September 12, 2012 by tomwfreeman - 0 comments

Avatar Heroes

There’s two parts to taking part in Sick Kids Save Point. Enduring 24 hours of gaming, and raising sponsorship. They are both tough tasks. Raising sponsorship can be a challenge when people don’t understand how difficult the marathon is, or the importance of the cause we are supporting.

Having a good avatar for your Just Giving page has become a bit of an art form at Sick Kids Save Point – it helps convince folks to sponsor you by showing either the quality of the cause you are raising for, The Sick Kids Friends Foundation, or the spirit with which you are approaching the task.

Robert Eastell, who raised £1,250 last year with a group of friends, has become a father since, and this year is using a picture of his baby as an avatar, reminding us exactly who we’re raising for.

Another success last year was Steev Douglas, who raised £581 after posting a series of hilarious avatars of himself or his kids:

At Sick Kids Save Point HQ we like the idea of gamers as heroes. None more so than our resident photographer Ross Aitken. As well as our Borderlands tribute for Cam Hall (see previous post), Ross has adopted a different hero persona every year as his avatar. First Superman, then Green Lantern:

And this year he’s adopted the Dark Knight as his avatar. Gamer, hero… Where’s he gonna stick that batarang?

We look forward to seeing some of this year’s examples! Once you’ve been sponsored once email us with your gamertag and we’ll send you a cool personalised sprite guy!

September 10, 2012 by tomwfreeman - 0 comments

Saving Kids in Pandora..

We’re fans of Gearbox’s Borderlands here at Sick Kids Save Point HQ. It follows in a long lineage of addictive action-rpg obsessions that started with Gauntlet back in the arcades of the 80s. Actually, four player co-op on Borderlands 2 is top of lists of games to play during our gaming marathon.

We’re also fans of photographic mash-ups showing gamers as heroes, courtesy of our resident designer and photographer Ross Aitken. You may remember his Playstation Superman, or his Xbox Green Lantern.

Anyway, this year we pay tribute to Borderlands, knowing that us participants in Sick Kids Save Point are renegade heroes in the wasteland of negativity. When even Creative Scotland are devaluing games, we’re gamers for hire, saving kids by gaming past the fun barrier.

Anyway, enough of the claptrap. Here are the awesome images, featuring SKSP participant Cam Hall:

You can go sponsor Cam here.

September 4, 2012 by tomwfreeman - 0 comments

Personal Challenges

Many gamers who are challenging themselves to 24 hours of gaming this year have taken part in Sick Kids Save Point before. They’ll tell you that a gaming marathon is no walk in the park, but some are setting themselves extra challenges…

Perhaps they have been inspired by last year’s top player Neil Gow, who decided to play a list of the very worst games out there. Neil endured the tedium of Desert Bus, the broken controls of superman 64 and the terrifying banality of Coronation Street the game during his marathon, and raised around two thousand pounds for the Sick Kids Friends Foundation.

Try not to rage quit on the Sandcrawler Alex!

Our resident designer Ross Aitken thinks 24 hours isn’t a proper marathon, so he plays 26.2 hours of gaming. Pedant.

This year Alex Sievewright is limiting himself to only games based on movies. This is a challenge, since most movie spin offs are terribly dull! How will he stay awake? We suggest Super Star Wars on the SNES, and PS1 title Spiderman. If you want to suggest a game for Alex, why not sponsor him here?

Another gamer taking suggestions is SKSP regular Richard Adams, or Oxygen Addict, who is undertaking a developing marathon. Using the program Gamemaker from Yoyo games, Richard will be making as many simple games as he can in 24 hours. He’s doing this on the 30th & 31st of September so anything he makes will be playable for everyone during our marathon on the 12th-14th October! Sponsor him here, and check out his site where he’ll be posting the results.

Robert Eastell is going to be playing an ‘Alphabet of gaming’, at least half an hour of a game starting with each letter of the alphabet.

We’ll all feel like this after our marathons…

Scott Murdoch is going to attempt to survive for 24 hours in Day Z. Surely impossible Scott? He’s even offered to donate £5 every time he dies, which sounds to us like a challenge to come and get him…

We understand that gamers addicted to MMORPGs have no problem playing games for 24 hours. In fact we’re told that they often do it. No problem then for Gaz Jones and his guild in Star Wars: The Old Republic, who will be defeating the republic AND saving kids.

If you like any of these ideas, please throw a couple of quid sponsorship their way. Not only will it go towards helping sick children and their families, but it will also help these brave gamers enter the SKSP prize draw, open to anyone who raises over £100 in sponsorship.

If you’d like to take part in Sick Kids Save Point yourself click here to set up a Just Giving page of your own, and read our safety guidelines