It's interesting to read the blog of my pal Terri, as her kid and Maggie are so very very different. In one of Terri's entries, she mentioned that Dee (her kid, about a year younger than Maggie) is quite small, in the 5th percentile on the kiddo average-height chart.
In Maggie's checkup today we finally hit a milestone. In the past 6 months her growth has finally slowed to the point that she actually registers on the freakin' chart. She's dropped to the 97th percentile for height and weight, which is almost the size of an average 5 year-old.
It's funny to see Maggie and Dee together. Maggie's about twice Dee's size. They play well together, although Dee doesn't seem to be so interested in Maggie's favorite game, "run around the house and be really noisy and giggly". Last time over at the house, Dee was content with quietly sifting through Maggie's toybox.
Maggie finished her 3-week stint at Montessori "camp" in preparation for starting school in August. She's really motivated to read, so we found a place that'd take her early. It's pretty ugly expensive, but it's a great school and I'd rather send my kid to a great school and drive an ordinary car than the other way around.
I had one of those "awwwww" moments a couple of days ago. Maggie's been going to Kinder-Care for quite a while, so she's old hat at the old "play well with others without mom & dad" game, but for many of the other kids there this is the first time they've ever been away from their parents for any length of time, so there are a few who are adjusting.
Anyway, coming back from school a couple of days ago, Maggie told me "Today Elizabeth was crying because she wanted her mommy and her daddy, so I gave her a hug and a kiss so that way she can't cry anymore".
Sometimes you wonder if you're raising your kid right, and sometimes they just have a way of letting you know that you are. Whatta good kid.
And despite their claim to get back to me within 20 working days, shockwave.com finally got back with a reply about Duck Tiles after two months.
Impressively, they managed to be even lamer than the realarcade.com rejection letter. At least realarcade was nice enough to give me one sentence of why they didn't want the game (games of pure logic don't resonate with us. . .I mean our audience). Shockwave.com just sent me the generic "REJECT" rubber-stamp.
*sigh*
Oh well. Gonna keep on keepin' on.
Dear John,
Thank you for submitting your game, Duck Tiles. We receive several hundred game submissions per year, and we are only able to select a small percentage of those for publication on Shockwave.com. Unfortunately, we were not able to select your game at this time. We will keep your submission on file, and if our needs change we will contact you. Please continue to think of us when you produce new games, as our needs vary over game genres and while this game wasn't selected, your next one might be.
Best regards,
The Shockwave.com Games Team
-----Original Message-----
From: John Hattan [mailto:john@thecodezone.com] Posted At: Monday, April 25, 2005 3:06 PM Posted To: Game Submissions
Conversation: Game Submission
Subject: Game Submission
- Your name and contact information
John Hattan
3333 Southlake Park Road
Southlake, TX 76092
- Game name
Duck Tiles
- Are you an active Shockwave.com game developer already? If so, please list your most recent game launched on our site.
No
- URL to playable version - this is VERY IMPORTANT. If the current game is not playable, send a design document or description, and pointers to prior work that demonstrates your abilities. Links that require account creation will not be considered. If evaluation of your game requires a username and password, you must provide that information.
http://www.thecodezone.com/dt_submit/setup.exe
- Short description of the game, including the genre and why it would make an excellent addition to the Shockwave.com library.
Duck Tiles is an addictive and simple puzzle game with 216 levels, ranging from very simple to virtually impossible. The light theme (rubber ducks and soaps sliding around a bathroom floor) and extremely short learning curve will give this game very broad appeal.
- Development stage (e.g. prototype, alpha, beta, complete) and estimated time to complete.
Game is in beta and will be ready to ship in 1-2 weeks.
- Technology: Shockwave, Flash, Java, etc. Specify the minimum version number and note if Xtras or other supporting technologies are required to operate the game.
Game is written in Flash and uses the Zinc 2.0 executable builder to make the game a standalone EXE and to give the game access to the Windows registry for progress-saving. No runtime xtra or DLL requirements.
- Rights - who owns the game? Was it "inspired by" another game? Has the game been licensed to anybody yet?
The game is owned by The Code Zone and is not inspired by any other game (although the board games "Ricochet Robot" and "Lunar Lockout" have similar rules of movement but different rules of play), and the game has not been licensed to anyone.
Any other places you're submitting it to?