Still a classic…

It’s almost V-Day, so don’t forget to send out some Valentine’s e-cards, 2P START! style! Just click on the one you want to send and fill out the form. It’s also wild to think that V-Day 2015 marks the 8-year B-Day of 2P START! going live with its first comic!

Here are all the valentines zipped up if you would like to print them individually on cardstock or photo paper to hand out!

This Valentine’s Day almost came and went without me realizing the importance of this day! 10 years ago, Ray and I started 2P START!, posting our first simple joke on Valentine’s Day of all things. For the next three years, we dutifully posted comics week after week and gained a fun, loyal fanbase. While it seems like a lifetime ago, it was a memorable phase in my life for a couple of reasons. This was me at 25, no kids, a job I wasn’t sure would be my career (it is), with incredible amounts of free time that I can’t imagine having today. I’ll always look back at those years as a time when I did something I enjoyed and took pride in, making something out of nothing just for the joy of it. Even more importantly, I got to work with Ray (who did all the wrok), a deep-thinking, nerdy critic who always had something interesting to say. We became very close because of the site and talk about favorite games became talk about real life. I got to share advice about jobs and roommates and girls and faith with a friend I had only met a couple times who lived a thousand miles away. I’ve seen Ray go from a college kid with an embarrassing collection of Sonic memorabilia to a pastor who is taking trips overseas to help the poor and sick and hungry. I couldn’t be more proud of my friend!

So Happy Valentine’s Day Ray, and Happy 2PSTART-iversary!

“Who would have guessed that 10 years later I’d be in India playing the new PVP Station Light 3000?” – Ray

After Tap to Flap, I thought we might be done for awhile, but Dong Nguyen went and released another pull-your-hair-out iOS game, so here we are! Interestingly, Flappy Bird was removed once we started working on Tap to Flap, and now, Swing Copters has been updated to reduce the difficulty after I came up with this comic idea. It’s a Tim’s Take of sorts as I did this one myself, with all the pixel pushing and none of the MS Paint artistry you are used to from me. I even took the time to ANIMATE it, so I hope you enjoy the effort!

PS: If you haven’t checked out my short story yet, I’d love any feedback you might have before the contest ends on the 31st! More info in the blog post here.

Hey 2P START! fans, just wanted to let you know that I’ve written a short story that I wanted to share with you all. Since ending the comic, I haven’t had much of a creative outlet and over the last couple years, as I became more of a bookworm, I decided I wanted to take up writing fiction. This contest provided a good test for me as I had read the novel the contest was based on and having a deadline tends to keep me motivated (like our regular comic updates!). I know I have a long way to go before being a decent writer, but like we said when the first 2P START! comic went live, there’s always room for improvement.

Anyway, sci-fi fans may enjoy my little story. You shouldn’t need to read the original novel Half Way Home by Hugh Howey in order to understand it. The BookTrack setup allows for soundtracks to be added to a book, but to be honest, I’m not very good at that sort of thing, so I can’t say my soundtrack will blow you away. You can just mute the sound or if it’s really annoying, read the story on another site here. Any comments, ratings, and reads would help my chances in winning, but more important to me is just getting feedback, good or bad, so I can become a better writer.

Special thanks to Ray as well. He and Sarah were the only people that read parts of the draft as I wrote it and Ray provided some input on the cover as well.