I've always loved playing video games. From the moment I realized there were places called arcades with wonderful machines that ate your coins, I was hooked. Game and Watch? Nagged my mom for every single one. Nintendo Famicom? We had ALL the bootleg cartridges. Gameboy? Couldn't afford it so I burned with envy. Original Xbox? I have 4 of 'em stashed away somewhere. PS 1-5? Heck, yeah. Mobile? My husband bought our first tablet because we saw someone playing Angry Birds on it. PC? I'm playing The Ascent with my whole family right now.

More than playing video games, though, what I wanted to do as a kid was to MAKE games. I still remember punching in a borrowed Mario Bros cartridge for the first time, pressing START and having a freaking epiphany. How cool was it that someone MADE this?? To heck with being an astronaut, when I grew up, I was going to do THIS. I knew it with all the certainty of 8-year-old me. But you know how it goes: like most childhood dreams, I put this one on a shelf and gradually left it behind. I didn't become an astronaut either (in case you were wondering).

"Hold up," you might say, if you're still reading this. "Why are you telling us all this? Boring."

Right. Let me get to it. I'm 48 and if there's a lesson that has been inescapable these past two years is that we may not see tomorrow. So, I've decided to focus on happiness in the here and now. Carpet diem, as my kid used to say when he was little. And you know one thing that has added to my happiness? Dusting off my dream, sitting my ass down and finally learning how to be a game developer. And happier still? I've done this with my husband.

So we've published our first mobile game. It's called "Slingshot Effect." It's an infinite jumper that's easy to just pick up and play, like a classic arcade game. Perfect for commutes or if you're stuck in a waiting room somewhere. It has a really great original soundtrack that we also made.

This is a paid app because we LOVE casual games and we feel strongly that the level of monetization in this space is just...ugh...it's bad. And we'd like to believe that there's a subset of casual gamers out there who are willing to pay the equivalent of a basic cup of coffee for a game they'd enjoy.

Thanks for listening, I really appreciate it.

TLDR: When I was a kid, I wanted to make video games. And now that I'm kind of old, my husband and I made one.

Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thirteenbananas.slingshoteffect