Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

On April 19th, 2009, several Aeropause writers and dedicated readers hosted a community playdate on the Xbox Live service.  After several rounds of promoting the event on Aeropause.com and through Twitter, Xbox Live messages and finally the Xbox Live dashboard, the event was finally upon us and it was a rousing three hour affair.

Four out of the five writers started off hosting games, while one person was having some connection issues.  With that problem in hand, we called in another one of our writers, and made sure to send out messages letting people know that The Wideguy was accepting invites for games as well.

For the evening’s event, we had selected Gears of War 2.  While there are a plethora of games out there that have multiplayer in them, Gears just suited the evening due to its popularity, as well as its smaller, and fast pased games, allowing Aeropause to interact with far more gamers than with other games that might run long.  The gamertags involved were

• Aeropause – Shane Whitehouse, our editor in chief
• mclazyj - Joe Haygood, West Coast Writer and host of the Aeropodcast
• tawspot - long time fan of Aeropause.com and an avid Gears of War 2 fan
• snyderunc – official mascot of Aeropause.com, and a guy with many first names
• pacis riot – another long time community member of Aeropause.com, who unfortunately had some communication issues.
• the wideguy – while not on the list, a writer for Aeropause.com, who stepped in for Pacis when his issues came up

Each of us made sure to host private matches while sending out invites to everyone that was asking to play.  For myself, I would play two rounds of Warzone or Execution, while cycling in new players after two rounds of play.  It allowed us to get a lot of people in, and everyone was a blast to play with.  Also, going against the grain of the normal reputation of Xbox Live, everyone was very courteous and we never had any incidents with any of our players.  Everyone just had a lot of fun, and seemed to kill all the hosts, a lot.  When all was said and done, I made sure to send a voice message to all the players to thank them for joining us, and letting them know we will be doing another one of these community playdates, hopefully in July.

And finally, a special thanks to those players that joined us.  While I do not have a complete list, here are a few people that we wrote down that played in games with us.

• rlog 1234
• badshaq
• PJC101396
• Xbl LeGeNDARyyy
• x TwistedKill x
• R1din Chevy
• xGAWx B3AST1N
• Kal El Kent821
• xXBeastlyKillxX
• xGAWx SuICIDAL
• Aitana86
• LeShoryuKen
• RAvENSIXX80nE
• SAVV 101
• SPRAYandPRAY77
• lc009
• Xaiver ECB 313
• ArtieBacardiNyc
• FlatMercury
• StrongerJavonta
• BubbleBoy12 JR
• YUNG SCORCH
• REDskittles777
• oreokris321
• PUDG13
• cRaZy 19MeX94
• bda93
• SOLDIER X25
• hu want it 714
• DiRty wAFfLEsXx
• DSB GODZILLRA
• gkenda91
• skull krusher99
• weigeman
• DSB SUICIDE
• MaRkMaN 48th
• Stir Fried
• XxDG52xX
• D4RKkN1t
• k00kie krumbl3r
• the MadMann
• PyRoDoX
• griffsaw1
• Trogdor1452
• voodoo god13
• MacabreGnu

Hope all of you enjoy Aeropause.com, Xbox Live and the Community Playdate in general.  We were happy to get so many people in, especially when we heard that a lot of folks said they never get in, and were so happy to make it into a game with all of us.  Thanks to Xbox Live for helping out the community so we can do events like this, the fans that were so much fun to play with and against, and to my fellow hosts, because without them, we could not of hosted such a great night.  See you all soon.

Last thing, if I missed your name, please put it in the comments.  I want to make sure everyone gets acknowledged.