War is coming…
After thinking about this idea for pretty much my entire life (exhibit A), writing about it years ago, and spending the last three and a half years cranking out 400+ articles for Nerd Fitness built around it, I’m excited to finally announce a project that a small team and I have been working on for the past eighteen months:
Rising Heroes.
Rising Heroes is a half fitness tracker, half online role-playing game that takes place in the war-torn land of Arcadea. As a hero of Arcadea, you’ll lift, run, swim, and sprint your way to a leveled up a character in-game by leveling up yourself in real life. If you’ve been part of Nerd Fitness for a while, you’re probably familiar with the concept we were developing on the boards seemingly FOREVER called OMFG: Online Multiplayer Fitness Game.
Rising Heroes is what came of OMFG.
Rising Heroes is born…
Long story short: We’re a few weeks away from opening up beta portals to the land of Arcadea and letting people join the fray.
This is a MASSIVE PROJECT, and requires a tremendous amount of time, resources, and money. We have a very small team of dedicated people working on this in their spare time, but we hope to be able to devote our full attention and effort towards Rising Heroes.
In order to make that happen, rather than look to venture capital from Silicon Valley, investment bankers, angel investors, or loans, we decided to keep the power and decision making process in the hands of the people who have made Nerd Fitness and our community into the incredibly supportive and amazing juggernaut that it is today:
You.
Rising heroes is being developed by us nerds, FOR us nerds. Although we might explore something like a kickstarter option down the road, we wanted to keep this first group of people involved to just members of the Nerd Fitness community.
How to get involved
If you are interested in helping us Rising Heroes to life, check out the Rising Heroes page we’ve created explaining everything (well, not EVERYTHING) about the game, how it works, and how you can get involved.
If you aren’t interested in making a donation, don’t like the idea, or all of this is video game RPG stuff is completely foreign to you, that’s cool too. Check back on Thursday for your regularly scheduled Nerd Fitness article.
Aside from gaining early access by donating, we’ll be offering up beta portals in contests through the Nerd Fitness twitter, Facebook, message boards, and through the Nerd Fitness email list. The more lists you’re part of, the more chances you’ll have to win your way in.
“But Steve, I’m broke and REALLY unlucky” – Don’t fret, my dear rebel friend. Once we get through the beta portion of Rising Heroes, we’ll be opening the game with a free-to-play section and you can join up then at absolutely no cost. Visit RisingHeroes.com for more info and sign up for the interest list there.
Arcadea needs you
Two years ago, I quit my day job with less than $4,000 in the bank, no income stream, and no business plan.
Why? Because I believed so strongly in the Nerd Fitness community that I knew I’d find a way to make things work. Looking back, that was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Welp, I feel like Frodo all over again – ready to embark on a new quest that scares the absolute crap out of me.
This is going to be a long journey, but I’m so freaking excited to see what we will create. I hope you’ll help us shape Rising Heroes into something world-changing.
Check out the Rising Heroes page for all the info you need.
Feel free to leave comments with questions…if I can answer it, I will 🙂
For the Rebellion!
-Steve
P.S. We are looking for more Ruby on Rails programmers with actual game programming experience and/or MMO experience (as a gamer). If you are a programmer, gamer, and Nerd Fitness fanatic and looking to be part of this project, please email us at [email protected] with “RUBY ON RAILS PROGRAMMER” in the subject line. We’d love to know what you do currently for work, your experience (if any) as a MMO gamer and a RoR programmer, and why you want to help bring Rising Heroes to life.
P.P.S. To answer your first question, we decided to NOT do a Kickstarter campaign for this for a few reasons. We might explore that option in the future, but with the game in its infancy, we know how crucial feedback will be to start. For that reason, we wanted to keep the people involved to just people in the Nerd Fitness community, because this is where the game began.
If you’re not a programmer, that’s okay – keep an eye on Nerd Fitness and RisingHeroes.com for more announcements.
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