with me folks, here's hoping I can pull this off!!

Phew, made it...

Finally released TOME Episode 10, the season finale, to the official website this week. It was a super nerve-wracking experience I've never felt before with putting out cartoons I've worked on. This Episode, more than any other in the series, was extremely personal for me. I likened the feeling of uploading it to the type of vulnerability you'd feel if you were naked in front of a giant crowd of people, filled with all your peers and colleagues...yeah, it was THAT kind of nerve-wracking. Nevertheless, I made it and it was worth it.

So with that said, the next thing I wanna do is thank everybody; everyone who worked on the show these past 10 Episodes and made it happen, to everyone who watched the show and stuck with me. You're all a LOT more than I deserve and I hope at the very least I delivered something that was enjoyable and of quality. It was a rough ride the last two years doing this and Episodes 08-10 were particularly difficult, but I'm really proud of them all.

I'm also happy to say that after a LONG time of waiting, we've finally released the much-requested TOME Official Soundtrack, with all the series' major background music! It features 33 tracks composed by Weston Durant, including 4 guest tracks by TheLivingTombstone. As of this post's writing, we've sold just over 100 copies, which is fantastic. Huge thanks to everyone who supported the work and bought a copy; the music of the show is super meaningful to me and I'm happy to finally be able to share Kajet's tunes with you all.

Also, our friends at Level Up Studios put out a new piece of TOME merchandise: Vinyl Stickers of our five main characters! Order 'em today and you'll get them in by Christmas!

So what's next? Well, with certain secrets revealed from this new Episode, now would be another good time to go back and re-watch the entire series to keep an eye out for clues that led up to the big revelations in the season finale! Tomorrow there's gonna be a TOME marathon on the charity stream done by the Bluescreen Bronies podcast. It'll be starting at 11 AM EST and I'll be joining in around 1 PM to take part in a Q&A, along with some other folks from the crew of the show. Come join in! I'll be giving some details about a new TOME short that will be premiering before the end of the year!

Meanwhile, I've still been doing these Vlogs on my YouTube channel, and I'm formulating some new plans for my channel as well. Stay tuned for details.

Thanks again, everyone. You're all great.

Arighty, so I got some good news and bad news.

I'll start with the bad, first. So unfortunately, TOME will not be uploaded any further to the Game Theorists YouTube channel. Don't panic, nothing awful's happened and there's no "drama" behind it. The story is, I came into contact with the Game Theorists back in Spring of this year; we were fans of each other's work and wanted to help each other out. Originally there was another plan that was in development at the time of the Rockoon short and Episode 08's production. That fell through for things out of our hands, so to make up for it, MatPat offered something as an experiment.

I haven't been able to get google adsense to work on my YouTube channel for well over a year. The "experiment" was MatPat would be uploading TOME episodes and shorts to their channel as a new show (since they have 3 shows on the GT channel) and giving me a cut of the revenue each month. However, the show didn't perform as well as we were hoping within the first two episodes, so it was ultimately decided to pull it from their channel. Again, nothing personal or any major issues, it just didn't work out. I appreciate what the Theorists did to help me out and they gave the show some major exposure on a channel with 800K followers. Who knows, we also may even work together again in the future!

Now for the good news! All of that said, once I got word that the Game Theorists setup was gonna be over soon, I decided to give one more shot at setting up google adsense...I'm not sure what was different this time, but it worked!! So, for those of you who haven't noticed yet, I've been providing a lot more content for my channel as of the last couple weeks, doing vlogs every other day on various subjects. Such as the origin story of where my screenname "Kirbopher" came from:

If any of you guys are interested in these, take a look at the first few I've made. I'm always open to feedback on them and have been coming up with new subjects for them based on questions submitted to in the comments. Doing these vlogs has been an easy and fun way of providing more frequent content without taking away work from stuff like TOME. That said, a lot of you are probably wondering what my new plan is for TOME's presence on YouTube. I can't go into any major detail just yet, but I DO have a plan for it that will benefit both current fans of the show, as well as getting it out there to folks who haven't seen it yet. I've just recently partnered with a YouTube network and will be coming up with a strategy for releasing TOME episodes as of next year.

In the meantime, the official TOME website is still where you'll be able to see the newest content FIRST. As I've promised, the season finale, TOME Episode 10, WILL be releasing to the website this month before 2013 is over. The animation is extremely close to %100 completion and the sound effects design is already halfway done as well. I'm really proud of how well this Episode's turned out; it's already got some of my new favorite moments of the entire series in it. I really hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Also, in case you forgot, the official soundtrack release will be happening alongside the release of TOME Episode 10 on our bandcamp page! The OST will feature over 30 music tracks from the series composed by Weston "KajmasterKajet" Durant, including a few bonus tracks by Yoav "TheLivingTombstone" Landau in there as well. I've just cut together the final assembly of files for the release and I think you're all gonna love it. Look forward to that in tandem with Episode 10 this month!

Lastly, I'll reveal something entirely new here...there will be one more TOME short released after Episode 10. It's going to be very different than the stuff you've usually come to expect and ties in directly to the story of Episode 10. That's all I'll say on the matter, as to not spoil anything. It's simple enough to where I SHOULD be able to get that done before the year's up too. Keep an eye out for it and make sure to like the Facebook page for all the newest updates.

Today marks TOME's 2-Year Anniversary!

Since my last update, a whole lot of new content has come out! Back in the middle of October, our 6th short "The Legend of Nylocke" released.

...then, on Halloween, The Game Theorists released the HD-Remastered version of >TOME Episode 02: Mansion Midnight! The first two episodes have hit well over 100,000 views on the Game Theorists channel now, which is fantastic!

Last and most importantly, the long-awaited Episode 09: Gemini Tournament Yang was released just one week ago! Major thanks as always to everyone that helped make these videos happen. After well over 2 solid years of doing this show, I'm proud of the folk who've stuck it out with me and I'm proud of myself for even making it this far. I hope the series has grown in everyone's eyes and that the next one won't disappoint!

Speaking of which, to commemorate the 2-Year Anniversary, I've done some extra special stuff! First of all, we've got a trailer for the upcoming season finale...TOME Episode 10!

At the time of posting this, Episode 10 is currently about halfway animated already and I aim to release it before the year is up. As shown in the trailer, this Episode will feature music by the incredibly talented (and underrated) Xero Reynolds for a very different, darker tone. We also have the ever-supportiveHarry "HappyHarry" Partridge voicing a new character; he's been a pleasure to work with and a real inspiration. Even better, we'll be releasing the official soundtrack for TOME's popular background music scored by Weston Durant alongside Episode 10! Keep an eye on our official bandcamp page for that; and be sure to download the "rock And roll" and "smooth jazZ" versions of our theme song, "Battle On!" that were in the two Gemini Tournament Episodes!

Last, but certainly not least, I collected some viewer-submitted questions yesterday and decided to do this little video to coincide with the 2-Year Anniversary.

(Part 1, with questions from kgbullock, bananadumbledore, tomewrittings & clockwerkdoctor)

(Part 2, with questions from unsuborsuper, joshandpizza, anonymous & kcckirby)

Thanks everyone who asked and I hope I answered your questions semi-coherently; forgive my constant "uh's" and "y'knows". It's been a long Fall and a longer Summer. Fingers crossed that Winter this year will bring some Holiday Joy for you 'n me.

As always, thanks for stickin' with me and there's much, MUCH more to come!

S'been about a month or so, not a TON has happened but enough key things that're newsworthy!

So first of all, BIG news for TOME's growth: we're now part of "The Game Theorists" YouTube channel!

Many of you might've remembered my crossover with GaijinGoomba on "Game Exchange" a while back. Well, this was actually in prep for something much bigger! MatPat and the Game Theorist crew reached out to me, as fans of the show, and wanted to give it more exposure. So, they've graciously invited me to be part of their channel and help TOME reach a bigger audience than before. The remastered HD version of TOME Episode 01 has been live on their channel for about a week and has in that short of a time reached almost 100K views!

Expect more episodes and shorts to be uploaded there in the coming weeks. I hope the new viewers that have carried over from the Game Theory's fandom thus far will continue to enjoy the show, as we have a lot more in store!

Speaking of which! So since my last update on here, more progress has been made on new TOME content. The short, that will be releasing very soon, is fully animated and has been scored by TheLivingTombstone for a unique style of music compared to the other shorts; I think you'll all like it, as it fits the "style" I went for on this story very well. Meanwhile, Episode 09: Gemini Tournament Yang, is NEARLY done being animated with only one scene left to finish up. Most likely you can expect that sometime early next month, so stay tuned to the official Facebook page for some updates very soon on a few guest contributions you can look forward to seeing and hearing in Episode 09. Remember that they'll be uploaded FIRST to the official TOME website!

As for other things, I'm trying to think of ways to produce other content on a steady basis between TOME videos. An idea that came to mind was maybe doing daily vlogs with a drawing I did that day and just talking about a subject for a little while? Maybe take questions or suggestions from people and just do a little something every day? Might be worth looking into, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. I MIGHT be going to NYCC this weekend; not 100% sure of that yet, but if you find me, say hi!

That's all for now, but there's much more to come!