I first came to visit this website in September, but didn't have much time to browse around or post anything. I've been pretty busy, and it seems to only be escalating, not slowing down, so I guess if I'm going to post something it's now or never!
Perhaps first a bit about me, given that you've probably never met me before. I'm a Christian homeschooling Mom of 4 children. I've been married 17 years. We've been through good times and bad together. He works so that I can stay home with the children, and it is this arrangement that has afforded me the time to do what I've been doing the last 5 years.
I've been a BBS Sysop, a distributor for DKFL books, and Young Living essential oils. I'm an artist and a writer. I studied foreign languages and political science in college. And as I mentioned before, I homeschool our children. All these things have brought me to a most unexpected apex in life where I find that I am the owner of a small business staffed entirely by volunteers, and producer of computer games.
5 years ago I was seeking a way to serve God more intently than I had been doing up to that point. And as I was asking God to show me what He wanted me to do, I was also raising my small children, and noticing that they were memorizing all manner of useless things in the games that they played, but they didn't want to memorize their school work or the Bible or anything that would benefit them later in life.
This is when the first ideas for Bible centered games was born. I've had many many game ideas over the years, but after prayer and searching, I made a decision to start on the one that would present the entire Bible to the player in a fun and engaging way - this would come to be known as VISIONS. Tn time, I began recruiting friends and strangers to come help me make this game - as I am not a programmer. Development began in 2004. We changed engines twice, and went through many stages of transition and growth, as individuals, as developers, and as a company. Visions is still in development, and when it is done it will be a 3D graphics Christian MMORPG set in the 2nd century holy land with quest and skill based gameplay. That is the ultimate goal of our project.
In 2007 we started a Team Building exercise to help boost morale. This turned into an 11 month game development project, CHARIOTS. It is a racing game set loosely in ancient history. We released Chariots in July 2008 at the CGDC event in Portland, OR and it is still for sale online. Since release we have been working on polishing and patching Chariots, to bring it closer to the game we imagined it to be at it's conception. By this Christmas, I anticipate we will have accomplished this goal.
We just released Chariots 1.2 patch this weekend.
http://www.chariotsgame.com/news/
You can read about it there, online.
Chariots is a tiny fragment of the massively larger Visions game design. When we begin working on Visions again in January 2009, the work we have done on Chariots will be incorporated into the Visions build. This will begin the first stage of our multi-stage launch plan for Visions. Our goal is to launch sooner with less content, and if player interest is sufficient to sustain our development we will continue to produce the game and release more content and access to larger regions of terrain, as we are able.
If you're interested in learning more about our company or our projects, please visit our web portal. And also, please be patient as we are in a transition stage where we are merging several sites into one interface. Thank you for understanding!
http://www.heavensblessingstinyzoo.com/
I can't promise that I'll be able to post to this blog frequently. But I will try to remember that this page exists and post as often as I'm able. Being a game producer means I wear many hats, designer, artist, writer, web developer, manager, marketing, sales, and recruiter. I rarely have time to post on forums anymore unless it is directly related to my work. Again, thank you for being patient with me. Please keep me and my team in your prayers. We struggle against spiritual battles as well as the normal day to day difficulties that everyone faces on a constant basis. Your support is greatly appreciated!
God bless you,
-Sparkling
Perhaps first a bit about me, given that you've probably never met me before. I'm a Christian homeschooling Mom of 4 children. I've been married 17 years. We've been through good times and bad together. He works so that I can stay home with the children, and it is this arrangement that has afforded me the time to do what I've been doing the last 5 years.
I've been a BBS Sysop, a distributor for DKFL books, and Young Living essential oils. I'm an artist and a writer. I studied foreign languages and political science in college. And as I mentioned before, I homeschool our children. All these things have brought me to a most unexpected apex in life where I find that I am the owner of a small business staffed entirely by volunteers, and producer of computer games.
5 years ago I was seeking a way to serve God more intently than I had been doing up to that point. And as I was asking God to show me what He wanted me to do, I was also raising my small children, and noticing that they were memorizing all manner of useless things in the games that they played, but they didn't want to memorize their school work or the Bible or anything that would benefit them later in life.
This is when the first ideas for Bible centered games was born. I've had many many game ideas over the years, but after prayer and searching, I made a decision to start on the one that would present the entire Bible to the player in a fun and engaging way - this would come to be known as VISIONS. Tn time, I began recruiting friends and strangers to come help me make this game - as I am not a programmer. Development began in 2004. We changed engines twice, and went through many stages of transition and growth, as individuals, as developers, and as a company. Visions is still in development, and when it is done it will be a 3D graphics Christian MMORPG set in the 2nd century holy land with quest and skill based gameplay. That is the ultimate goal of our project.
In 2007 we started a Team Building exercise to help boost morale. This turned into an 11 month game development project, CHARIOTS. It is a racing game set loosely in ancient history. We released Chariots in July 2008 at the CGDC event in Portland, OR and it is still for sale online. Since release we have been working on polishing and patching Chariots, to bring it closer to the game we imagined it to be at it's conception. By this Christmas, I anticipate we will have accomplished this goal.
We just released Chariots 1.2 patch this weekend.
http://www.chariotsgame.com/news/
You can read about it there, online.
Chariots is a tiny fragment of the massively larger Visions game design. When we begin working on Visions again in January 2009, the work we have done on Chariots will be incorporated into the Visions build. This will begin the first stage of our multi-stage launch plan for Visions. Our goal is to launch sooner with less content, and if player interest is sufficient to sustain our development we will continue to produce the game and release more content and access to larger regions of terrain, as we are able.
If you're interested in learning more about our company or our projects, please visit our web portal. And also, please be patient as we are in a transition stage where we are merging several sites into one interface. Thank you for understanding!
http://www.heavensblessingstinyzoo.com/
I can't promise that I'll be able to post to this blog frequently. But I will try to remember that this page exists and post as often as I'm able. Being a game producer means I wear many hats, designer, artist, writer, web developer, manager, marketing, sales, and recruiter. I rarely have time to post on forums anymore unless it is directly related to my work. Again, thank you for being patient with me. Please keep me and my team in your prayers. We struggle against spiritual battles as well as the normal day to day difficulties that everyone faces on a constant basis. Your support is greatly appreciated!
God bless you,
-Sparkling
