The latest update in the Demigod blog at IGN comes from Dru Staltman and NateSimpson from Gas Powered Games.  They talk about the process of creating the characters featured in Demigod.

"Imagine Hercules and Achilles locked in combat. The two heroes trading blow for blow in an epic melee. The heroes tossing each other through buildings, chasing each other across the fields of antiquity, and eventually a crushing defeat and valiant victory. This epic combat is something that would be fantastic to behold."

Read the full blog at IGN.

Yesterday, Stardock put out The Political Machine 2008 Express which is a free strategy game for the political season. 

“Players play on the electoral map of the United States with the goal to gain the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the election. Players get 21 weeks (approximately the time candidates have between the primary season and the general election) to make speeches, raise money, buy advertisements, hire political operatives, appear on cable TV shows in order to woo voters to their side.

Political Machine Express also includes a print shop which allows players to create their own bobble heads, campaign pins and bumper stickers and print them out on their home printer. “

User can download the game from www.politicalmachine.com/express, or from the My Games tab in Impulse.

I have started a Desktop Customization group at Geeks! and when we hit 100 members I will be giving away a copy of WindowBlinds 6.  All you have to do is join our group and the winner will be selected randomly.  More info can be found here.

Join our Desktop Customization group!

Stardock is excited to announce that “phase two” of its digital download platform, Impulse, has begun and all updates, new games and software applications will soon be live. Phase two of Impulse sees new games from 2k (Civilizations III, Shattered Union, Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Sid Meier’s Railroads!) and Tilted Mill’s Children of the Nile enhanced edition. New software applications include a host of Corel applications like WordPerfect Office X4, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, and Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 as well as software applications from Genie Soft, Iolo, and AVG Internet Security and Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware software.

Phase two of Impulse also adds the ability for users to install and update third-party freeware programs that are available via Impulse. This makes the transfer of the catalogue of programs installed on a user’s machine extraordinarily simple from machine to machine as it’s all centrally located on Impulse. Phase two has already addressed user feedback and incorporates significantly faster load times, downloads, a smart queue option and a smarter updating process which exponentially decreases processing time for updates.

All new titles and software applications are now available at www.impulsedriven.com

Episode 16 of the WinCustomize SkinCast is up, and this is an extra special one!  About two weeks ago we posted that Darren McPhee from AMD will be our guest, and we will be giving away 3 prizes, one of which is an ATI 4870 video card courtesy of AMD/ATI.  The other two prizes are a copy of Sins of the Solar Empire, and the upcoming Demigod game.  We received a bunch of great questions, and although we had a difficult time narrowing it down to 3, we eventually made our choices.

Congratulations to the winners, which are.....

Sorry, you will have to listen to the podcast to find out!

Episode 16 - Live with AMD

Download MP3

Impulse, the next-gen of digital distribution platforms, continues to grow, and there are so many ideas and features that are being floated around, it's almost crazy.  However, one thing that we at Stardock take pride in is listening to our customers and even potential customers on how to improve upon what we have built.  Community feedback has played a big role in shaping how game updates have been made, and now we can do the same thing in regards to the future of Impulse.

Brad Wardell wrote a more extensive article on this, so I wanted to make sure that everyone takes a moment and gives it a read.  Basically, you have the power to help change and shape the future of development regarding Impulse, and we want your feedback!

Link: Yes folks, you have the POWER!

Link: Impulse Suggestion thread.

I was happy to have the opportunity to be interviewed by Daniel Foster, who is the Newsletter Editor for TechSmith.  TechSmith are the developers for great applications such as SnagIt and Camtasia Studio.  These are two apps I use on a daily basis with my work for Stardock and other projects, and they do such a great job at recording screenscasts, video demos, screenshots, etc. 

The interview is about my use of Camtasia Studio and how it has had an impact on presenting Stardock software and games to the masses.  You can signup for the TechSmith newsletters here, and my interview is at the link below.  Thanks again to Daniel and Betsy!

Link: Showing a More Beautiful Desktop

Stardock is pleased to announce the release of SkinStudio 6.2. SkinStudio is an application that allows you to design custom visual styles for Windows Vista and Windows XP. These visual styles (skins) can then be applied using WindowBlinds. When creating a new skin you can change the complete look of Windows by changing the start button, taskbar, buttons, titlebars, and pretty much everything in between.
New features:

• WindowBlinds Layer Support.  The WindowBlinds layer system allows a skin author to provide multiple layers for a given section of a skin.  This also includes layer support for per-pixel borders and glyphs.  This opens up a whole new level of creativity for skinners.
• Skin Color Feature.  This feature allows Pro users to recolor a skin, or a specific sub-style by using the HSL sliders that is similar to coloring skins in WindowBlinds.  This will make it even easier to create sub-styles of varying colors.
• Animated "Please Wait" Support.  The Please Wait screen has always been a static image, now it's possible to create an animation that can be seen while the Wait screen appears.
• NWA File Support.  NWA files are a way to reduce the size of animations that are used in WindowBlinds skins.  These can be used on Start Menu and "Please Wait" animations and can help save considerable memory and hard drive space.  SKS 6.2 also includes a tool to create NWA files from vertical .png/.tga image strips.

SkinStudio 6.2 is a free download with a Pro version available with additional features.

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Stardock is pleased to announced the release of WindowBlinds 6.2 today. WindowBlinds is an application that lets users easily change their Windows interface by applying a new skin. These "visual styles" can be applied across the entire user interface (title bars, push buttons, start menu, taskbar, etc.) of the operating system. As a result, users gain complete control over the way Windows looks.

What's new in version 6.2:

• Improved compression on start menu animations
• Animated wait screens during Apply
• Enhanced layer support (accompanied by skin author support in SkinStudio 6.2)
• Bug Fixes

WindowBlinds is available in both a free version and a an enhanced version which adds many additional features like the ability to change color/hue/brightness on the fly, change toolbar icons of IE and Explorer, and much more. WindowBlinds is available as part of Object Desktop, Stardock's ultimate suite of desktop customization tools, or at stand-alone for $19.95.

DesktopX 3.5 was released recently, and one of the biggest feature updates is the ability to export your DX creations as a Vista sidebar gadget.  Creating a gadget for the Vista sidebar isn’t the easiest thing to do, and it has limitations that DesktopX can easily overcome.  DesktopX is a very powerful application which can create a wide variety of mini-applications for your desktop.  These can range from simple weather gadgets, on up to very complex applications with multiple functions all that can be wrapped in custom graphics. 

The gadgets that can be created with DesktopX can be scripted with many languages including C++, which allows an almost endless amount of possibilities.  Now if you aren’t big on scripting, don’t be too intimidated, as you can still create some great gadgets with the included plugins, or by going through the huge amount of documentation/tutorials provided by Stardock.  You can also find more tutorials written by experienced community members which can be found at the WinCustomize Wiki.

I have created quite a few DesktopX widgets over the last few years, and although I am not a coder, I was able to create some really cool and useful widgets.  I’m going to take you on a walkthrough on how to create a desktop widget, and turn it into a Vista sidebar gadget using DesktopX Pro 3.5.  I’m going to break apart the Election Countdown gadget I made, which will make a perfect example for today’s guide.

Read the full guide here.

You have heard me talk a lot about Impulse over the past couple of months, and much of that was about gaming.  One of the most exciting features about Impulse is that it’s not only limited to games, you can also get applications through it as well.  The latest edition to Impulse has been some applications from Corel.

So far we have:

• CorelDRAW X4
• WordPerfect Office X4
• Painter X
• WinDVD 9

These are some really great applications and I can’t wait to see what else is in the lineup.  The best is I can download and manage these applications through Impulse, so I don’t have to worry about losing the CD’s or things like that.  Stardock’s Impulse is a free download, so go check it out.

If you like to customize the look of your Windows PC, but are not sure about all the software needed to achieve the look you want, then you should take a look at MyColors 2.5 from Stardock.  MyColors changes your Windows visual style, icons, wallpaper, and even adds gadgets to your desktop. These gadgets can range from media players to weather forecast gadgets depending on the theme.  It doesn't modify any system files and enables users to easily switch between themes and back to default Windows with just a few clicks.

MyColors has teamed up with the NBA, NCAA, NHL, Ford, GM, and many others to offer licensed themes for sports teams, cars, etc.  With the new release of MyColors 2.5, a new ‘Think Green’ theme has been released which has a smooth look with cool animations.  There are other free themes available for download and others can be purchased.

MyColors 2.5 is compatible with both Windows XP and Vista.

Link: MyColors 2.5

It was a long weekend for us, but we did manage to record Episode 12 of the WinCustomize SkinCast.  One of the topics we covered was the closing down of Skinartistry.com, which was a community skinning site.  They were hacked and unfortunately had to shutdown, and we give a really good rant about that.  We also touched on what makes a good preview when submitting a skin or theme, and what we look for when featuring skins that we come across.

Episode 12 - We Hate Hackers, But Love Skinners

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This is a photo I took at Sea World Orlando. It was a beautiful waterfall scene I thought others might enjoy.  The download includes multiple resolutions including widescreen.  I also included a link to download the logon for Windows Vista users.

Link:  Wallpaper

Link: Vista Logon

The latest edition of the SkinCast is up.  We have a great discussion about the launch of Impulse, and our special guest Seabass even takes the time to give several support tips on making the most out of Impulse.  After that Seabass tells us about his design and skinning skills, and also gives tips to people in 3D design and .dream creation.  It’s a great episode so be sure to check it out!

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If you already have, or are looking into purchasing WindowBlinds 6, then this new tutorial might be useful for you.  WindowBlinds is well known for its ability to change the visual styles in Windows Vista and XP, but it can also change and manage your wallpaper collection.  Read the full article over at WinCustomize.

Link: WindowBlinds 6: Changing and Managing Wallpapers

I’m solo on this weeks edition of the WinCustomize SkinCast as Zoomba is off doing real “work”.  However, I did have a great guest this week and that was Jorge (JcRabbit) who is the developer of WinStep.  I talk with Jorge about the development of WinStep and how Vista has affected the work.  We also touch on what we might see in the future from WinStep.

iTunes link: WC SkinCast #8

Podcast link: WC SkinCast #8

If you want a “military” style desktop then you will definitely be interested in the Camouflage MyColors theme from Stardock Design.  Over at WinCustomize I wrote a detailed look at this new theme with plenty of screenshots to go along.

Link: Camouflage MyColors Desktop Tour

Episode 5 of the WinCustomize SkinCast is up, and this weeks guest is David Roman (aka RomanDA).  We talk about several things, but the main topic this week was DesktopX.  We cover several DesktopX topics including the new community project site at www.desktopx.info.

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