An unhappy New Year's Eve

Last New Years eve I decided it would be a great idea to beta test the first disk of Rewind 2006 on my unsuspecting friends. It was the first game built using our Software Development Kit (SDK) that was in development, so much of the programming from previous Rewind builds was different and we wanted to test it to see if our new streamlined code could handle real world game play.

The short answer was, it could.

The long answer was, for me it was the worst New Years Eve EVER!

I popped in the game, asking my willing guinea pigs to play a few rounds, and to really put it through its paces. There was about 30 or so people there, so they all ganged up in teams and away they went with me watching in the background looking for any bugs.

There were a few entry screen issues and some overlay misalignments, but beyond that, functionally it worked perfectly. After only one round I had seen enough and thanked everyone and suggested something lame like, “lets get this party started!”

Except no one got up.

They kept playing. And playing. And playing.

And playing.

Now, I’m not adverse to game playing at any time, as it is my occupation, however I wrote Rewind 2006 and it wasn’t exactly like I could participate knowing all the answers as I did.

So I sat at the back. Alone. For hours.

Happy Frikin’ New Year!

Now, the reason I’m relating this is two fold: First, if you are looking for a GREAT New Years Eve game for groups large or for small, the Game Wave is kinda perfect.

And the second is for my friends. Don’t even think about it, okay?

Have a Happy New Year Everyone, and here’s looking forward to a fabulous 2008!

Cheers - Gavin

The 20th - The most important day of December

Well, for us anyway…

That is the absolute drop-dead date for ordering a Game Wave or a Game Wave game – if you want it under your tree for the 25th that is.

And even that day is pushing it if you ask me. Most places stopped guaranteeing orders last week, but not us.

How do we do it? I have no idea.

Two weeks ago I asked our operations manager what was the final possible order date and after talking to our facilitators and shipping folks that was the date he came up with.

Just in case, I asked him a few days later as well, just to make sure he hadn’t been over imbibing on the eggnog, and once again he insisted the 20th was in fact the date.

So, you only have a few days left to get your order in if you need a Game Wave for Christmas.

Order here.

Of course you could just hold off a bit because the Game Wave is also the perfect New Year’s Eve game as well.

And there’s no rush for ordering for that – until there is.

Let's go Club-ing

Groucho Marx said, “I would never want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.”

Well, I hate to say it, but in this case, Groucho is dead wrong.

We’ve just introduced the Game Wave Club for all registered Game Wave owners.

It’s an exclusive-to-you club because we want to show our appreciation for how far we’ve gone since introducing the Game Wave about this time last year. From a kernel of an idea from a board game inventor named Richard Fast, (He also came up with MindTrap to name one of his more famous titles), to where we are today, we couldn’t have made it here without you.

So - what is the club about? From time to time, like now for example, we’re offering great insider deals to all Game Wave Club Members. For this holiday season, we’re giving away FREE games to all Club Members who take part in a holiday promotion. You can learn more about it HERE.

So – as a Game Wave owner, how come you’ve never heard about the thing? Well, we sent out a mass e-mail to all registered owners on November 21st. If you didn’t receive yours there are three probable explanations:

1. The e-mail you registered with is kaput. If that’s the case you can reregister with your new address and you will be added, once again, to our e-mail list.

2. You haven’t registered your Game Wave. If that’s you, simply go HERE and you’ll be added to the list.

3. Your e-mail program decided we were spam and sent the club invitation to the trash. To avoid that in the future, you can try one of these options:

Microsoft Outlook users: Follow these instructions to ensure that your Game Wave e-mails are always delivered to your inbox.

For Outlook 2003: (Other versions such as Outlook 2007 and Outlook Express may vary slightly)

From the Tools menu, select Options
Click the Junk E-Mail button
Click the Safe Senders tab
Click the Add button
Enter zapitgames.com in the text box provided, and click OK
For more help, see the Outlook help site.

Hotmail and MSN Users: Follow these instructions to ensure that your Game Wave e-mails are always delivered to your inbox.

Login to your Hotmail or MSN account
Click Options
On the left side of the page, click Mail, and then click Junk E-Mail Protection
Click Safe List
Enter zapitgames.com in the field provided, then click Add
For more help, see the Hotmail/MSN help site.

Gmail users: Follow these instructions to ensure that your Game Wave e-mails are always delivered to your inbox.

Login to http://www.gmail.com/
Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page
Click Create Contact
For E-mail, enter info@zapitgames.com
Click Save

Check out the Game Wave Club if you have a chance. It’s our way to give back to you, and for you to score some free swag along the way.

And isn’t that what the holiday season is all about?

Cheers

Where to Buy

You may have noticed a new button on the PlayGameWave.com website.

It’s all about “Where to Buy.”

Sure, we may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing our state-of-the-art online shopping cart, but we still have to put our stuff in old fashioned bricks and mortar stores, because apparently there are some folks who remain gun-shy about this whole Internet e-commerce “fad.”

Me? I’m more of a sit-on-my-butt-and-order-via-keyboard-and-get-it-delivered-to-me kind of guy.

Going to stores means shopping and that invariably leads to me standing in a packed change room in a woman’s clothes store, suffering withering “is that guy a pervert” glances from ladies exiting and entering their cubicles, while my wife tries on 11 pairs of jeans requiring me to pass judgment on which of them makes her look less “fat.”

There is absolutely no good answer to that question so I try to avoid it like a paper cut.

But there are those who revel in the whole “got to feel it with my hands” tactile shopping experience.

For those folks, we’ve built this cool page with a map of North America allowing them to click on their state or province for the nearest store that carries the Game Wave.

Give it a go Here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do some of that type of old-school shopping myself.

Flowers.

My wife might have read this….

Tales of a vegetable matter

So, what do Madame Bovary, Rocky, The Mikado and King David's encounter with the Philistine Goliath in First Samuel have in common?

They are all suitable subject matter for the next game we are going to release, Game Wave VeggieTales.

If you aren’t familiar with VeggieTales, which means you are also not familiar with having kids, they were first introduced in 1993 becoming the first ever completely computer generated “cartoon” series ever made.

Since then, and 50-million copies later, VeggieTales has grown into a Saturday morning staple and a major family favorite especially appreciated by kids of wee variety.

It’s a perfect pairing for us, as our current suite of games has a decidedly older slant to it. We've been working on this for a while, trying to find the perfect licensing partner to address that hole in our library. Who knew kids could be so tough! And the moral VeggieTales stories are a perfect fit for our family first, last and always philosophy.

However, perhaps the biggest bonus is how hilarious it is seeing all of our guys up to their ears in Bob the Tomato and Archibald Asparagus animations. It’s hard not to giggle during the sometimes heated meetings discussing staying "true" to the character of Larry the Cucumber.

But that’s the nature of the gaming business. We’re taking play very seriously around here, especially since the folks who are going to be playing the thing will be our own kids.

We’re thrilled with this partnership with VeggieTales, and I hope you are as well.

More details to come of course but for now you'll have to make due with the official Press Release.

What every dorm room needs

Got kids in higher education? I’m sure you are trying to convince yourself that the burgeoning scholars you just sent off to that psychotically expensive college are studying every waking minute they are there - and dreaming serious scholastic thoughts while asleep.

After all, that would be the only sensible thing to do, considering all that cash you just forked over.

But ummm…you probably went as well right? After my first day, I woke up the next morning with a lampshade on my head - and no idea how it got there.

Suffice it to say, things haven’t changed all that much when it comes to life at University.

Now, this may sound like a bit of a sales pitch, and in truth, it is. But I have to tell you about some of the feedback we’ve been getting from the college age crowd, and their Game Wave nights.

“We’re not nerds! Just had to say that up front, but I’d like to thank you guys, and my mom, for the Game Wave. We’ve been holding tournaments after class a couple of times a week, and everyone is going ape___ over the thing. We’re thinking of going to our house head and seeing if she can set up a college wide championship…”

Kids staying in dorm rooms to play educational games? It actually happens. So, if you’re thinking of dropping by the little Einstein to see how they are doing, why not bring along something that they will not only enjoy, but could also keep them out of the pub.

Well, not all the time.

Here's the promo we were too chicken to let fly

Last Christmas we wanted to make a splash in papers while all the Wii and PS3 frenzy was underway. Their consoles were dominating the press and we could hardly get a word in edgewise so the thinking was, we need to make some noise on our own.

This was the design for a flyer that was going to be released in major markets across North America at the height of the Christmas shopping season, but in the last minute, there was an internal mood swing and we collectively wussed out. (You can click on the image for a larger view)

Well, I have to admit, I didn't. I thought it was an awesome promo, but the powers that be ended kiaboshing the thing at the 11th hour.

I have no idea if it was a good decision or a bad decision, but I'd like to hear what you would have thought if you heard a gaming company suggest to you to "Beat Your Kids!"

Too much chocolate

The thing about working at a games development company is that it is all fun and games - literally. We work on games. We think about games. We talk about games. At lunch, occasionally we even play games.

Sounds like fun, and it is. However there are times when it’s a little bit too much of a good thing. And one of those times is now.

Whenever a game is set for release, it has to go through an extensive quality and assurance regime so when you buy a copy of the thing, when you get it home you’ll be able to play it uninterrupted by crashes, glitches or booboo’s. I would bore you with the gory details of what all that entails, but it basically breaks down to these two simple rules:

Play the game.

A lot.

Now, I like playing Sudoku. I would even say on a Sunday morning watching Meet the Press with a Sudoku puzzle in front of me is one of my favorite weekly rituals.

But when you are involved in the QA process of a Sudoku game, like we all are presently, I suspect the guy who originally came up with the Sudoku game concept back in 1979, a feller named Howard Garns, would say, “No more! I beg you, just a little chess. Please!”

And it’s not just about those of us who work here at ZAPiT Games either. You should try living with us. We’re so busy doing on our own things during working hours, that the QA process tends to get shoved to home time. That means when a game is set for release, connubial bliss is strained to the max by almost endless playing of the game in an attempt to break it. No where in my wedding vows was, "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for playing games eight hours a night, for seemingly weeks on end..."

And that heavy-duty call to game playing arms stretches to the extended family and friends as well.

Me: “Hey, you guys busy on Saturday night? How about a BBQ?”

So called friends: “Nice try. We know you have a new game coming out. We’re not going through that again!”

Slackers.

The plus side of course is, we will all end up being pretty much Sudoku gods when all this is over, and when you get your copy hopefully we’ll have caught everything.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get my wife Leslie out of the bathroom. For some reason she’s been in there for hours!

Raising money - the fun way...

If you have ever been involved in any type of fundraising venture in your life - you most likely know the deep dark secret that is kept quite by everyone who has held any kind of a charitable event.

No one talks about it afterwards because, like childbirth, the endorphins that kick in from producing the thing blank out most of the negative memories. But not all.

The deep dark secret truth about fundraising events is, for the most part for those involved in putting on the show, they are about as much fun as rope burn.

From no-showing volunteers, to weather problems, to last minute money fiascoes, during the events themselves the stress level is at about 11.

So - why do many of us put ourselves through this voluntary hell?

Well - because if we don't no one else will I guess is the easiest answer.

I've had a ton of experience in fundraising for a bunch of different causes, so last year I was pretty excited about being handed off a fundraising project by my boss. I was to build a Trivia Night Kit with everything anyone would need to hold their own fundraising event contained in a nice tight little package.

The purpose was two-fold. First, fundraising is nice. And second, frankly it would be a good marketing vehicle for our family friendly gaming system.

So build it I did - and then – pretty much nothing. We got so tied up with a bunch of other projects, like building actual games for the Game Wave, my little Trivia Night Kit fell by the wayside.

But I haven't given up on my little pet project that could. I've managed to get about half a dozen of these trivia nights held thus far and each has been an unqualified success.

And the thing is, unlike most other events I’ve been involved with, the way the Trivia Night Kit works is actually fun for both the participants and the suckers volunteers.

The content is great. The game itself is simple to operate - it runs in a regular DVD player - and the fundraising tips have been very well received.

It's everything you need to hold a fundraiser, all in one little DVD case.

It's crazy to hold a fundraiser really. You'll never work harder in your life - all for no money, and not enough satisfaction. Give youself a break and drop me a line if you want to at least avoid the rope burn.


Cheers - Gavin

Giving is Good

Ever heard this before? You’re at a party and some guy is whining about his job – a job that sounds completely awesome to you - yet he’s endlessly complaining saying something like, “it’s not all fun and games you know.”

Well – my job is. Literally. Fun and games is just about all I do around here, and recently it’s become even more fun – ‘cause I get to give stuff away.

I’ve discovered that, as in life, giving in business is good - which is not exactly Gordon Gecko of me. The morning ritual of dealing out the hardware to the winners of the Daily Trivia contest has added a wee bit more joy to an already too-much-fun occupation.

And today positively rocked because I was away all last week so, by catching up it was a virtual charity-oh-rama!

We changed the contest while I was away from awarding a Game Wave itself, to one of the Game Wave game titles instead. The reason for this is rather simple – and not one that you would immediately suspect.

It’s not because we don’t want to give any more Game Wave’s away. It’s because at about the same time, we introduced this killer guarantee to new customers.

Let’s say you win the Daily Trivia and you already have a console. It’s nice to get another one to give as a gift I suppose (after all - giving is good) but it’s actually better for you personally if you can get another game gratis to play with at home.

If you don’t have a Game Wave – we’ll ship one out to you for free for a month – and you get two games to play with. If you don’t like it, give us a shout and well have it picked up – all at no charge to you.

That’s how confident we are about the Game Wave. And I can guarantee one other thing:

No other gaming console company would ever do this.

Which either makes us special, or especially weird.

Upon further Review…

If ever you’ve wanted to be a critic, here’s your chance. We’re looking for some serious rants (but preferably raves) about all of our games.

If you’ve played ‘em, you’ve got to have an opinion and we’re dying to hear just what that opinion is.

We need your input for a couple of reasons: First – we’re making a bunch more games and we need your feedback on what we’ve been doing right, but more importantly what we’ve been doing wrong.

And secondly, shameless self promotion!

We’ll post them on the actual game pages for all to see, so get busy and get raving - especially about all the Rewinds. My boss will read them you know…

We look forward to hearing from you. Submit yours Here

When graphics guys have too much time on their hands...

We know us – so we trust us…

But you don’t, so why should you?

That’s one of things we suddenly came to realize recently. (Hey, we’re great at making games. That doesn’t make us all that bright.)

The Playgamewave.com site was the face we presented to the world who might be interested in our product, and all we provided there was us telling them – the stuff we make was really, really fun, and you and your family are going to love it, and up to six can play and 4Degrees is fun, and so is ZAP 21 and so is Click! and so on and so on….

Now, none of that was untrue.

All of our stuff really is fun. Especially the Rewind games, although since I worked as the editor and head writer on those, I might be a wee bit biased. It’s just we were asking folks to take our word for it.

And since those folks had no idea who we were, they tended not to.

So, we’re focusing now on a couple of things – first, letting people know who we are a bit through things like this blog.

And second, using our current customer's experiences to tell our story for us.

There is nothing more convincing for me than hearing from a person who sounds a bit like me about something that I may be interested in. Be it a movie, a restaurant, a cell phone, or in this case, a game console, if someone who I can relate to has a positive experience about something, anything really, that is far more compelling for me than hearing it from the company who is producing it.

So – instead of us blathering on about how great the Game Wave is (and it is pretty great really), I’m asking you to take a sec and blow our own horn for us.

People who come to our site don’t necessarily want to hear it from us. They will want to hear it from you however, so if you have something to say about the Game Wave, pass it along.

Enter your Game Wave testimonial Here

Do you Sudoku?

If so - I can promise you have never Sudokued like this.

The ultimate solitary game is revolutionized into a competition between two, three, four, even six players...

Or, if you want, you can still play all by your self.

More coming soon

Shamelessly Using You

...and you'll like it!

Between deciding what should and what should not go in Rewind 2007, working on a as yet un-named (for certain) game and getting Rewind 2006 ready to publish, we’ve been exploring new ways to get the word about Game Wave out there.

Not being Xbox or Nintendo, we weren’t about to go to The Electronic Entertainment Expo that’s currently underway. The journalists and bloggers who cover that would just giggle at a cute little company like ours who is only interested in making games for families.

We also don’t have their budgets. The makers of Xbox, a little company called Microsoft, revealed this week that they’ve spent more than a Billion dollars (yes, that’s with a “B”) just on console repairs alone.

We’re not quite in the Bill Gates’ financial bracket quite yet.

That means we’ve got to be more creative. So – I’m putting together a kind of “Friends of Game Wave” campaign. It’s a grass roots thing where happy existing customers, like… say… you, might help us spread the word to friends and family. And just for doing so we’ll make it worth your while.

We have a great story to tell. We just need the right people to tell it.

If you are interested, give me a shout.

gavin@zapitgames.com

The ah ha moment

Let’s say an alien, of the outer space variety landed his/her/its(?) space ship on the White House lawn. What would be the first thing George W. Bush would do? Okay, the second thing, after asking Dick Cheney what he should do…

Well, eventually he would attempt to let the alien know that we earthlings welcome him/her/it in peace. He’d try to get across the hope that he/she/it has come in peace and finally, if George has any cool left in him at all, that he would simply love to go for a spin in that funky flying saucer!

But how? How would Bush communicate with someone who is even more language challenged that he is? English, I’m certain, is not the first language of the stars.

That’s the communication problem of the third kind.

It’s our problem as well.

We have this killer product, the Game Wave. We have 99% positive feedback from our existing customers. We have tons and tons of positive press, stacks of awards, Toys r Us even named the Game Wave, up against the Wii and the PS3, the Toy of the Year.

Yet despite all that, we are still struggling to get the word out. Why? It’s because, simple as the Game Wave concept is --up to six people playing the same game simultaneously-- a player can’t understand it until they actually play it.

All that fabulous feedback comes from people who have sat down and experienced it first hand - however all that doesn't translate well to those who haven't.

We’ve dubbed that the "ah-ha moment" and have seen it basically every time someone plays the Game Wave for the first time.

The folks are expecting just another gaming console or DVD game experience, but when they are involved with a group, competing all the time, with no turns or waiting, the dawn breaks. They nod knowingly. They look over and almost invariably say something like, “ah ha,” or “oh, now I get it!”

So – how do we translate that experience to someone who doesn’t have access to the Game Wave?

Maybe we should ask Dick Cheney.

The Barry Bonds Quandary

Editorial-wise we put the wraps on Rewind 2006 a few months back, and one of the sports questions in on Barry Bonds. There! Just by reading this you have a heads up on the competition!

Bonds holds the single season record for home runs with 73, and at this writing he is four home runs shy of breaking Hank Aaron’s mark of 755 dingers in a career. He was just selected to start the All-Star game for the 12th time, becoming at age 42, the oldest baseball player ever to be so honored by the fans.

Now – knowing what you know about Barry Bonds you would think that writing a trivia question on the greatest hitter of his generation would be a snap.

It would be, except when you put all that he is done in the context of a family game.

Besides being overly adept at parking baseball’s in McCovey Cove, Bonds is also renowned for being a jackass to the press, and to the fans as well for that matter. Although the All-Star game is in his home stadium – he’s skipping the Home Run Derby because he has “nothing to prove.” That’s showing some fan appreciation for those who voted him into the game!

And then there is also that little BALCO situation. The Grand Jury is still sitting, possibly trying to figure out a way to get the soon-to-be home run king indicted on assorted drug related charges.

And thus the quandary. How do you write a good trivia question about Barry Bonds and not mention the stuff he is perhaps most famous for?

It's a game after all. It's supposed to be fun. Is "fun" focusing on the negative in a game setting? We decided no, so we made it one of our editorial rules. When we’re writing and editing the questions we try to put ourselves in the mindset of the family who is playing the game.

We try to picture Mom and Dad and their kids parked in front their TV, and our worst case scenario is having an 8-year old turn to Mom or Dad and ask them a question, inspired from one of our games, on drugs, or sex or any other of the tough topics parents have to deal with with their kids.

Playing the Game Wave is supposed to be a fun night and educational as well. But not necessarily a social studies lesson for a pre-adolescent.

So – when you play Rewind 2006, and when you get to the Barry Bonds question, or a Britney question, or a Lindsey question, and someone you’re playing with wonders why we didn’t talk about BALCO, or the sex scandals or the drug busts or the million other things that make tabloids what they are…

...now you know.

"Games for the Rest of Us"

"Games for the Rest of Us": A few years back that was the how ZAPiT Games and the then un-named Game Wave was pitched to me during my interview for the Project Manager/Game editor job that I still hold.

It held real resonance for me because I was considering joining a Gaming industry that, on the whole, I thought pretty much sucked.

Watching guys my age - or any age for that matter - play single-shooter games, complete with blood splatter and flying body parts was more than a waste of time to me. It was simply weird.

Besides the "what is the frikin' point?" thing, I wondered did I really want to join an industry that was thriving by mimicking mass murder?

Ya – because ZAPiT Games had a different message. They were going to build games for guys like me. No violence. No gore. Just smart, clean old-fashioned fun updated for a home theatre age.

Boring for those who like to see people blown up real good, sure, but I figured there had to be a market for those who, like me, had been left out in the gaming cold.

Overall the Gaming Industry hasn't changed. The best selling games are still packed with uber-violence. The trade mags are filled with articles on such topics like "rag-doll physics" - how to make a dead body fly through the air more realistically.

As for us, we're working hard on getting the message out, trying to fill that "rest of us" niche.

...and speaking of Rewind

We are in the process of gathering question topics for a planned Rewind 2007.

Though it's only July we've got nearly half of the question topics we'll need already. It's been a rather newsy 2007.

If you come across some weird news that you think would be perfect News or Not or True or False material, please pass it along.

You'll make my job much easier and if it gets in the game, you'll have a heads up on the competition.

Rewind 2006 Update

The final QA stages for Rewind 2006 are underway with the game going to Gold Master, if we don't find any major booboo's, later this month.

Like Rewind 2005, we had to make this a two-disk game because the content was so video rich, we couldn't cram it all on one.

Bad for us because the actual physical production costs are greatly increased.

Good for you because the production quality is the best it can be and the cost is the same as a single disk game.

So - look for Rewind 2006 coming soon. The ship date will be announced here first.

Welcome to the Game Wave Blog

Just a quick note of welcome to the enthusiasts of all things Game Wave.

We're going to use this weblog as way to keep you up to date on all the latest happenings with the Game Wave and with new game developments.

As well, we need your input on what we have already created, what we're in the process of creating, and what we are, or rather, what we should be working on in the future.

Our original intention for the Game Wave was to provide an opportunity to bring families together in play. That is still our working mantra - and the only way we're going to get better at doing just that is with your help.

So first, thanks for your support, and second, what can we do for you?