First off, a huge thanks to everyone who’s been pitching in to help spread the word and contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for my book: Up Up Down Down Left WRITE – The Freelance Guide To Video Game  Journalism. It’s been a wild ride so far, with lots of ups and downs, and we’re nearing the end – for better or worse. I’ve added a lot of awesome bonus rewards and incentives in the past week, and we still have a LOT to raise in the remaining 8 days before the funding deadline, so I figured a big update was in order.  Please read on, because I super need your help.

Here’s the current situation:

As of this writing, the project has 102 backers and has raised $2,556 of the $7,000 goal. That’s actually really awesome. But time is ticking, and with only 8 days left, things have to really start ramping up if we’re going to hit the funding goal. If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it’s an all or nothing model. If we don’t hit the project goal by the deadline of Saturday Sept 8th by 5pm EST, it doesn’t get funded. Period.

If you’ve been on the fence about backing and are leaning towards helping out, then NOW is definitely the time to do so. I’ve added some really sweet bonuses for ALL backers as well as a few cool new rewards that I’ll touch on in a minute. This next week is the make-or-break moment. Either this snowballs and gets mad backer support in the final stretch or we don’t make it and it’s back to square one. I’ll still be finishing the book and self-publishing it eventually, but if the Kickstarter doesn’t succeed then I’m not going to be able to afford to hire an editor and pay for a lot of the extra expenses that come along with putting a project like this together on your own. As such, it’ll take a LOT longer to get it finished without funding.

Folks have been AMAZING about getting the word out, and I’m truly touched and grateful for all the support. Whether we make it or not, I want everyone to know how much their support means to me. I really appreciate it.

So here’s one of the final calls-to-arms. There’s still time, approx 8 days, to back this thing and help drum up support to charge en-masse across the finish lines with swords brandished, the cries of victory on our lips. That part about backing is particularly important. We’ve had a lot of link-sharing love, but not nearly a fraction of the same level of $$ support. That makes sense. It’s easier to help out in other ways rather than open your pocket books. I totally get it, and I appreciate your support either way.

So no more doom and gloom emo crap. Let’s make this happen! Now for some good news: ALL THE COOL STUFF I’VE ADDED!

NEW: All backers now get sweet indie games

I’ve rallied a handful of my favorite indie game dev folks, who are generous enough to lend their time to put together some funky/funk mini-games that ALL backers will receive. You can read about it more in detail here and here, but in short: they’re either tweaking existing game projects or cooking up something fresh – all around the theme of “freelance game journalism.” Every backer will get a copy of each mini-game/small project/ etc.

Dejobaan Games, the folks behind AAaaAAAAa…A Reckless Disregard for Gravity have put together a funky new game-journo spin on the Alpha build of their upcoming project 1..2..3 Kick It: Drop That Beat Like And Ugly Baby. It looks a little like this (note: there’s no gameplay yet, but that’ll be coming along soon.)

So that’s should be super rad!

Mommy’s Best Games, the makers of Weapon of Choice, Shoot 1UP, Explosionade, and lots of other crazy XBLIG releases, is gracious enough to donate a fresh PC version of their tongue-in-cheek shooter Game Type which will feature EXCLUSIVE goodies for the Kickstarter version. Here’s what the regular game looks like:

The PC version will feature an all-new cat boss battle (concept art below) and the special Kickstarter will feature my very own PIXELATED SEVERED HEAD as a new foe type. SO AWESOME. Scope out artwork below:

And my head. NOMNOMNOMNOM!

I also have a few other indies on-board working on fun additions, including one-half of Vlambeer (the makers of Super Crate Box) and more. Update on that stuff coming next week!

New Reward Tiers:

Book cover artist Blake Wheeler is awesome AND he’s involved in some of the Kickstarter rewards. I recently lowered the price of one particularly rad reward to $150, which will get you print and digital copies of the book, a bunch of other extra goodies AND a custom 8×10 painting of your favorite video game character created by Blake. Scope out some of his other work to see how rad it is.

Since the $17 Nerdy Risk Taker tier is now all filled up, I’ve created a new $20 ULTRA MEGA Nerdy Risk Taker reward that gets you a digital copy of the book and a thank you in the back of the book PLUS a 1-in-20 chance (as determined by the roll of a d20) to win a signed print edition of the book AND a custom painting of your favorite video game character done by Blake. SO AWESOME.

So let’s recap, what can I do to help?

1) Become a backer of Up Up Down Down Left WRITE – The Freelance Guide To Video Game Journalism

2) If you write for a gaming site, get in touch with your news editor and pitch a news post, interview, or other piece on the project. If you have decision-making power to make that happen on your own, then awesome! Let’s do it up. I’m available for interviews and whatnot. Just get in touch.

3) Tweet, Facebook, and blab online about the project and how much you think it rocks (assuming you think it rocks). Also: include the link to the Kickstarter page. If you care enough to do this several times throughout the campaign, and particularly as we get closer to the big push at the end, that’d be great.

4) Write a blog post about the book and Kickstarter project. Short and sweet is fine. Anything that gets the word out. Feel free to steal cover art and intel from the Kickstarter page.

5) Chat about it with your peeps.

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE! Let’s make this happen! One week left!