The Adventures of Rubberkid Brings Out Some Amazing Stories

The Certificate Pledge, made by Ariel Marsh

Ever since I started publicizing The Adventures of Rubberkid, I've found that a LOT of people who learn about it instantly connect to the game. I set out to make the game for kids, but I've heard stories of adults tearing up a bit over it, connecting very strongly to one of the bullied kids or another, or just talking about how much they were bullied, or their kids, or anyone they know. Bullying has even been in the media a lot lately, and I think it's great that it finally seems like people are showing their support against bullying these days.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to write this post was because of something that happened today. When I started my Kickstarter, I did the math on every single level for everything that the rewards earned EXCEPT  the certificate pledges. I don't know why I forgot, but I did... And apparently, five color copies comes to anywhere between $2.50-$5 around here! I checked online at a half a dozen places and they all were 49 cents or more... Except for one UPS store that only charged the 25 cents we were aiming for (another UPS store in the area charged double, so it varies from store to store even!)

We went to pick them up today and the lady there said that she thought they were really neat, and asked what they were for. I told her a little about The Adventures of Rubberkid and how it fights bullying and so on, and she said that she thought it was great! She had done some school work (thesis? studies? I don't remember honestly) and so she was intrigued by it.

As we were getting ready to leave, another guy in the store who was making copies (not sure if he worked there and knew about them or just overheard us) turned and said that he thought what we were doing was great, and that he lost his son two years ago to bullying. Angel said she was sorry to hear it, and he said that he was in Heaven now, and bless us for bringing light to such a horrible problem.

It's times like these when I realize that I'm on the right track and doing the right thing. Every time someone tells me their story or shows any kind of appreciation, I feel that much more successful. Thanks so much everyone!

Day of Rest

When I decided to really push myself this year on game development, I had forgotten just how much of a burden forcing yourself to do anything is. The more I forced it in the few hours of free time that I have, the more I disliked it. The more I disliked it, the slower at it I became. Angel (my fiancee) suggested that I take a few days off a week from it... And I originally didn't like it. I figured that'd mean even LESS time to work with it... But now that I'm giving one a shot, I realize it's actually VERY nice! A day off from it actually rejuvenates me on the idea of working on the games, makes me actually want to (which is a first in the last three or four days or so), and it lets me work on other things like figuring out fun holidays and just enjoying free time a little bit.

MDW Update and Daily Holidays for Game Development Challenges

So, I had always been a fan of how there are actually funky holidays pretty much every day of the year, but hadn't thought about making games based around them! There are enough challenges to keep me satisfied for the year, sure, but aside from those I have over 20 days with no true format or time constraints. What better way than to make games for holidays???

I was looking around for sites and found http://www.brownielocks.com. She's got a great collection of yearly, monthly, weekly and daily holidays, and it's all free, unlike the other major holiday site ($40/year, I think?) A quick look at their January listings has me already tossing around ideas for a bunch of them!

Also, a quick little update on Million Dollar Words: I am making a little demo version with 7 quizzes. Each quiz has 10 questions, and I have selected a few from multiple different individual versions I was going to do (there are a few from "Video Game Edition" and a few from the general version). I have 3 done, one almost done, one needs a few questions taken out and then 2 need some work. I would put the first version done by Sunday night with any luck :)