While I was at PAX, I kept a notepad list of all the games that caught my eye. From console games to app games to indie games, there’s just so much exciting stuff filling the halls of this convention that it would be impossible to remember everything. As promised – today’s blog post is going to be the list of games I wrote down on my list.

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time: This was a co-op indie game I watched a demo of that looked colorful and fun and potentially good for the Team Hypercube channel. It takes place in space inside a pink Death Star where you’re running around controlling a ship while simultaneously fighting bad guys in space. Keep an eye out for playthroughs of this one.

Escape Goat 2: This was a simple but fun puzzle platformer where you play a goat progressing through a dungeon. I got to test this game out and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Mount Your Friends: I actually don’t remember how this game got on my list (because I didn’t actually see it at PAX), but I think someone just recommended it to me? From what I have read online, you use your friends bodies and a goat to climb to certain heights? Or something? I don’t know.

The new Plants vs. Zombies game from PopCap came out last week, and being from a native Seattle game company – they celebrated the launch accordingly:

Many have said in the past that the Space Needle looks more like a space craft than any sort of human building, and for this short time – they were right! The zombies have left their warning for our poor city, and now all we have left to do is fight back.

And fight back we will! In fact, I started playing Plants vs. Zombies 2 around the time this Space Needle stunt happened, and decided to film the experience for use on my game channel, Team Hypercube. I’m embedding the first video below if you’re interested, and be sure to subscribe to the channel if you want regular updates when new videos go up.

This is one of my favorite new publicity stunts to date. What sort of interesting marketing have you seen in the past that compares to this? Let me know in the comments!

At VidCon this year I managed to hook up with the people over at Loot Crate — which was a grand decision on my part! I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been at other events that Loot Crate was represented at in the past, and it’s not that I wasn’t interested in it then… but just that at VidCon they were selling My Little Pony Funko Pop! Vinyl Figures. Which instantly attracted me like a bug to a flame. While purchasing said My Little Pony figurine, we started talking, and they welcomed me into their YouTube Loot Crate community. Don’t know what Loot Crate is? Watch the video!

I posted my first unboxing video on my main channel pretty much just to inform people that I’ll be getting these each month, so if you want to catch any subsequent unboxing videos, you’ll want to make sure you’re subscribed to my second channel! I post a lot of casual/supplemental content like this over on that channel, as well as daily vlog type stuff, fanmail videos, and a strange series I call “Questions of the Universe”.

I’m working diligently on getting my Cave Diving/Spelunking video edited… I am so excited to tell you guys all about this crazy adventure I had. That’ll be going up soon, so keep an eye out. In the mean time – what kind of videos would you like to see most from me? I just bought a new handy vlogging camera so I’m playing around with the idea of filming more stuff out and about, which is something I kind of stopped doing for awhile there. Let me know in the comments!

Who DOESN’T love swag? If ask anyone (I mean anyone) what their favorite parts of a convention are, I guarantee “swag” will be at least in the top five. And if it’s not; they’re lying.

I’ve been talking about VidCon a lot on this blog, but it’s one of my biggest events of the year. And for those of you out there who didn’t make it, I want to try to at least give you a slice of what it was like, because no one wants to be left out!

So in this final VidCon write-up, here’s the swag I came home with. Let’s start with the free stuff:

• 1. Chapstick “business card” from bfftaylor. Brilliant! Functional! Adorable!
• 2. Endless Silky Eye Pen and Lip Blush from Pixi. Tried both already and I love them.
• 3. Lego themed moleskin (picked this up at the Subblime booth). So awesome!
• 4. YouTube branded phone screen cleaner. Incredibly useful!
• 5. Bare Essentials Marvelous Moxie lipgloss. This came in every VidCon bag.
• 6. “Nailed It!” nail art by Espionage Cosmetis. These just came out and they’re so much fun – check out the kickstarter they currently have running right now!

Next up, the stuff I actually bought at VidCon. Each year the Expo Hall gets bigger and bigger, and as that happens – it means more and more stuff to buy. Believe it or not though, I actually managed to keep it in my pants pretty well this year. My wallet, I mean. Come on, guys.

The first thing I purchased was this ADORABLE vinyl Pinkie Pie figurine by Funko (you can get them here on Amazon.com). I already have a small collection of Disney ones, but when I saw they’d started making My Little Pony ones, I was IN. I saw them for sale at the LootCrate booth, walked right up, handed them my money, and away we went. I have no regrets about this purchase. And I want more.

Next was the Cruella de Vil pin. I knew very little about the Disney pin trading phenomenon before this past weekend, but while I was at Disneyland my friend Sarah enlightened me. I don’t think I am ever going to be one of those hardcore back alley pin collectors, but I can see how it might be fun. So maybe I’ll get one pin per Disney trip. Or something. Anyway, I started with Cruella, since she was who I Disneybounded as that day. 🙂

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For being a self-proclaimed geek of 6 years and counting on YouTube, you’d think I would know more about this GeekWeek thing that’s currently going on – but I’m just as in the dark about it as the rest of you. So while I sit twiddling my thumbs waiting to see what YouTube currently classifies as “geeky”, I took my personal geekdom elsewhere. To Subblime!

I’ve been casually talking about anime for a few months now, but I’ve never really made it the focus of a video or anything. I’ve never been a daily vlogger because I like keeping some elements of my life to myself, and my love of anime has stayed one of those things for quite some time. But in thinking about what to do for GeekWeek, I decided it was time to come out of the Japanese animation closet. I’m not the world’s biggest anime nerd or anything, but I do quite like it. I had wall scrolls on my bedroom walls as a child. I collected Cardcaptors glossy stickers in a notebook. I used to have a binder full of Sailor Moon drawings I had done. I genuinely took Japanese in school so that watching subbed anime would be more fun.

I fell out of the hobby for awhile during later middle school and high school (I’m going to blame Harry Potter for that one), only to be reunited in the past year or so when my roommate Justin and I started watching about an anime a month.

Meet Kero-chan, or Kerberos – the ferocious lion guardian of the Clow!

So, if you want to head on over to my Subblime list, I’ve just posted a list of the anime I’ve seen with little blurbs about why I liked them. There’s also a giveaway – enter and you could win a complete season set of Ouran High School Host Club, the anime I am currently watching!

While I was away at VidCon, my roommate texted me saying a large ominous black box had arrived in the mail for me… from Taco Bell. This box; we’re talking big. It’s big enough to hold at least six puppies comfortably, or thirty pairs of shoes, or at least two hundred soft tacos.

Being that I was gone for almost a week though, I really desperately hoped two hundred soft tacos hadn’t been rotting in my swelteringly hot bedroom. Here’s the unboxing video I filmed as soon as I got home:

I’m not exactly sure how or when it happened, but Taco Bell has sort of become that super weird best friend you can’t quite remember how you met but are glad you get to hang out with on a regular basis anyway. I met their head marketing guy at VidCon (he was incredibly nice), and was super impressed with their t-shirt printing booth. Did anyone see my friends walking around with those stupid tees with my face on them? Thanks a lot for that, Taco Bell.  -_-

Photo courtesy of Kassie King. <3

Anyway, the last thought I want to end on is that… sometimes I forget how weird my life is. Being a YouTuber for as long as I have starts to desensitize you to it – and the weirdness starts to become normal. For instance, Liz came home to this Doritos photo shoot happening in my room last night and she didn’t even bat an eye. “Oh course Justin is taking pictures of Kristina while she’s covered in bags of Doritos,” Liz thought as she arrived home from work. “Can’t wait to help her eat all of those Doritos,” was her only reaction.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever received in the mail? One time a friend of mine sent me a postcard from a road trip she was on that was entirely made out of tree bark, but I think ten bags of chips has stolen first place for me. Leave a comment and let me know!