Sparkling - Homeschooling Mom, Game Producer, wearer of many hats

[Sparkling]

Hello,
I'm copying my post here from that other humongous thread because I get the idea that it is expected of me that I should begin a new thread with my introduction. Please forgive me if I have misinterpreted the intended protocol. I believe it was one of my Junior programmers who initially introduced me to this website. Unfortunately, it seems I never posted anything, or else my old posts have long since been deleted.

I signed up ages ago but have never had time to actually participate. I finally posted a blog (which apparently it won't let me post the link to the blog here) so you can read that there if you're really interested in the larger-than-a-nutshell version of my intro. I guess you can nav to it from my profile, I'm not sure how else to get there.

I think the enormity of this site has been a bit overwhelming to me, and the post restrictions prohibitive for me. I have so many things I'm doing already, I know I'll never have time to fully immerse myself in such a large community. If you don't mind me as an occasional passerby though, I'll post once in a blue moon when I am able.

God bless you,
-Sparkling

 

[Sparkling]

And I found where to change my avatar. YAY!

-Sparkling

 

[Beckyy25]

Hello and welcome to CF. Glad to have you with us. Enjoy the forums even if you can't post regularly, don't worry about that.
God bless you!

 

[RestoreTheRiver]

Hello, and welcome! Glad to have you with us.

Perhaps you could try making the site small, by choosing one-two forums that interest you, and getting to know the people there.

Michael

 

[Jayangel81]

 

[heavensangelwv]

 

[Sparkling]

CUTE puppies!

If only they stayed that cute when they grew up...

Thanks for the welcome everyone!!

-Sparkling

 

[Alive4Evermore]

Hello, and welcome (back) to Christian Forums! One forum you might find helpful is the Homeschooling Forum. I'm also a homeschooling mom. It's nice to meet you. If I can help you in any way, please let me know.

In His Service,
Aliveforevermore, CF Angel

 

[Sparkling]

Hello, and welcome (back) to Christian Forums! One forum you might find helpful is the Homeschooling Forum. I'm also a homeschooling mom. It's nice to meet you. If I can help you in any way, please let me know.

In His Service,
Aliveforevermore, CF Angel

I love the Native American avatar you have! Very nice! Do you have Native American ancestry or do you just like the imagery?

I've been doing genelogical research for my parents and confirmed that we have Cherokee ancestors in my father's family. The Cherokee nation has very strict rules about proving heritage though, so I'm not sure if we will be able to be officially recognised, but we're trying. It's kind of like finding a family you had been told about, but never met. Kinda cool.

Thanks for the welcome!
God bless you,
-Sparkling

 

[starbead]

Hi! You're a game producer? Sweet! What sort of games?

 

[Sparkling]

Yes. I make family friendly and Christian games. I'm the project leader/Producer/owner. My company is Heaven's Blessings Tiny Zoo.
The first game that I started developing is called Visions, this is our flagship project. It is a 3D graphics MMORPG set in the 2nd century holy land. It is a quest and skill based game with 3 primary quest tracks: Professions, History, and Scripture. It is the scripture quests which give the game it's name, as play-characters will be set in the 2nd century of the early church, but as they quest to collect all the scriptures to put together their own Bible, they will occasionally encounter dreams and visions to experience Biblical history "first hand". Visions is still in development. Due to the volunteer nature of our team, everything takes 10x longer than we want it to. We have revised our original launch plan and starting in January we will begin re-building Visions on a new terrain, and with the new goals in mind. We'll be releasing in a multi-stage launch. Essentially, as we reach development milestones, we will make those available to the players as we complete them, rather than making the players wait until the whole game is completed. This may be the ONLY way we are able to finish Visions, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to put this together with a handful of volunteers who are only working part time.

Then the second game is Chariots. This started in August of 2007, as a Team Building exercise. It turned into an 11 month project (that is now going on 16 months) to release a much smaller scale game, just to complete a game from start to finish and encourage the team that we really can do this! The design for Chariots was taken from one tiny fragment of the massively larger Visions design document, and revised to make it playable in it's own context. The reason for doing this was so that when we are done, we can take the work we've done on Chariots and incorporate that back into Visions. I was adamant that even if we only spent 2 months working on this side project, that it should not take us away from our original purpose and calling, everything we do on Chariots has to be relevavnt to Visions as well. And I believe we have accomplished that goal. Chariots is available for sale right now from our chariotsgame website. And starting in January, we will begin transitioning back into Visions again.

Exciting times.

Thanks for asking! God bless you,
-Sparkling

 

[Worcester Beacon]

Hi and welcome to CF, God Bless!

 

[RedTulipMom]

Welcome Sparkling!
i am a fellow homeschool mom as well. Enjoy yourself!

 

[Sparkling]

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

-Sparkling

 

[starbead]

Yes. I make family friendly and Christian games. I'm the project leader/Producer/owner. My company is Heaven's Blessings Tiny Zoo.
The first game that I started developing is called Visions, this is our flagship project. It is a 3D graphics MMORPG set in the 2nd century holy land. It is a quest and skill based game with 3 primary quest tracks: Professions, History, and Scripture. It is the scripture quests which give the game it's name, as play-characters will be set in the 2nd century of the early church, but as they quest to collect all the scriptures to put together their own Bible, they will occasionally encounter dreams and visions to experience Biblical history "first hand". Visions is still in development. Due to the volunteer nature of our team, everything takes 10x longer than we want it to. We have revised our original launch plan and starting in January we will begin re-building Visions on a new terrain, and with the new goals in mind. We'll be releasing in a multi-stage launch. Essentially, as we reach development milestones, we will make those available to the players as we complete them, rather than making the players wait until the whole game is completed. This may be the ONLY way we are able to finish Visions, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to put this together with a handful of volunteers who are only working part time.

Then the second game is Chariots. This started in August of 2007, as a Team Building exercise. It turned into an 11 month project (that is now going on 16 months) to release a much smaller scale game, just to complete a game from start to finish and encourage the team that we really can do this! The design for Chariots was taken from one tiny fragment of the massively larger Visions design document, and revised to make it playable in it's own context. The reason for doing this was so that when we are done, we can take the work we've done on Chariots and incorporate that back into Visions. I was adamant that even if we only spent 2 months working on this side project, that it should not take us away from our original purpose and calling, everything we do on Chariots has to be relevavnt to Visions as well. And I believe we have accomplished that goal. Chariots is available for sale right now from our chariotsgame website. And starting in January, we will begin transitioning back into Visions again.

Exciting times.

Thanks for asking! God bless you,
-Sparkling

That sounds awesome! And it's all volunteer work? Wow. That's impressive.

Could I get the link to the website? I'd like to take a look at it.

 

[Eutropius]

Welcome back to CF. I have signed up long ago, and haven't had much time to post here. Perhaps we can speed things up from now on.

 

[Sparkling]

That sounds awesome! And it's all volunteer work? Wow. That's impressive.

Could I get the link to the website? I'd like to take a look at it.

Yes, all volunteers. We have no funding and no budget. We all work from home in our spare time telecommuting over the internet. Our office is in IRC, our meetings are inTeamSpeak, our memos are through email.

it won't let me post the links here. It says:

1. To be able to post links or images your post count must be 50 or greater. You currently have 18 posts.
   
   Please remove links from your message, then you will be able to submit your post.

So try adding a dot com to the end of these:

visionsgame
chariotsgame

Or you can access our portal at heavensblessingstinyzoo

Hopefully that works for you. Sorry for the trouble.

Thanks for your interest in our games!
-Sparkling

 

[Angelbug]

Hello and welcome to cf
Hope you enjoy your stay here and that you make some good friends here.

 

[Sparkling]

Thanks!

 

[Alive4Evermore]

I love the Native American avatar you have! Very nice! Do you have Native American ancestry or do you just like the imagery?

I've been doing genelogical research for my parents and confirmed that we have Cherokee ancestors in my father's family. The Cherokee nation has very strict rules about proving heritage though, so I'm not sure if we will be able to be officially recognised, but we're trying. It's kind of like finding a family you had been told about, but never met. Kinda cool.

Thanks for the welcome!
God bless you,
-Sparkling

I have Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry, and I like the imagery. I have relations to the Cherokee Tribe of Oklahoma. How about you?