Insomniac's swank Hard Rock Hotel soiree had plenty of free drinks and enough cupcakes for everyone, but I did manage to pull myself away from the red velvet/cream cheese frosting goodness long enough to snap a picture of the winner and his mighty fine prize. Behold the Spiral of Death, in the plastic flesh! The Spiral of Death, or SoD as we will eventually affectionately come to know it, shoots buzz saw blades out in a spiral sweeping maneuver, eventually returning to Ratchet like a yo-yo performing a very deadly version of around-the-world.

The proud creator, whose name probably isn't cupcake, gets to bring that monstrosity home and display it on his monstrosity displaying shelf, eventually selling it on eBay to buy himself a house. Congratulations, not-cupcake!

Video Game Party Decor [SGA Creative's Flickr gallery]
[via The Tanooki]

Pacman Cupcakes [Hello Naomi, via BoingBoing]

More detailed pics of these fine pastries at the Flickr photostream.

Super Mario Cupcakes [Flickr - thanks, AxleMunshine!]

While I was looking over Bungie's most recent weekly update, I scrolled all the way to the bottom and found this awesome picture. A fan made these great Mr. Chief cupcakes and sent a photo to Bungie's Frankie who had this to say

A reader we shall call Alkaline Black somehow convinced his GF to make Mr. Chief cupcakes. I for one do not wish to enjoy the creamy filling, but they are kinda awesome...

Agreed, Frankie. Something about that nuclear green icing makes one a little queasy. Flynn De Marco

Mister Cupcake [Sweet Shock, Thanks Jared!]

If hell had a gateway, it would be that cupcake mouth. Shortly after reader Nathan and his girlfriend made this, they were sucked into a ring of the underworld Dante missed. Truly, truly nightmare inducing. Masochistic readers, check out the complete Flickr set. Yes, there are more of them. Brian Ashcraft

Rabbid Cupcakes [Flickr, Thanks Nathan!]

We've see a lot of gaming cakes, but here are some gaming cupcakes!

Little Gia is a new Zelda fan, apparently having reached a gaming epiphany with Twilight Princess. She wanted a Link cake fro her birthday, so instead of going the traditional route, mom, dad, grandma and her "crazy gaming uncles" came up with this 8-bit Link made from 143 delicious cupcakes.

At 36" by 44", this might be the biggest game related dessert treat we've seen. I have to say it was a pretty clever idea to use the cupcakes in place of the pixels. Maybe this will spawn a whole new generation of gamer cakes. Anyone want to try for a Samus? Flynn De Marco

link cake's photos [Flickr - Thanks, Chris]

Ask the Kotaku Scouts, and ye shall receive. A reader whom I shall dub "Hamswaddle the Fierce" to protect his salty identity has written in to assure me that Introversion's swaggering is misplaced. To further protect Hamswaddle's precious alter ego, I have also obscured his voice with my handheld iPatois, which came bundled with a Buccaneer setting:

Avast! As Elizar be askin' fer stories o' the bounding main, I be givin' ye me own tale o' Introversion, honest as true.

'Tis ship-shape! If there be some yellow-bellied sneakery to stop honest gennelmen o' fortune from downloadin', they be weak as seasick chorus girls.

Any crew worth their salt be releasin' torrents emblazoned with their own pers'nal skull n' bones, so if there be unmarked versions they will very likely be under seeded and \, or e'en given the Black Spot. Puts a chill in me beard, it do!

Y'see, with certain crews ye be gettin' quality goods every time, tharfore Introversions' methodoggery seems a wee backwards. But sakes, I applaud their clever ways, an' give 'em full marks for effort.

'Tis an ironic thing... Soon as I test-sailed the buccaneerin' version of the game, I enjoyed it so much that I stepped out and bought the bleedin' thing with good coin!

A whole passel o' seadogs nowadays use the ol' Torrent as their own pers'nal demo station, digging up the whole trove and deciding if they are worth the 'orrible price. Be ye unsure if a game is worth the 50 bones? Plunder it, test the blessed thing, then make yer decision. 'Tis only good sense.

Thanks for your contributions, Hamswaddle. May the rest of your voyages be as pleasant and rewarding!Eliza Gauger

Crecente got on the intercom a few weeks ago and spluttered out something about Gamefest, a Windows-based gamedev conference happening in the Seattle quadrant.

"Get me a picture of Spiderman by the end of the day or you're fired!" he screamed, and hung up.

Crumbs, chief. This Fest of Games, as it is colloquially known, was particularly appealing to our rugged editor primarily for Microsoft's Monday-morning keynote speech, or so we thought.

During my Sunday-night preparations for the reportage of the "fresh haps" announced in this keynote, the continuous dot-matrix skreel from my Magical Feed Machine increased to an eardrum-leaking pitch: the big announcement had been made already, possibly over post-prandial bacon cupcakes at the pre-event dinner.

A new service/development solution for indie devs called XNA Game Studio Express. And what was worse, full reports of the thing were already propagating rapidly across all channels. Fuck! My feature story!

Talking on the eve of its Gamefest event in Seattle, Microsoft has revealed XNA Game Studio Express, a new product which will allow indie developers and students to develop simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PC, and share their games to others in a new Xbox 360 'Creators Club'.

The details of the new tech are as follows: XNA Game Studio Express will be available for free to anyone with a Windows XP-based PC, and will provide them with what's described as "Microsoft's next-generation platform for game development." In addition, by joining a "creators club" for an annual subscription fee of $99, users will be able to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360, as well as access a wealth of materials to help speed the game development progress.

Beleaguered by disappointment, the ghost of my snuffed feature trailing behind me like stink, I drove my Rascal down to the Washington Convention and Trade Center at dawn and prepared to listen to the keynote anyway.

Second gallery and even more text after the jump.

Since the specifics are available in far better detail elsewhere, I will give you my impressions of the presentation and the impressions I gleaned from other attendees.

Overall, it's immensely pleasing that such an apparently powerful tool is being provided for, nay, targeted at the wee developers. The example of "three guys in college" was used relentlessly.

However, as with all bar-lowering applications, this is going to let in more riffraff than talent. A quick glance at NewGrounds will tell you that any "community" of this type has to exist in a crippled state, dragged down by the lowest common denominator. The reward is that out of all this creeping muck, one or two truly incredible gems may surface and redeem the whole business. We'll see.

As an aside, one of the games used to demo the cross-platform capabilities, however, was Shadowrun. The room almost audibly groaned when the footage started to run. I talked later to several people about the game's massive failure to be at all interesting. Most of them had been drinking, and got visibly upset when the word "Shadowrun" was spoken aloud. That thing does not deserve the bear that skully logo.

After availing myself of the breakfast buffet leftovers, and then quelling the resulting gut pain with hardcore tea, I sat down in one of the sunny indoor patios and made some notes. A well-dressed group next to me leaned over and provided me with a printed invitation to the LucasArts pre-party, which I accepted graciously.

I arrived fashionably too late, and they were clearing away the piles of fruit and cheese already. This proved to be a theme: Eliza shows up, staff removes food. The Lucas soiree was held in a bar called Chapel, which is in what legend tells us was the city morgue. Sparingly decorated in cream and brown, with a playfully hand-lettered sign out front, the whole deal was extremely classy without being stodgy. As I had spent most of the night playing Sam and Max Hit the Road, this little get-together cemented my good Lucasy good feelings.

It was but a short taxi to SoDo for the big Microsoft party. I started laughing maniacally as soon as I got inside. Immediately greeting all arrivals was a fenced paddock filled with Segways. Backlit by spotlights, the tiny orange safety cones casting long shadows, gleeful geeks glided along the concrete. Some were actually wearing helmets.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it looks like when geeks party hard. That braying voice you hear at the end is one of the bizarre characters walking around the place, presumably performing the same function as birthday clowns. I mean, I hope Microsoft hired this guy. You can see him in the second gallery below; he's the one with all the toothbrushes.

And this is what it looks like when doves cry: the White Boy Dance as seen in the wild.

A live band flanked by projection screens and honeycomb-motif standups provided the soundtrack while the finest in spray-tan go go girls shuffled and jiggled on lit boxes. The band was called Beehive, and did a fine job of rocking the joint. I spotted more than a couple attendees actually waving to the dancers. To what end, I'm at a loss to speculate.

I found the buffet as it was being carted off, got in the Segway line as they told everyone there would be no more Segwaying that night, and played Prey until the 360 I was on choked and died. My audience laughed and said it never would have happened if Joystiq had been playing.

I started to cry, and ran out. Eliza Gauger

Even MORE photos:

The improbably named Rakka Deer sent us a link to her great Flickr photoset featuring some enthusiastic and charming attempts at immortalizing classic game characters in cupcakes and pies. Not only she baked the chain of Centipede cupcakes above (or to the right, I guess... this new widescreen template is so damn unpredictable), but a Pac-Man cupcake, a Space Invaders apple pie and Tetris cookies.

Oh! And Katamari Cake! A woman who can bake and plays video games? Love of our life, fire of our loins. - Florian Eckhardt