a pogo.com fan site, blog and badge tracker

Happy Weekend Everyone!

I hope you’re not too busy working on your challenges this week to take a little time out to come chat with us this weekend! There’s lots to talk about from this week: Monopoly’s getting more ranks, Pogo’s working on a new PBA, more mini awards are on their way, and of course there’s always non-Pogo things to talk about! I only ask that if you want to weigh in on the weekly challenges that you do so in the challenge thread itself, let’s try to keep this weekend thread a negativity-free zone! You know: peace, love, and badges and all of that good stuff. *hugs a tree*

I was saddened to have to make this post about Pogo laying off one of their amazingly talented graphic artists, but it was bittersweet because we now get to see some of Pogo’s recent concept art. It just goes to show that as much information as we bring to you about the goings-on at Pogo, there’s always so much more going on behind-the-scenes that we don’t know about, some of which seems so foreign to us now and some of which will never see the light of day.

If you could direct the Pogo team to create any fantasy project at all, what would it be? Don’t feel limited by Pogo’s web site (it could be a whole new web site or web concept) or any previous projects or ideas they may have worked on. Let the creativity flow! Sky’s the limit!

See you in the comments!

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Filed under: general

On Monday of this week, EA (Pogo’s parent company) announced it would lay off 1500 workers by April of 2010 in an effort to reduce costs. It’s probably no coincidence that the same day they announced the acquisition of PlayFish, a maker of social networking games such as Restaurant City, a Facebook game Pogo is now heavily promoting on their web site. Unfortunately, the layoffs began on Monday and Pogo was not immune. We’re not sure how many people in total were laid off, but they lost at least one very talented graphic artist: Julia Lundman.

As fans of Julia’s Pogo artwork, we’ve been following her blog for about a year and a half now and were saddened yesterday to see the following:

For the past few years, I have been working at Electronic Arts online casual gaming company, Pogo.com, as a staff artist. I have been primarily designing game art, costumes, backgrounds, and badges. On Monday I was laid off due to overseas outsourcing. I feel sad about this, especially since every single day I came into work feeling excited and happy about the work I was doing. I always took every single project seriously, no matter how ’small’ or how ‘big’ the assignment was. I’ve always held that if an artist is a good artist, no matter what he or she touches, it should be of the highest quality and taken seriously.

Julia’s art speaks for itself — she’s talented and creative and undoubtedly she was the artist behind many of your favorite badges, mini costumes, and more around Pogoland. She spent most of yesterday posting some of her work to her blog, most of which we’ve already seen. (She was the creative force behind the cool Canasta beatnik art, the game rank images for Penguin Blocks and First Class Solitaire, and a ton of our favorite mini items.) Perhaps the most interesting to us is the concept art she posted for a Pogo Kids version and a virtual world concept that might still be in our future in some form due to the Hasbro contract.

These pieces give us a glimpse not only of Julia’s amazing talent but of some of the ideas that Pogo might be bouncing around behind the scenes at any given time. Check out the Pogo Kids avatars and the Pogo Virtual World concept art that she’s posted. Really neat stuff.

Her whole blog is worth checking out because you can see her influence on Pogo projects over time (or vice-versa!), but our favorite Pogo-related post is about last year’s Thanksgiving Mini release.

Julia: if you’re out there, best wishes from all of us fans. We’re really going to miss your unique style and creativity. Pogo is not going to be the same without you. No matter what company you’re exercising your creative muscles with, we’re sure your talents will take you very far!

Filed under: unreleased images

As part of Pogo’s weekly Hasbro Family Game Night, play Trivial Pursuit today and earn a chance to win one of six Hasbro Family Game Night Sweepstakes packages: an Apple iPod Touch loaded with EA mobile games and a “Hasbro Family Game Basket” which will consist of several Hasbro board games and Pocket Pogo game.

Come back next week and play another Hasbro game for another chance to win!

Filed under: promotions and events

Pogo has decided to add 50 more ranks to MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition. There will be a total of 100 ranks and you’ll be earning new badges at ranks 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100. Here are the badges and requirements:

Monopoly – Become a Supervillain!
Pass GO 4,148 times to achieve Rank 60 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Clone Yourself!
Pass GO 4,748 times to achieve Rank 70 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Build a Private Zoo!
Pass GO 5,498 times to achieve Rank 80 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Get Extra Cheese on a Burrito!
Pass GO 6,488 times to achieve Rank 90 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Enjoy the Simple Life!
Pass GO 7,613 times to achieve Rank 100 and earn this badge

Of all of the games that Pogo has promised will get new ranks (cough, KenoPop, cough) and older games that surely could use new ranks (cough, Hog Heaven Slots, cough), we’re surprised to see Monopoly come up as the next one to get them. We guess Monopoly money really does talk! We’ll keep you posted if we hear when these new ranks will be added.

Filed under: coming soon/rumors, monopoly here & now, unreleased images

Pogo’s got yet another Premium Badge Album in development. This one, which will probably be released next month, is called “Take a Trip”. When it’s released, it’ll cost you $5.99 or 86 gems. It includes the following 10 challenges:

Click to view animated badges and challenges

Filed under: coming soon/rumors, premium albums, unreleased images

Mini Golf Madness – Going Green Badge
Win 4000 tokens this week!

Tri-Peaks Solitaire – Stone Idol Badge
Use a ‘wild card’ 35 times this week!

If you need a little help with Mini Golf Madness, be sure to check out our hints and tips and our hole in one screenshots.

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Filed under: minigolf madness, tri-peaks solitaire, weekly challenges

We’re getting closer to having Mini Awards in some more games! The first batch is coming out of the gazillion we showed you earlier, and they’re for the following:

Quick Quack:

Shuffle Bump (this includes the oops freebie Puck Head we mentioned last week, which is sure to be removed from our closets now):

And the upcoming game Puck’s Peak will also have the following mini awards (originally we thought they’d be freebies or for-token purchases at the Mini Mall, but Pogo sure likes to keep us guessing):

It looks like the Stellar Sweeper awards will also be coming with this batch but they haven’t nailed down what levels you’ll be earning them at.

For those of you who are interested in claiming these awards the moment they come out, make sure you are at least rank 7 in Quick Quack, and rank 6 in Shuffle Bump.

Filed under: pogo minis, puck's peak, quick quack, shuffle bump, stellar sweeper, unreleased images

Congratulations to everyone who has kept up with both the US and UK versions of Trivial Pursuit Daily 20 and reached rank 50 this weekend, earning themselves the Trivia Genius badge!

When Trivial Pursuit first came out, there was an error that caused some people to get a week ahead. Some of you may not have received this bump but are still up to date as much as you can be, so you’ll be ranking out next weekend.

For those of you who haven’t kept up, just know it’s now possible to complete every daily puzzle and rank 50 is finally attainable. If you need a little help, don’t forget to consult our Trivial Pursuit answers archive, it’s one of our most popular pages and has helped a lot of people in a pinch. Thanks to everyone (most recently Norma and Karen) who has submitted their answers on a daily basis to help the community!

Pogo has not shown any intention of stopping the new daily puzzles (because they don’t seem to encourage people to play both US and UK sides, leaving a lot left for those who only play one), so as long as they’re continuing to post new questions and answers, we’ll be keeping our archive up to date on a daily basis. We don’t know where the rumors started, but it’s completely false that Trivial Pursuit is “ending” now that players who have played both sides consistently are reaching rank 50.

Did you finish your 50 ranks yet? If so, are you going to continue playing or not? Feel free to brag a little, and let us know in the comments!

(Please note: this thread is not for figuring out why you haven’t reached rank 50 yet. If you aren’t 50 yet, most likely you missed something in your archive or if you have enough pies earned you will likely earn the badge next time you complete a puzzle. Since every player’s situation is unique, if you are certain you should be 50 and are not please contact Pogo’s customer support; they’ll be able to help you better than we can.)

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Filed under: trivial pursuit

Fans of MyCokeRewards (and the fact you can use your points for Club Pogo subscriptions), we have good news! The promotion has been extended and will keep going in 2010!

2010 Program Extension::More Good Times are Coming Your Way

We’ve got some great news for you; My Coke Rewards will keep going in 2010. With millions of more ways to grab points from some new brands and packages, you can keep rewarding yourself all year long. The points you have already picked up will carry over and there will be no interruption in code entry. Check out the new rules after January 1 for complete details and dates.

For those of you unfamiliar with the promo, here are some details:

You can earn MyCokeRewards points for entering codes from Coca-Cola brand products. Once you’ve saved up enough rewards points, you can turn them in to get free stuff — like Club Pogo subscriptions. The deal is pretty sweet: one month of Club Pogo is 75 points, 3 months is 250, and a full year is only 550 points. (For what it’s worth, a 12-pack of Coke products will earn you 10 points, and bottles are worth 3.) When you use your points to get a Club Pogo subscription, they’ll send you a Club Pogo pass code via email with instructions to add the time to your account; like all Club Pogo passes, the time is added to the end of your current subscription.

Visit mycokerewards.com and search for “Club Pogo” for more information.

Thanks to MomsBassetHound for letting us know this promo has been extended!

Filed under: promotions and events