Last week I announced I was taking part in this year’s Extra Life, to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals as part of the amazing Team Tomb Raider Community.
Last year I was part of another site’s writing staff and through them I had the honour, the pleasure and the privilege of participating in Gameblast 2014, raising money for SpecialEffect, a UK-based organisation that focuses on helping people with disabilities enjoy the world of gaming and in turn helping them through gaming. It was a wonderful experience that left me with the desire to do more.
Sadly, because life was a bit more complicated than it should be, I couldn’t take part in Gameblast 2015. But now that I’m settling in a new place and finding the stability I’ve lacked for a while, I can finally focus on my charity work.
Last month, when I finally decided I was going to do Extra Life, after watching a few of them in the past, I spoke to Kelly M from the Archaeology of Tomb Raider about joining the team, and she pointed me towards our valiant leader Stella, who quickly gave me the rundown of the team, the even and what I needed to do to set it all up. It just took me a while to have everything in my life properly organised before I decided to make my registration official. I have done so now so my effort is now going into organising the event.
Extra Life is just November 7, one day of streams, but I’m not a big name nor do I have a definite following, so I need as much time as I can to reach my humble goal of $500. Over the following months, and with your help, I hope, I can build up the Twitch and YouTube channels and improve on my severely lacking hosting skills. I’m well aware that my lack of skills will have a direct impact on viewership and donations, and I want to do as best I can and raise the money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
It’s my participation, my stream, but I can’t do it alone. I need everyone’s help, not just on donations but overall.
Over the past week you might have seen me mention raffles and incentives and I’m setting those up. But I can tell you a few things I’ve decided on:
- There will be THREE (3) raffles every day.
- The last raffle in each day will unlock provided we reach donation goals for them.
- At $125 donation total, the 1st day raffle unlocks.
- At $250 donation total, the 2nd day raffle unlocks.
- At $375 donation total, the 3rd day raffle unlocks.
- At $500 donation total, the 4th day raffle unlocks.
- The raffles will take place on the day they’re unlocked, so all four could happen on the same day.
- The last raffle in each day will unlock provided we reach donation goals for them.
- The Daily Goal Raffles prizes are bigger than the others. For example, for one of the days the prize is The Witcher Collection, with all 3 games in the series, plus the digital Witcher Adventure board game, and digital copies of the novels.
- You can have more than ONE (1) entry in a raffle. The higher your donation, the more entries you get:
- Donations of $1-24 will have 1 entry.
- Donations of $25-49 will have 3 entries.
- Donations of $50 or more will have 5 entries.
- Donations of $100 or more will get 12 entries.
- The number of entries are for TOTAL donations, before the raffle. So if you’ve donated $10 every month until Extra Life, you’d have $60 total in donations.
- Any donations made before Extra Life starts count as one level higher. So if you donate $1 now you get 3 entries (though I sincerely hope you help me by donating a bit more than that!)
- If you win, the number of entries you’ve accumulated will be reduced by ONE.
- In addition to prizes there are also Incentives, these affect how I will play the games or in the case of the Live RPG session, you can decide just how difficult a time the player characters have. You make it better by helping me be a more evil DM.
- I will keep track of all incentive donations, and the one with the highest amount will win. For example, one of the planned events is Mass Effect, so there will be a Paragon vs Renegade incentive.
- When you donate, you can vote for one or more incentives in addition to the raffles.
- Please add your contact details to the donation message in addition to the incentive option, so I may contact you if you win.
There are still a couple of details I’m working on and others I want to keep secret until the end. Just let me tell you I have a couple of special things planned if we reach the $500 goal and something cooler if we reach the $1000 mark.
In terms of schedule, that is still being decided, but one thing that is certain is that the 7th, the Extra Life day, will feature Tomb Raider heavily if not exclusively, but you can help me decide on which games in the series you’d like me to play. Don’t worry, no donations necessary for this.
I’m doing my best to spice things up by getting a few special guests to come in, play a few games with us and have a nice chat! I will do my best to get some of the Team Tomb Raider folks in for the 2nd RPG session on Sunday (first one is on Friday) because the story has a nice Tomb Raider-y feel to it and I think it’ll be a blast.
There will be even be a chance, that I bring one of you in for the games, RPG and online multiplayer!
There’s more to come for my Extra Life plans in the coming months, and once the schedule is set I’ll share it with you!
As I said above, I can’t do this alone. I can’t help with this cause if you don’t back me up. I need your help and I will do everything in my power to give you the best show on Earth and entertain you in exchange for your support and help!
If you’d like to have an early start and help me a bit with this, you can click on the image below and donate.
Thank you all for your time, and I hope you’re as excited about Extra Life 2015 as I am!