Plan for Andy Schatz

If you haven't downloaded the demo of Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa yet, do so here:

www.wildlifetycoon.com

If you haven't bought it yet, but you plan on it, now's a good a time as any!

Anyways, I had some serious butterflies in my stomach before launching WLT:VA. That's why several people recommended to me that I do a soft-launch. That means we only launch to a small portion of the public, in case we have to work through any glitches. It turns out there were a couple, but nothing major. The wide release of the game will be coming out on portals about 3 weeks from now (it takes about that long to get the game through test and the submission process).

Now on to the cheesy part of this .plan:

My fiancee and I have been raising 3 Monarch caterpillars (Papilio, Mariposa, and Bruno). And wouldn't ya know it, the first one emerged from her chrysalis on the night of the launch of my first game to the public. How's that for good luck?

Anyways, here is a little photo safari of what it's like to raise them. Sorry for the large image sizes...

Munching on milkweed (monarchs only eat from a few varieties of plants, milkweed is the most common)

Hanging, resting, preparing to metamorphise. Just before they do so, their head falls off and they spin around to create their chrysalis.

Sorry this one is blurry. The caterpillar scrunches herself up and liquifies its entire body inside the chrysalis. It will stay in there for 10-15 days before emerging.

The chrysalis itself becomes a thing of beauty. This is a few hours after it began to change.

Beautiful! It will stay in this form until it emerges.

The chrysalis becomes dark, then transparent. We can see the folded up butterfly within about 5 hours before emerging. (I had just released the game this afternoon)

Transformed! The butterfly now hangs from the empty chrysalis, waiting for blood to seep into the wings, providing the color and the ability to fly!

Mariposa spreads her wings for the first time in our kitchen window.

Free! We picked her up and put her on some flowers outside. Her first taste of nectar! This photo was taken just moments before she flew off over the rooftops in San Diego.

The monarch is the longest living insect in the world. Well, I should say, every 4th generation is. Every 4 generations, once a year, the butterflies will migrate from Canada to Mexico, where they will hibernate for the winter. The generation that we raised is among that generation. I believe Bruno may emerge in the morning, and slowpoke Mariposa will come after that.

Hopefully, Pocketwatch Games has the luck to be amongst the generation of companies that live long and prosperous lives. Up up and away!