We've been working hard to make the upcoming Apocalyptathon our best marathon yet. As part of this, we've set up a heap of new tech to increase interactivity and engagement. Let's take a look at what's new.

Donation Referrals

It's understandable that not everyone is able to donate. But that doesn't mean you have to be excluded from all the fun of raising money for charity and winning prizes!

With the new donation referrals system, simply submit your name and email address, and we'll give you a unique donation link. Share this link with your friends on Facebook or Twitter and get them to donate! For every $10 that your friends donate, you get one entry into the raffle. There are also prizes — as well as exposure — for the top referrers. Everyone's a winner! Get your referral link now.

Raffles

Raffles are now drawn automatically, live on-stream every 12 hours. This means that raffles will always happen efficiently and on-time, and you get to watch as the list of potential winners is randomly iterated. Entries ($5 donations / $10 referred donations) are valid for all raffles, so donate early to increase your chances of winning! Check out the prizes up for grabs.

Chance Time Improvements

Perhaps the most exciting tech improvement of all is this: Chance Time is now in 3D. That's right, folks — experience your favourite random-challenge-generator in not one, not two, but three dimensions! The secret Chance Time algorithm has been refined to spit out more wacky, hilarious, and fun challenges than ever before. Who wants to give us a Chance Time before we even start?

Real-Time Voting

Polls have always been a much-loved feature by many GameToAid-ians. We've revamped polls so now you can see the results changing as people vote in real time! You can even go back and change your answer if you change your mind. Look ma, there's a poll open already!

Money Polls

Sometimes people get pretty passionate about things. A whopping 121 people voted in a poll entitled "Who should eat vegemite?" in our recent Zelda marathon.

We thought we'd leverage this — for a good cause, of course. Occasionally, we'll open a Money Poll. It's just like a normal poll, but instead of voting with free votes, you vote with dollars! Select the option you wish to vote for and then donate however many dollars you want to put towards it. Now that's good value!

Backend

We've completely rewritten the systems we use to administrate the GameToAid.org website and the HUD you see on the stream. This will make it considerably easier for us to manage everything, and improved reliability will help keep everything running smoothly.

Overall, we're quite excited to see all of this new tech in action, and you should be too! Look out for some other goodies when you tune in to the Apocalyptathon at 7:30 AM, 10 January 2013 GMT. See you all there!