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Look at your keyboard. It's filled with keys! Some of them you love using. Some of them you probably rarely use. In Japan, a new survey (via R25) revealed which ones were totally unpopular among the country's PC users. For those who don't know Japanese, be aware that when people type the language, they use the same QWERTY keys that English speakers use (software converts the touch typing into Japanese characters). The keyboards are slightly different, but on a daily basis, folks in Japan are clacking away on alphabetical characters. According to a poll of three hundred Japanese men and women (150 men; 150 women) between the ages of 25 and 34, the top five personal computer keys that people don't really use are: 5. "Insert" 3. "F12" (tied with below) 3. "F6" 2. "F3" 1. "Pause/Break" The "Pause/Break" key can, as Answers.com points out, launch your system properties. It also was used in DOS commands to pause scrolling and has been used to pause games. These days, it's not uncommon for some computers to ditch the Pause/Break key entirely. What about you? Which keys do you rarely use? PCキーボード「使わないキー」は？ [R25] Photo: Shutterstock To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

The world does not need any more MOBA (League of Legends, DOTA 2) games, thanks. The ones we've got are more than enough for that crowd. What we do need more of, though, are space combat games, and if they've got to try and bring something fresh to the MOBA genre to do it, then so be it. This is GoD Factory: Wingmen, an unfortunate name for a very promising-looking game. In terms of structure, it's all MOBA. You construct your own "character" (in this case, a starfighter), team up and try to destroy the other team's carrier, all the while protecting your own. In terms of gameplay, though, it couldn't be further from the clickfest LoL or DOTA fans are used to. GoD is a space shooter, and a reasonably serious one at that, going the "realistic" route in that it takes zero-gravity, drift and alignment into account. Developed by Nine Dots Studio, it's currently up for voting on Steam Greenlight. GoD Factory: Wingman [Steam]

Pixel Press appears to hit that sweet spot where technology, ambition and design come together to bring to life something you could once only dream about. It's part-game, part-app which comes in two parts. The first is a basic sketching kit, a downloadable and printable template that's basically just an enormous sheet of squares. Users can colour in those squares to create the pixellated design of their choosing. When they're done, the app is able to read the special sheet design and turn it into a video game platforming level, users able to add stuff like a skin and music, as well as test to make sure the app works. While it appears to be geared mainly towards students, there's no stopping anyone older from trying their hand at it either. It all sounds a bit magic, but the fact it's restricted to grids makes it all seem a lot more practical. Those after a more comprehensive run-down of how it all works, the team's Kickstarter page has a nice clear breakdown of the tech and their goals. Pixel Press: Draw Your Own Video Game [Kickstarter]

This morning we're looking at the art of Justin Fields, who over the last few years has worked at some of Hollywood's best concept and effects studios, such as The Aaron Sims Company, Amalgamated Dynamics and Halon Entertainment. If you've been to the movies lately you've probably seen his stuff; Fields got the chance to contribute to Iron Man 3, and is also working on a number of upcoming films like the Wachowski's Jupiter Ascending and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. And games? He most recently worked on Blink, an impressive first-person stealth title that we've covered previously. You can see more of Justin's work at his personal site and CGHub page. To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

It can sometimes feel like the world is being buried beneath independently-developed PC games, leaving us with far too many to keep up with. So Pixel Prospector has done us all a favour and put this clip together, rounding up 55 of the best-looking indie games either on the way or out recently, dropping them in the single highlights video. 55 Fresh Indie Games [Pixel Prospector]

Bit of a quiet week in cosplay last week, so there's not much new stuff to share. Thankfully, there's some new shots of favourite old costumes to get us through the dry spell. I'll never get tired of seeing cel-shaded Borderlands cosplay. Never. Such a simple but effective touch. I will also post any and all Half-Life 2 cosplay I come across. Especially when it forgoes the obvious and pays tribute to the game's best-dressed cannon fodder. To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner. Fancy Pants is Kotaku's weekly round-up of the best in video game cosplay (costume play), where fans dress up as their favourite characters. As seen on TimmCosplay. As seen on VampBeauty. As seen on Nebulaluben. As seen on sweet-little-world. As seen on ArtisansdAzure. As seen on keruuu. As seen on neko-tin.

Got time for one last set of Next Xbox rumours? The Wall Street Journal has some.

This is Frontiers, a game designed and being developed by two men. Something that blows your mind when you see footage of the game in action. Developers AAD Productions describe it like this: FRONTIERS blends the feel of first-person RPG classics like Daggerfall with the relaxing tempo & simplicity of a point-and-click adventure. Discover ancient mysteries, live off the land and fight deadly creatures, all in a beautiful & massive open world. An open-world RPG? With a relaxing tempo? Good Lord, it's like they asked me what I wanted from a video game and decided to go out and make it. Frontiers will hopefully be out next year. Frontiers [Facebook, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Spicy Horse's Oz game combines the undead with "an Oz not of our remembering" - it's called OZombie, and it stars Dorothy, Toto, the Lion and the Tin Woodsman. The Scarecrow, who always wanted brains, is cast as the villain in this iteration, and instead of carrying around a basket, Dorothy gets a repeater.

Spicy Horse is unsure which game it will make next, OZombie or Alice: Otherlands, and it all depends on whether the studio can regain the Alice rights from EA. If Spicy Horse and EA work out a good deal, then Alice it is. If not, OZombie gets the green light and probably a Kickstarter.

"Actually, the more I think about it - and the more I see/hear feedback from you guys - the more I'm personally leaning towards Oz," Spicy Horse founder American McGee writes on the OZombie Facebook page. "There's so much fun stuff to explore, so many interesting characters and locations to discover. Wonderland will also be there, if not today, if not the next project, then perhaps the one after that?"

Keep in mind (and mind your brains) that OZombie is entirely separate from American McGee's Oz, the game Atari canceled in 2004.

Cards Against Humanity was once a Kickstarter asking for $4000. It's since made over $12 million in revenue. Here's a great writeup on how the game, and its creators, got there.

There are genuinely attractive Kickstarters, there are joke Kickstarters, and then there are Kickstarters like this, which somehow manages to be both at once. Flying Assault Butts is a campaign to add a...very special new miniature to your tabletop game of choice. Of a butt. Warhammer, Warmachine, an RPG, whatever. It can now have an assault butt. There is backstory. In the Grimdarkmost far future, war has engulfed the galaxy. A plague has come from the furthest dimensions of the unknown, wiping out whole populations. The plague causes an unspeakable agony as the victim's butt takes on a life of it's own, tearing itself away to attack mindlessly. Perhaps it's some government science project gone awry. Perhaps it's, I don't know, magic or something. What I do know is: The Butt Wars rage. Now: awesome news. Because the campaign has already blown past its original target, there are more butt designs on the way to complement the original "batwings". Like the pirate Captain Buttbeard. And the The Rampaging Rumpagon. Wonderful. The campaign isn't done yet, so if you want to contribute - and maybe bring the world more tabletop butt monster designs - please, do so. Miniature Wargaming - Flying Assault Butts [Kickstarter, via BOLS]

Deathstroke is a playable character in Batman: Arkham Origins, according to this preorder offer (of course) from Amazon. Click this link and then on the Arkham Origins box in lower right to see it. [via TheSlanted]

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, but potentially tragic. Games and consoles are currency, objects of dispute, sometimes even weapons themselves. Kotaku's Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. Faces of Resisting Arrest WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—A guy whose head looks like someone chose the randomize feature in MLB 13 The Show's player-creation menu is in jail after burglarizing his cousin's apartment, reports WPBF-TV. Deputies say Florida Man Doyle Washburn Jr. (pictured) relieved his cousin of a PlayStation 2 and attempted to crawl out of a bedroom window with the merchandise, valued at $25 in GameStop store credit if it has the component video cables. He had "what appeared to be cords in his pants," says WPBF, so, good, then. Washburn resisted arrest, said deputies, which required a beating "hobbling," and a visit to the hospital for an X-ray. Washburn tried to run away there, but a deputy beat on him some more "tackled him against the wall." New Photo GameFace, right here. Kill/Death Ratio Doesn't Mean What You Think, Lady SLOUGH, ENGLAND—Some kids bring home a nasty note from their teacher. A 15-year-old at a special education school in England brought home cops in body armor and a search warrant, after his teacher mistook conversation about Call of Duty for a plot to buy a firearm. Though the matter has been cleared up, his mother is none too happy, reports The Daily Telegraph of London (in its print edition yesterday). The school's head teacher justified the reaction, though. "Although there was no weapon, if we hadn't taken action and there had been, the consequences could have been devastating." Don't Fake Burglary, Robble Robble HOPATCONG, N.J.—A 33-year-old man faked a break-in at his own house in order to pay a debt, police say. NJ.com reports Christopher Kelly, 33, reported he'd been burgled of a Timex watch, several Wii games, and, uh, $2,600 of his girlfriend's cash. Police thought it odd that security video at a nearby store didn't show anyone in the area around the time of the burglary, that drawers in the bedroom were left open but otherwise untouched, and, oh yeah, an adult was sleeping upstairs during the time of the burglary and heard nothing. Kelly's girlfriend thought he was at work at the time but it turns out he had been fired about a month before. She later recorded him admitting he faked the whole thing to pay someone back. These Aren't the Victims You're Looking For GREENVILLE, N.C.—Cops in this eastern North Carolina city say a couple of burglars busted down the wrong door but still cleaned out the residence of its liquifiable consumer electronics. Police say four men "were looking for something specific," according to WNCT-TV and forced their way into the apartment before realizing they were in the wrong place. They took a TV, mobile phones and "an Xbox gaming console." School Days, School Days, Dear Old Torrented SDKs MIDDLESBROUGH, ENGLAND—Johnathan Waring, a student at Teesside University faces a potential prison sentence of 10 years after pleading guilty to distributing the PlayStation 3's software development kit over the Internet, which he had obtained through the games development course he was taking at the time. "The court heard that his actions could have cost Sony millions of pounds worth of damage to its system," reports the Evening Gazette, in that the SDK could show others how to defeat antipiracy measures. The offense occurred sometime in November or December 2011. Just Say No to Copyright Infringement WINNIPEG—Cops raided a head shop here not necessarily because it was selling weed, but because its bongs infringed on a bunch of copyrights, among them Angry Birds and Nintendo characters, and that sends a real bad message to kids. This might have been a creative way to crack down on on a paraphernalia dealer, but it didn't put him out of business. "The Joint" has slyly rebranded itself as "The Joint: Tobacconist and Glass Gallery" and is back open for business on St. Mary's Road for 'Peggers with need for natural or homeopathic medicine supplies. [CBC News] Lots of strange things happen in the pages of your local newspaper or on the 6 o'clock news. If you see something, say something. To me, that is. I'd like to write it up. Remember: You need not reveal your identity. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

I spend a lot of time staring at our release calendar. For my job, I mean. I don't just sit there staring in a fetishistic way; that would be super creepy. Rather, I use it a lot to try and figure out what games we have/need for upcoming review and Quick Look content. If you ever bother to look at this page as I do, you may have noticed that since April, the calendar's been a bit dry. In fact, for a long while there, last week's calendar only showed one new game: Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move, an eShop download for the 3DS. By the time the week began, that calendar began to fill out a bit more, with such rousing titles as the (delayed) XBLA version of Monaco, a PS2 Classics re-release of Fatal Frame II, and the advergame Doritos Crash Course 2.

Though I sort of wish it weren't hitting, quite literally, THE DAY after E3 ends, I'm thrilled that a game as big as The Last of Us is coming out in a space where most big games fear to tread.

Yep, it's official: We are in the thick of the spring/summer doldrums.

It happens every year. By the time the holiday season winds down, game releases begin to dry up. It used to be that we wouldn't see much of anything for the entire first half of the year, though in recent years the first quarter has at least been a steady home of big releases that either slipped out of the holiday schedule, or just floated into March to help pad out a publisher's fiscal report. This February/March was actually pretty heavy with quality game releases. But now that we've gone past the end of every publisher's fiscal year (which ends on March 31), the quality has begun to take a precipitous dip.

Things aren't as bad as they used to be by any stretch, but as I look through this year's current release calendar, all I see for weeks on end are one, maybe two noteworthy releases pocking each month's schedule. This week, we got the one-two punch of Metro: Last Light and Dust 514. Two weeks after that, the Insomniac-developed multiplayer shooter Fuse (which one gets the impression EA couldn't figure out a better release week for). The week after that, Capcom's futuristic adventure Remember Me is the biggest game of the week (see previous parenthetical, substitute Capcom for EA). Then, the week of E3, Animal Crossing: New Leaf hits, followed that Friday by The Last of Us. Eventually we'll see the likes of Game & Wario, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and Deadpool, but that's about it until the calendar picks up again in August.

Such is the way of the spring/summer release calendar. A few big games spread across months of time, like butter scraped across too much toast. This notion of back-loading game releases into the holiday season is practically as old as the industry itself. After all, video games began, at least from a marketing perspective, as an offshoot of the toy industry. It's irrefutable fact that people spend more money on toys and video games during the holiday season than they do any other time of the year. That's been true even during our most recent recession, and it's seemingly been the guiding ethos for publishers looking to find an ideal calendar spot for all their big games.

But just because sales invariably pick up heavily in the holiday months doesn't mean that there isn't value in those long, hot, slow summer months. Microsoft practically owned the digital game market when it introduced its Summer of Arcade push. Out of that promotion, hugely popular downloadable titles like Geometry Wars 2, Braid, Shadow Complex, Limbo, and Bastion have emerged. Now Microsoft even has competition from Sony, with its PSN Play program, which theoretically should inspire both companies to be pushing for higher quality summer content. Then again, considering what a drag most of Microsoft AND Sony's summer digital lineups were last year (a few outstanding games like Sound Shapes and Dust: An Elysian Tail notwithstanding), one can't help but wonder how much either company will be pushing their respective campaigns this year. Especially when you consider that both have new consoles to focus on peddling.

The Vita has some fun indie games popping up in the PSN store, but it's not like Sony is actively promoting this stuff much.

The conventional wisdom says that kids and older student types don't buy games during the spring and summer because they're outside, traveling with family, or in weeks like this one, hard at work on finals. That's all fairly accurate to a degree, provided you're still working under the notion that video games are primarily bought by, or for, kids/college students. I imagine that's still a very big chunk of the overall gaming demographic, but we're long past the point of adults buying console, handheld, and PC games being an aberration.

And even if you are thinking solely about the kids, okay, then why not make the spring and summer months the designated home for all major handheld games? Kids who travel will eventually become bored of whatever they've traveled to see, and will look for time to spend with their 3DS and/or Vita. Given that the Vita is now well over a year old, I am legitimately flabbergasted that Sony hasn't made a bigger push to put more noteworthy Vita games out during the next several months. Right now, the only major title I'm aware of coming up for the Vita any time soon is Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (though thankfully, there are some good downloadable indie titles popping up here and there as well). Sony might be dedicating more resources to PS4 development and promotion right now, but if there's any notion still floating around in the heads of Sony's executives that the Vita might still be salvageable in the US market, then why not focus toward getting big Vita games into the hands of players when they would theoretically have the most free time? Assuming, of course, there are any big Vita games currently forthcoming...

Nintendo doesn't even have that next-gen console excuse. If anything, the 3DS is what's keeping Nintendo in decent working order these days. There are no shortage of big, upcoming 3DS games, but few of them have release dates prior to this August. In fact, only Animal Crossing and the 3DS remake of Donkey Kong Country Returns are hitting store shelves prior to the end of the summer. Mario Golf: World Tour could potentially still be squeezed in there, but even still, that's not exactly a banger of a lineup for an entire four-month period. I was legitimately shocked when, during Friday's Nintendo Direct, Iwata had nothing of note new to offer for the 3DS' summer lineup. I figured if they were having an event focused on summer releases, then maybe there would be more, like, you know, actual summer releases.

A game like Pokemon X/Y will sell to its intended audience no matter what time of year you put it out. So why not put it out at a time when the competition is light to begin with?

Nothing is going to change this year's release trajectory. With so many eyes squarely focused on this holiday season--one of the exquisitely rare "new consoles" breed--this summer's release schedule is largely expendable, peppered with last hurrahs for the current slate of hardware, and leftover, less eminently marketable games publishers clearly hope will benefit from minimal competition. By the time we do get to the end of August, dozens of huge games will start converging on the ever-narrowing weeks between then and November, all vying for a limited number of dollars. The bottleneck will result in some big games doing extremely well, and a lot of other games being called "disappointments" in their publishers' future financial conference calls. I assure you, it's going to be an absolute bloodbath.

It doesn't always have to be that way. There are 52 weeks every year when publishers could theoretically be releasing new games. Instead of building every major development cycle toward a narrow window of supposedly ideal retail conditions, spacing out our releases over the entirety of the year could help relieve some of the tension of the big holiday push. And if you're so worried about games coming out in the summer and dying at retail in the fall, then why not time some big, meaty DLC to release around that holiday season, both as a bonus for people who already bought, and an enticement for those who haven't yet? It's not like we haven't figured out any number of ways to extend a game's lifespan in recent years. Pretending that people will only buy games so long as they hit store shelves around the holidays feels like an archaic way of thinking, one long overdue to at least be experimented with and tweaked, if not overhauled altogether.

--A

Next week we should have plenty of absurd things and derpfaces coming out of the Next Xbox reveal, so it's premature to parody that right now. We need a more timeless exploitable, something like—oh, yeah, this bigass statue of Robocop. Here we go. The statue, remember, was a Kickstarter initiative to place a tribute to Detroit's greatest protector in the city of Detroit, whether the hell Detroit likes it or not. It doesn't really matter that the thing is unfinished, it's Robocop, go to town. Source Image: Bigass Robocop statue. While most of you are smart enough to figure out how to upload images, here are some simple steps to take for those less familiar with the practice. 1. Create your 'Shop and save it to your desktop. 2. Go to the bottom of this post and click "Discuss." 3. This brings up a comment window. Click the icon that looks like a picture. 4. This brings up another window called "Insert Image." Click "Choose file" if you're uploading your 'shop from your desktop 5. Alternatively, you can upload the 'Shop to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. Then paste the image's URL into the field that says "Image URL." Note: this must be the URL of the image itself, not the page where it is displayed. That means the URL ends in .jpg, .gif, .png, whatever. 6. Add editorial commentary and hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, upload the image to imgur and paste the image URL as a comment. I promise I will look at it. 7. I'm not sure if we still have file size restrictions under Kinja but it's probably a good idea to keep your image size under 1 MB. This is especially true for animated .gifs. If you're still having trouble uploading the image, try to keep its longest dimension (horizontal or vertical) under 1000 pixels. Alright! Have at it. Thanks very much for your participation. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Welcome to Kotaku's Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics, chosen by our readership. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner. Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto. Published May 14. Read more of Brawl In The Family Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Published May 17. Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published May 13. Read more of Awkward Zombie Manly Guys Doing Manly Things by Kelly Turnbull. Published May 16. Read more of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published May 15. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Brentalfloss the Comic by Brent Black, Andrew Dobson and Dan Roth. Published May 16. Read more of Brentalfloss the Comic Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie. Published May 13. Read more of Virtual Shackles Another Videogame Webcomic by Phil Chan and Joe Dunn. Published May 17. Read more of Another Videogame Webcomic Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published May 16. Read more of Corpse Run To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

If you went up to the average student and asked them if they wished school was more like a video game you would almost certainly get a passionate "YES!" I'm sure if you asked most adults they'd also put their vote in favor of making their tedious work day more fun and exciting. Gamification is in no way a new idea, but it's one that is still evolving at a rapid pace. For the last two years of my adult life (which coincidentally are the only two years of my adult life) I have had the pleasure of being a 6th grade teacher in central Indiana. Gaming has always been a huge part of my everyday routine and in the middle of my first year of teaching I decided to bring a gaming aspect to my classroom. With a designer friend and an extensive knowledge of video games I created the classroom management system called ClassRealm. ClassRealm is a way to help students get more involved in their school work and in the classroom in general. Students can earn experience points, levels and achievements by doing simple school related items such as participating in class discussions, helping clean up the room and getting assignments done on time. It worked exceptionally well with my first year class and I decided to do a little write up on the results. Kotaku writer Owen Good was kind enough to published my story on a lazy Sunday in March and the response was outstanding. After the original article was posted I received dozens and dozens of emails from people all over the world telling me they wanted to use ClassRealm in their classroom or saying they wished their child had it at their local school. I was overwhelmed with all the requests and the amount of people who wanted to help or be a part of ClassRealm in some way. I decided if we really wanted to fund ClassRealm (which wasn't fully developed at the time) we needed to Kickstart it. I wasn't sure if I could even Kickstart a classroom management system, as it wasn't a game or video game in the traditional sense. I assembled a small team of computer savvy friends and a wonderfully talented illustrator from Australia and we set up our Kickstarter in a little over two months. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Coverage from local news, WIRED magazine and gaming sites helps us gain exposure across the web, but we were asking for a lot - 65 thousand dollars. Pitching gamification is a difficult task. Gamers know that educational based gaming has traditionally been pretty lame. Sure, when Mario teaches typing it's more entertaining, but it hardly makes a difference. Why give money to a system that you, personally, are not going to use? It's not a game for gamers, it's a game for students. Many educators on the other hand have a view towards gaming that is less than accepting. Video games are violent. They rot our students brains and make them into mindless zombies. Why would you want to promote video game concepts in the world of education? Gamers and educators - these were my two biggest audiences and many were on the fence as to whether it was worth the time and money to collaborate. Even with these obsicles we managed to raise 25 thousand dollars. Which is phenomenal. It's outrageous. Who gives 25K to a group of young adults to make a video game based classroom system? The support we got was fantastic (Even one of my heros, Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade, mentioned it as "important"), but in the end 25K isn't 65K. We had failed and now all I had was a great idea and no money to make it happen. A team and no way to pay them. A product which people emailed me about daily, but I had no way of giving them. I don't link a lot of Kickstarters but this one is special and I think...important. kickstarter.com/projects/13672… — cwgabriel (@cwgabriel) May 11, 2012 I kept talking to friends, developers, and designers about possibly helping us create the online interface for ClassRealm that we so desperately wanted to build, but the conversations always fell short. Who wants to build a system for free? Even your best friends are smarter than that. I felt like I was stuck in a catch 22. I didn't have enough of an online system built to pitch my product and gain funding. I didn't have enough funding to make the online system so I could pitch it. It's the classic start-up conundrum. Fans of ClassRealm offered ideas and sometimes even berated me for not putting all I had, money wise, into the idea. I felt selfish, but on a teachers salary I wasn't exactly bringing in loads of cash to begin with. A wedding and a new house added to my mental agreement that I shouldn't throw all I had into my idea, no matter how much I believed in it. A few other gamification sites approached me about maybe building on top of their structure, but once again it didn't work out. I tried as hard as I could to contact the folks behind ClassDojo, with the hopes that they would want to collaborate and make ClassRealm a reality. They never responded, no matter how hard tried to contact them. I even applied for a job with them just to get their attention, but to this day I have heard nothing back. I guess my ideas didn't warrant a response in their eyes. In December of last year I was named by Kotaku as one of their "Gamers of the Year", which was a great surprise as I had been off the news grid for some time. It was also another reason I felt I had to find a way to get ClassRealm out to more classrooms. My original team, while supportive, felt it was best to move on from ClassRealm. Just put it on the shelf for a rainy day or for a time when we had more money and more resources. As heartbroken as it made me I had to agree with them that it was the right move... for them. I, on the other hand, was going to keep at it. Surely someone somewhere would take a chance and help us create this system. Through some connections I managed to line up a lunch with two of the higher-ups at a company called Evanced Games. The company works on reading programs, educational games, and educational software for schools and libraries across the world, so they seemed like a perfect choice to adopt ClassRealm. The Evanced guys listened intently as I described all I had done and how ClassRealm had helped my students throughout my last year of teaching. Eventually it got to the point where they said that while ClassRealm sounded great it wasn't really something they could fit into their schedule. They suggested that they would pass it on to one of their higher-ups and see what they thought. Sure, why not. I'd held out hope this long, why not wait and see. What happened next was unexpected, as I had gone in feeling it wasn't even a possibility. Evanced Games offered me a summer job. Doing what, you ask? Working on, evaluating, pitching, and creating educational games and programs. They wanted to pay me to combine two of my biggest passions. Needless to say I was overjoyed and told them I was very interested in working with them. Their ideas for reading programs and bringing educational games out of the classroom are phenomenal. I've been assigned the title of "Educational Game Specialist", which is quite possibly the raddest job title in the history of the world, and I'm counting down the days until I get to start my new summer job. ClassRealm, much like gamification itself, has evolved rapidly since I first thought it up in late 2011. I still use it in my classroom everyday. While the system still sits in the back of my mind waiting to reach its full potential, I have a whole summer of working on educational games to look forward to. I haven't given up on ClassRealm. Not even close. But for now all my ideas for an online system and the expansion of ClassRealm will have to wait. The experience I gain as a teacher and at my new job as a "Game Specialist" will surely help me make ClassRealm into a system that will inspire teachers, students, and parents everywhere to admit something they may have never believed - gaming belongs in the classroom. Have ideas for ClassRealm or just want to talk gaming in education? Shoot me an email at ben@classrealm.com or hit up my personal Twitter account. I always love to talk about possibilites.

In case you were wondering, that incredibly rare instruction manual from the Nintendo 64 video game ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut ended up selling for $1,377.

Oculus Rift isn't even in production and the VR device already has been put to that most basic of human needs—vigilante executions. If experiencing the guillotine in full stereoscopic view isn't intense enough, feast your eyes on this week's set of 'Shop Contest winners, led by arniejolt! Acnyc2000 (This means "Will there be cake after this?") Aidil42 arniejolt Atomrocker Flawed_Logic GiantBoyDetective Herdman2402 Mayjay omegakirby Pylyp toolsoldier uscg_pa To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Valve was at work on a set of augmented reality glasses when several employees were let go back in the winter. Two of them are continuing to work on the project, with the company's blessings. The Verge has video of it in action.

New Jersey's state senate voted unanimously for a program that will print up a bunch of pamphlets about the dangers of scary, scary video games and send them home with schoolchildren. The bill, sponsored by Democrats, now moves to the state Assembly.

The totally improvised, 7 1/2 minute filibuster from an episode of NBC's Parks & Recreation last month, in which Patton Oswalt outlines his vision of Star Wars: Episode VII (with Marvel crossovers) could not possibly have been more perfect, could it? Well, yes, it could, actually ... YouTube video uploaded by iZacLess To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

This gameplay video for Grid 2 shows a racer drifting around turns on a downhill course in Okutama, Tokyo in Japan. Grid 2 is coming to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on May 28.

What's happened in the business of video games this past week ... QUOTE | "That idea of saying, 'you're not allowed.' What a bunch of elitist bullshit. Go [expletive] yourself."—David Jaffe, veteran designer, talking about consulting on a Kickstarter for Autoduel and why critics of some Kickstarters annoy him. QUOTE | "The downside didn't appear until sometime later when we found it difficult to develop the games we wanted to do."—Tony Goodman, founder of Ensemble Studios, talking about his company's acquisition by Microsoft. QUOTE | "Is the crowd really wise or just mediocre, incapable of recognizing and rewarding the new and different?"—Veteran designer Warren Spector, talking about why Metacritic should be irrelevant. QUOTE | "A lot of those big companies that were the poster children for social games are really struggling now."—Rob Small, CEO of MiniClip, talking about the difficulty of doing free-to-play games. QUOTE | "THQ was brilliant at what it did from 1991 to 2007."—Former THQ exec Danny Bilson, talking about the downfall of THQ and how he felt terrible about it. QUOTE | "The serious gamers are much more stable, and they're going to be around for a long time and will keep playing games."—Legendary designer Sid Meier, explaining why he's continuing to make games for a core audience, regardless of the platform. QUOTE | "There's also a tension between headline-grabbing creative indie mavericks and 'microstudios' like ourselves."—Paul Taylor of studio Mode 7, talking about making more traditional games on multiple platforms. STAT | $3.75 million —Amount of money mobile game Puzzle & Dragons was earning per day in April; publisher GungHo Entertainment's market cap of $15.1 billion is now greater than Nintendo's $15 billion. STAT | 25%—Drop in retail sales of games, game hardware and accessories in the US in April, versus sales in April 2012; software sales were down 17% and hardware sales dropped 42%. QUOTE | "I think people really are fairly thrilled about what we have now."—ESA senior communications VP Rich Taylor, talking about why the E3 show is still vital to the game industry. This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International Image by Shutterstock

Helloooo Kotaku! Happy weekend to you. This has been quite the busy week, what with Stephen off at a pre-E3, week-long event. Fortunately, he was still prepared with gifts. Gifts in the form of previews of Watch Dogs, The Last of Us and Scribblenauts Unmasked, disappointing but perhaps expected news from EA, and a cute perspective from Nintendo. Check out his stories and everyone else's over on Kotaku Selects. On to what you're looking at above over there. That's Octodad—the silly game about raising a family while also trying to pretend like you're not totally obviously a friggin' octopus—combined with everyone's favorite meth show—Breaking Bad. Courtesy of the very talented Will Olthouse, and found by tigsource. Oh, and, I started my new column this week! I think it went well. Don't hesitate to send me questions for next week's edition. Have a good one, everyone. To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

It's not everyday you see a naked man riding a scooter with giant cross. Warning: This article has content some readers might find objectionable. Last month, Kotaku brought word of a Beijing man who ran through the streets nude while carrying a sex doll. Online in China, the images soon went viral, and one Chinese blogger compared the incident to a real-life Temple Run. This month, the same gentleman returned; however, this time he was carrying a huge crucifix. According to Chinese social networking sites, he was once again spotted in Beijing's Wangjing area (which is known as the city's Koreatown) and which also houses many tech companies. The Chinese media even reported this latest incident by the "Wingjing Streaker". Besides the dash, there was also a buck-naked moped ride. Both with a giant crucifix. Last night on social networking site Sina Weibo, a man Li Binyuan admitted that he was the Wingjing Streaker. "I've done this about 10 times," Li admitted. "So far, only 6 times have been recorded and put online by spectators." Photos of the Wangjing Streaker started to go viral in China last month. Li, a graduate of the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts, works as an artist in China. He's still young and is still trying to make a name for himself. But this isn't necessarily an art project per se—though, it certainly does have elements of performance art. "At first, it all started because I was bored and this seemed fun," said Li. "Later, it just became something to do." Li said that he had hit a wall with his work and was frustrated. He needed a release, and for him, streaking fulfilled that. "Every time I finish a run, I always check online to see what people online are saying about me," said Li. "The internet creates such a wonderful way to interact, and I really want to see what others think of this thing I'm doing. It makes conversation online." Li's art can break the public and private space in arresting ways. For example, in 2010, Li had himself filmed on the subway in China, as he brushed his teeth, washed his face, and then lathered up to shave his face with a razor. He even brought a bottle of water, a cup, and a bowl so he could gargle and wash up after he finished. All this occurred on a crowded subway. Onlookers either ignored Li or took digipics. While there's probably no law against brushing your teeth or shaving on a train, public nudity is a crime in China. Li doesn't think what he did was wrong, adding that when people are stressed out, they need to cut loose. A Beijing lawyer named Liu Xiaoyuan is quoted as saying this is illegal, but added that since the incidents occurred at night (and perhaps didn't disturb the peace), criminal charges are unlikely. After admitting he was the Wangjing Streaker, Li wrote online this was the last time he will run naked in public, saying, "I'm done. Bye-bye." 北京の韓国人街に「十字架を担いだ全裸の男」、深夜街を駆け回る姿が目撃される―中国報道 [新华网] 望京再现男子扛十字架裸奔 [组图] 一号线上 [东方视觉] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond.

If OKCupid was a dating site for cats, you'd probably find these types of creepy felines on there all the time. Sometimes, not so different from the creeps you might find on the site anyway.

I know you've been worried. You've been keeping your phone in that heavily-padded case in a locked lead box under your bed. Your iPad is in a safe, and not for its own protection. You've got handcuffs for your Nexus 7, and not the kinky kind. Well do not worry, my friends. None of this week's gaming apps will kill you. That's not to say they don't want to kill you. It's not even really a want, more of a compulsion. Kind of like — what's that movie where the kids cheat death and he catches up to him? Oh yeah, it's like Footloose. Last week you were supposed to die, but I warned you, and now 80s Kevin Bacon is angry, and he's got death on speed dial. Look, I don't know what you did to piss off Kevin Bacon from several decades in the past, but I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with playing Gravity Guy 2, Grump Bears, This is Not a Ball Game or Calixa: The Code Breaker. So just relax. Leave your devices on your bedside table, unprotected. Turn on an episode of The Following, which is safe because it starts modern haggard Kevin Bacon. Leave the kitchen knives out. I am sure everything is going to be just fine. Maybe wear a kevlar tie. What We Played This Week I Am MT - iOS - Free A ridiculously popular card game all over the world North America is working to fix that. It's a card collector, but it's got a very distinctive faux-action style that keeps me tapping. ERA HD Deluxe - iOS - Free A rather pretty little defense-type game with unique units, a large variety of enemies, an endless mode, hero abilities — there's a lot here for free. Gravity Guy 2 - iOS - $.99 An endless runner with a platforming twist, sequel to a game called Gravity Guy! The character runs across a series of platforms the player can raise to fling him through the air. Takes a little getting used to. So exciting my volume control is in the screenshot. Tomb Breaker - iOS - Free A fun, free match game where you aren't limited to the gems next to each other. As long as you can trace a straight line from one of the same color to another, it's on. Wonderful bathroom game. This is Not a Ball Game - iOS - Free An achingly gorgeous psychics game with a wonderful French circus style. It would be perfect, if not for the timers and ball purchases and restrictions and replaying cinematics — it's at least worth looking at. Chuck the Muck - iOS, Android - Free A charming, friend-friendly puzzler involving goo and the uses of goo. The iOS version's had some missing file errors, but otherwise it's groovy, in a goopy sort of way. Calixa: Code Breaker - Android - Free It's safe-cracking in the form of math logic puzzles, and damn if I don't love math logic puzzles. This one's staying on my phone forever. Grumpy Bears - Android, iOS - Free Bears are coming after you with heavy military ordinance, and you're in the back of a pickup truck armed with dynamite, hammers, and a wide variety of hurty, pokey things. They want your honey. You want their skulls. a hell of a good time. App Reviews for the Week of May 13-17 If You're Into Endless Running, Might As Well Be Running With Friends With its growing focus on mobile gaming and its penchant for trying to out-popular already popular games, Zynga was going to get around to stepping on Temple Run's toes eventually, and what better way than to combine the joy of endless running with the trusted ...With Friends brand? The result is a combination I'm…Read… Screw It, I Can't Wait To Tell You How Good Bombcats Is Luke Schneider of Radiangames has created some of the coolest bite-sized shooters I've played, starting with Xbox Live Indies and then graduating to mobile platforms. Just check out theRadiangames tag here at Kotaku and see how much well-deserved love we've given him. Radiangames latest doesn't hit iOS until…Read… Space... The Final Fantasy Card Game... This Is Star Trek Rivals. If you loved Triple Triad and Tetra Master, the collectible card games included in Final Fantasy VIII and IX respectively, then you'll probably be quite annoyed by the format being utilized in this cash-hungry free-to-play movie tie-in. Read… Snails Smoke Fast And Furious In The Battle Of The Mobile Movie Racers This movie season sees not one but two different racing films hitting theaters — one aimed at a younger, less-mature audience, and the other an animated snail movie from the folks at DreamWorks Animation. One of the two scored a rather entertaining little mobile game tie-in this week. The other just adds drifting to <a…< a="">Read…

Friday is here! Put on some REO Speedwagon, your big boots, and then kick the crap out of a camera.

It's like Limbo, but with magnets! Magnetic by Nature looks pretty neat, especially for a student project. Check out the Kickstarter if you're interested.