Pokey Hole: The Game

What is the below?

It's a box.

With holes in it.

My son summoned me one morning this week, saying "Daddy, come, I've got a game for us to play!"

And the game was Pokey Hole.

Where you poke... holes.

It was so much fun that I made a Kickstarter campaign to support me in my efforts to codify the official rules of pokey hole.

But then this happened.

Kickstarter declined my campaign.

So, I went to the crowdfunding platform that I've used in the past - Indiegogo. I'm sorry for doubting you Indiegogo, their green letters caught my eye briefly, but now I'm back.

And the Pokey Hole campaign. IS. NOW. LIVE.

Also, watch the official Pokey Hole Trailer now!

Do feel free to share :)

Create A Buzz

A standard crowdfunding strategy is to create a buzz in social media before your campaign goes live, so that people are excited and looking forward to it.

I'll just leave this photo here:

Stop by my blog this weekend, okay? :)

Star Traders 2 Kickstarter and Vlogtober!

I've put my planned blog post to one side (yes, this stuff is sometimes planned, it's that good!) because of two reasons.

Firstly, you have 32 hours to go and check out the Kickstarter for Star Traders 2 RPG.  I'm a big fan of the original Star Traders, where you get to fly around a galaxy, shooting bad guys (or good guys, depending on how you want to play), trading supplies, doing quests, listening to rumours, all kinds of randomness.  The developers (the Trese brothers) did a fantastic job bringing a great deal of depth to it, and I'm really looking forward to Star Traders 2.  As I write this they're about $1,800 away from their first stretch goal of adding Orbital Stations to the game, which I do think would be a really interesting addition, so it's not too late to get involved!

Second reason for my usual blog post being postponed is that because I have to say that I am taking part in Vlogtober.  This basically means that I'm committing to releasing a video every day through the month of October.

I generally aim to release a video on my YouTube channel about once a week, and I find that a struggle sometimes, so it is with some trepidation that I'm attempting doing a daily video.  Nevertheless I am attempting the challenge, and I've managed so far to keep to schedule the first two days:

The first day I told some bad jokes.

And the second day you watch me drink beer.  It's that good.

If you're taking part in Vlogtober please do say hi in the comments, I'd love to hear from you and check out how you're getting on!

No Chocolate cake

Sometimes I feel bad when my son cries. Okay - I always feel bad when he cries.

But then he turns to me and goes "Want Chocolate Cake!".

A) Not that upset.
B) Clearly lining himself up to "be upset" when the desired cake does not appear.
C) I want cake too.

Anyway - I finished!

I finished the YouTube Creator Academy last night.  It's been a really valuable exercise to learn more about YouTube and how to sort your videos out to make them more attractive to potential viewers, and it's also let me experience a lot other channels by other creators that I'd normally totally miss.  I particularly recommend TheNickCrompton - very funny plus I believe he's from somewhere in Yorkshire so that's always a bonus!

If you haven't already seen it here's my welcome video to my YouTube Channel:

Apart from that I've now put a page up on my website about guest posts - I've started getting people talking about working together on stuff so I thought I ought to have some guidelines in place.  If you really want to you can check them out.

And if you did contribute on Kickstarter to the second season of My Gimpy Life, well done!  The target of $50,000 has been passed, so they're going to have the money to make the season.  Jolly good.

YouTube Creator Academy

Currently my son is taking great joy in organising things.  In his playroom he has a load of letters and numbers, and given time he'll arrange them into piles of:

• Numbers
• Foam letters
• Hard plastic capital letters in one font
• Hard plastic capital letters in a different font
• Hard plastic lower case letters

Well, it keeps him out of mischief.

Do you have a YouTube channel?  Are you interested in getting more views, improving your channel, and all that kind of thing?

If so, have you checked out the YouTube Creator Academy?  It's an online course discussing the various features of YouTube (especially the new YouTube One channel layout) and how to make your videos more popular.  I've started doing the course and I've certainly found it of value - I've mucked about with my channel homepage (if you've not visited my YouTube home, head over to https://www.youtube.com/ravenswingthog and check it out) and added a new welcome video too.  It's actually quite challenging, it encourages you to work with other YouTubers on the course and it's really highlighted to me just how far I have to go in improving the quality of my content to compete!  But I'm working on that.  If you do like my videos though, if you do have a YouTube/Google account, please do like my videos and subscribe to my channel if you can - and feel free to let me know what you'd like me to make, I love feedback!  Feel free to leave comments on YouTube, email me, or tweet at me at @ravenswingthog -  it's all good.

Not to over do it but if you haven't donated yet on Kickstarter for the second series of My Gimpy Life (first series available here) you've got till Friday 14th to donate - as things stand they're just under $10,000 short of their target, so if you were planning to put some cash in, head over to Kickstarter before the deadline passes.

Nappy guidance

Hi!

Is your little one in nappies!  Here's some guidance if taking you're taking them around a nature reserve.

1) Before you leave the house, might be an idea to change their nappy.  If you don't, take some nappies with you.
2) If you didn't change their nappy before you left, it's probably wise not to let them drink two full bottles of water while you're out.
3) If you did let them drink two full bottles of water, remember to take the bag of spare nappies with you when you leave the car to walk around the nature reserve.
4) If you didn't abide by all of the three rules above, it's probably a REALLY BAD idea to give your young child a piggy back unless you want a wet neck.

Luckily he didn't actually burst his nappy but I thought he had!  We got about halfway round the park when the nappy became so heavy that it was pulling his jeans down, so I thought the piggy back would be the simplest way to resolve the problem.  It promptly turned into a route march so that I could get back to the car in time!

Changing the subject completely, have you seen My Gimpy Life?

It's a really good web series starring Teal Sherer, a disabled actress who you may know as Venom from The Guild.  It's about her life and is very funny indeed.

Anyway, she did her first series (see it here) and now is looking for funding for her second series, and she's funding it through Kickstarter.  The deadline is Friday June the 14th, and she's looking for $50,000 (as I write this she's got over $31,000 pledged already) so if you liked the first series and would like to enjoy the second series I'm sure she'd appreciate a donation!  It's made me dip my toe into Kickstarter for the first time and it is really easy to give money if you have an Amazon account.

Not LANning, and Not a Real Race!

Just popped on the PC for a few minutes - it's my son's birthday tomorrow and I've spent the evening blowing up balloons, wrapping presents and the like ready for the morning.

My partner and I also went to a training course run by the Speech & Language Therapy Service within Humber NHS this evening to help us in developing the little ones speech, it was really good and I'm looking forward to the next session.

Well, Dreamhack, basically the worlds biggest LAN party, in Sweden, has just ended.

And in a handful of days, the latest i-series, i47, the biggest LAN party in the UK, will be beginning.

I am not going to either.

I'm not bitter.

Honest.

Anyway, the ace thing I wanted to point out today is this website - http://www.ridiculo.us/

They do ridiculous things (surprise surprise) and currently what they're doing is faking a marathon.

Basically the way it works is this:

You donate some money to them via their Kickstarter page (Kickstarter is another fantastic thing by the way for people to raise money for their project, whatever it is), you get a pack of stuff like a sticker to put on your t-shirt with a number on it, you then post on your Facebook all about the race - that you're gearing up for the race, etc - get a photo of yourself running by a road somewhere, and get that on Facebook - and when the race ends, you'll also go up on their website with a finishing time and everything.

It's just like taking part in a marathon. Except for the getting tired bit.

Ace!