using a video game to raise money for people who find it really hard to play video games

[ChestyMcGee]

[IMG]http://filesmelt.com/dl/bannersmalllong.jpg[/IMG]

Hi guys

I've already made this thread some time ago now in GD but I'm not sure it was the best place to get this cause recognised. Seeing as this bit of the forum is more specifically about games, and playing games, I thought it'd be more fitting here. Apologies though if you've all already seen that thread and if I'm annoying you all with something that constitutes spam.

Now that's out of the way, for those of you who don't know (ie. everyone), I'm part of Nice Face Games; a group of five students, colleagues, and friends, who are trying to make video games.

Nice Face Games is raising money for a wonderful charity called SpecialEffect whose aim is simple - to help everyone with a disability level the playing field and find a way to play the games they love.

To do this, they travel around the country with their specialist gaming equipment, demonstrating it to people and then setting up meetings with individuals, creating controllers specific to their personal needs, thus allowing them to play all the games that we take for granted.

Their equipment is as varied as the people who need it and includes some incredible bits of kit like controllers that can be manipulated easily by elbows and chins, for amputations and other conditions, and sensors that track the retinas of the human eye, allowing people with little or no muscle control to play games using only their vision.
I could go on, but this short introductory video will explain it better than I:
[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLNrCivOzw"]
[/URL][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLNrCivOzw[/media]

[B]What are we going to do?
[/B]
Being a charity for gamers, and us being people who make video games, we want to do a sponsored 'gaming marathon'. Gaming marathons often take the shape of playing through very long games in a single stint or many games in a series, such as playing through all the Zelda games in two days, for example. We want to take it one step further though and complete a real sporting event in a video game. We've chosen the [I]Spa 24 Hours.
[/I]
Sadly this doesn't mean we'll be sat in a spa for a day, but rather competing in a virtual equivalent of the 24-hour endurance race around Circuit De Spa-Francorchamps - one of the biggest race car events of the year.
During the race we'll see both the real and virtual sunset and sunrise, competing against 23 AI cars in a BMW Z4 GT3, totalling probably around 600-700 laps and around 3000 miles of the 4.4 mile circuit - no small feat!

We'll be doing this on [I]Project CARS[/I], a racing simulator being produced by a team in London:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oon6ADJ_zg[/media]

(footage is of an old build of the game)

[B]
Why should you sponsor us?[/B]

Because it's a great charity! The kind of help these guys are giving people all around the country is a truly beautiful thing to see and for us to play a small part in that is a great honour.
In addition to that though we're gonna be doing some cool stuff as part of the event:

Technology allowing, we're going to be streaming the whole 24hrs online for free, both from the perspective of the virtual car and of the room we'll be doing it in. Anyone can tune in whenever they like!

Also for any support we get we're pledging to put your name on the car! Any named donation, personal, business, or otherwise, will get a space on the BMW's livery. Hopefully this means we'll have a car completely covered in the names of generous people!

[IMG]http://filesmelt.com/dl/car_small.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for reading this far. We're all really excited about raising some money and doing some good for people who have sadly not had the brilliant and emotional experiences with video games that we all take for granted. So dig deep! Here's the JustGiving link:

[B][URL]http://www.justgiving.com/nicefacegames[/URL][/B]

You can follow the development of the event at these various hip social media hangouts:
[URL]https://twitter.com/NiceFaceGames[/URL]
[URL]http://nicefacegames.tumblr.com/[/URL]

Thanks again and much love
Chesty and the Nice Face Games team