Guess who's back?

Back again? (hint: us)

Alright, so it's been a while since we posted an update here (March 2016, if you're counting). We weren't kidnapped, and we haven't quit on ProjectMQ. Quite the opposite, actually. The two of us have spent the last 12 (or so) months super-focused on getting ProjectMQ ready for you all to use it.

We recently graduated from Georgia Tech's Business Technology Incubator. The graduating startups participated in the Savannah Fast Pitch competition (pictured above), where we won 1st place. You can see the InnovateSAV event photos here.

InnovateSAV was sponsored by SEDA, Bull Street Labs, and ATDC Savannah. SEDA provided the $5K pitch competition prize money. Bull Street Labs provided the venue for the InnovateSAV event, and ATDC Savannah provided the startup incubator course.

FREE Twitter Marketing Cheat Sheet

And that's not all! We also put together a cheat sheet with our best Twitter marketing strategies. Our advice below is from our personal experiences, and we used it to grow 25,000+ REAL AND ENGAGED followers in 18 months. See how Warren used our advice to save his Indie Game "Dark Flame"from a failed Kickstarter campaign.

What do you think about our Twitter Marketing Cheat Sheet? If you found it helpful, please share our blog or Imgur album, so more indie dev teams and other startups can use it too. What other advice would you like to see? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks! Oh, and we'll be resuming our EPIC origin story in the next newsletter. It would be super cool if you subscribed to our blog. See you next time!

Next Time, On DragonballProjectMQ(Z)…

• E3 2014: Day One
• Big Announcement: Alpha Release Launch Window
• More Startup Momentum: Updates on Other Competitions

Thanks,
Marcus and Malcolm (The ProjectMQ Twins)

P.S. Don't forget to share our Devlog with your friends. #SharingIsCaring

P.S.S. As always, your feedback is encouraged and appreciated.

Our 6th #IndieDev newsletter features the Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti & Kaidan. It's sponsored by Loot Interactive & Kurechii. We've been crazy busy the last few weeks, so this newsletter is a bit late. Congrats to our newsletter subscribers for winning Electronic Super Joy on Steam, donated by Loot Interactive (@LOOTInteractive). If you'd like to win cool indie games too, subscribe to our newsletter here.

Important events since our 5th newsletter: We're submitting ProjectMQ to various startup and business plan competitions this year, to win the money we need to grow ProjectMQ. Three weeks ago, ProjectMQ placed 1st, out of 72 innovative startups worldwide, in the 2016 Hatch House Open. We'll share updates about other competitions soon.

Backstory: What's For Lunch - Creative Meal Budgeting

Quick backstory summary: Malcolm and I created an awesome gaming site concept, which Avik Sogoyan made epic designs for, and Rusel DeMaria agreed to advise us on. It was an uneasy choice,but we dissolved our company's student internship program, in order to afford the registration/travel expenses for E3 2014. We were both supposed to land in LAX on Sunday at about noon, but I missed my flight, and was 3 hours late. Malcolm got tired of waiting, and took an Uber to the hotel. Once he got checked in, he asked the driver to go back to the airport and get me.

We were on a VERY tight budget, so we needed to be careful how we spent our money. There was no room for unplanned expenses (like a 2nd Uber trip from the airport to the hotel, d'oh). To save a few dollars, we decided to get creative with the meal budget. The hotel served packaged muffins, yogurt and juice for breakfast, so we made sure to stop by the office every morning. For lunch/dinner, Malcolm's wife Fern made us a large casserole dish of lasagna, and a full batch of cupcakes; he smuggled that in his suitcase from Savannah to Los Angeles.

After lasagna lunch, we called Avik to make a quick game plan for the week - see what I did there, "game plan"? Malcolm brought a bunch of business cards he and Fern designed/printed the week prior, but they weren't really eye-catching. So Avik reviewed them, and sent back some better mockups; the image above is what Avik designed for the front of the card. It was already Sunday night, so we'd have to try and get the new cards printed on Monday, which meant we needed a rental car...[to be continued in the next newsletter]

Backing Indie Dev on Kickstarter

Here's a quick update on the Kickstarter projects from our 5th newsletter:

• Unfortunately, Refuge wasn't funded. Fox Rogers, the solo dev behind Rufuge, still plans to finish the game in his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @FortnumFox for more updates.
• NOOZh successfully raised 105% of their goal, for a Storyteller/Dungeon crawler with endless levels containing mysteries, traps and puzzles. Follow the developer @Wannabe_vg on Twitter for details.

Thank you to everyone that joined us in supporting all of them! Visit their sites (by clicking on the linked text above) for updates on their games. Also, you can check our Kickstarter Profile for a full list of the 64 indie campaigns we've supported. Here are two more indie projects that we've recently backed:

Kaidan

Kaidain a community driven asymmetrical multiplayer horror game where players create and share horror stories. Scare, or BE SCARED!!!

They've raised 31% of their $75K goal so far, with 30 minutes to go.

the Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti

In the Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti, the nephew of a dead folk legend embarks on a multidimensional journey to create his stage persona. They've raised 52% of their $36K goal so far, with 60 hours to go.

If you like either (or both) of those games, please help them reach their funding goals!

FREE GAME ALERT!!!!

BADLAND, from Frogmind (@FrogmindGames) is a multi-award-winning side-scrolling action adventure game with over 30 million players worldwide. BADLAND has been praised for its innovative physics-based gameplay, deviously creative levels and stunningly atmospheric graphics and audio. BADLAND features a ton of content for its single-player and its unique single-device up-to-4 player multiplayer modes.

You can get BADLAND on iOS, Android, Windows Phone , the Amazon Store, and Blackberry

Indie Game Fan Picks

Come join in the fun! Are you playing some cool indie games we should know about? Tweet them to us, so we can retweet them to our followers. Everyone who participates will have a chance to win a FREE game, and be highlighted in our next newsletter. Thanks in advance for helping us support indie games!

Raffle for FREE Indie Game Codes

We're 4 newsletters behind, so we have to catch up, and thank our previous raffle sponsors. Electronic Super Joy was sponsored by Loot Interactive (@LOOTInteractive), and
Tiny Guardians was sponsored by Kurechii (@kurechii). Please follow them to thank them for donating codes to us. Learn more about their games below.

Electronic Super Joy

Electronic Super Joy is a brutally hard platformer set in a world of pulse-pounding electronic music. Run, jump, smash & fly your way through 45+ weird & different levels, with low-gravity, world rotation, giant monsters & swarming missiles.

Tiny Guardians

Tiny Guardians is a tower defense game without towers. Prepare to embark on an epic adventure with tiny heroes in this tower defense game with a twist! Summon unique guardians to defend Lunalie against various enemies as she journeys through the wilderness of Prism.

ProjectMQ Dev Update

Here's a quick summary of the recent progress we've made with ProjectMQ:

• Added "Online Status" feature, so you can see who's logged in.
• Added game media overlay buttons for viewing or editing game media.
• Implemented search engine, so games can be searched by name, tags, and studio

Sneak Preview in March

We ran our 3rd preview a few weeks ago, and it was another success! Thank you to everyone who signed in from the 30+ countries around the world. We got a lot of constructive feedback, and we're planning another week-long preview in April.

To be part of the next preview, answer 5 short multiple-choice questions from our pilot survey: bit.ly/ProjectMQSurvey. THIS PART IS IMPORTANT: don't forget to include your email address. If you've already taken the survey and included your email address, you're good to go. Keep an eye out for our invite email from marcus[at]howardci[dot]net or malcolm[at]howardci[dot]net.

Next Time, On DragonballProjectMQ(Z)…

• E3 2014: Day One
• Big Announcement: A Cool Business Partnership
• More Startup Momentum: Updates on Other Competitions

Thanks,
Marcus and Malcolm

P.S. A few people took our survey, but unfortunately didn't see our email about the March preview. We'll be sending you user credentials from marcus[at]howardci[dot]net and malcolm[at]howardci[dot]net. Make sure to whitelist our emails, so you don't miss out.

P.S.S. Don't forget to share the survey link with your friends. #SharingIsCaring

P.S.S.S. As always, your feedback is encouraged and appreciated.

Happy New Year! 2015 was like a roller coaster, and we wish you all good luck and much success in 2016. Our birthday was on January 3rd, and we reached level 30! It would be a great birthday gift to us if you subscribed to our newsletter here. Thanks!

Important events since our 4th newsletter: We hosted a 2nd preview of the site in December, and users logged into ProjectMQ from more than 20 countries around the world! Unfortunately, we also had to push back the official alpha release. I picked January 3rd, because I thought it would be cool to launch ProjectMQ on our 30th birthday. Though, based on the feedback we've gotten, we still need better site performance and a few core features.

Please accept my apology for our launch delay. We're working diligently to deliver the quality experience you expect and deserve, as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we'll continue hosting site previews, to help us determine when the alpha release is ready. Thanks for your continued support and patience.

Backstory: Onward, to E3 - Travel Woes

Quick backstory summary: Malcolm and I created an awesome gaming site concept, which Avik Sogoyan made epic designs for, and Rusel DeMaria agreed to advise us on. It was an uneasy choice,but we dissolved our company's student internship program, in order to afford the registration/travel expenses for E3 2014. The plan was simple: both of our flights would leave early Sunday morning, Malcolm's from (Savannah) Georgia, and mine from (Tampa) Florida. Then, we'd both land in LAX within 30 minutes of each other, and take a cab to the hotel.

That was a terrific plan on paper.....except I missed my original flight. The good news (sort of) was, even though Delta's next available LAX flight delayed my arrival by 3 hours, they upgraded me to 1st class. The bad news was, since I booked all of the other reservations in LA, Malcolm basically had to wait in LAX for 3 hours until I got there. Apparently, 1st class gets complimentary food when flying coast to coast. We were on a strict budget for the trip, I didn't know the meal was free, and I didn't want any surprise surcharges from Delta; I respectfully declined lunch. I think I was the only one in 1st class who didn't eat, smh.

My flight eventually landed in LAX around noon. I was as hungry as you'd expect to be, if you skipped breakfast (for the flight I missed) and lunch (while watching everyone around you eat). Malcolm wasn't particularly concerned about me getting food, and rightfully so. He was pissed at me for wasting his time, and had taken an Uber to our hotel after waiting for 3 hours in the airport. Once Malcolm got to the hotel, he asked the driver to go pick me up when I landed. We had lots of ground to cover before Tuesday, and couldn't afford to lose any more time...[to be continued in the next newsletter]

Backing Indie Dev on Kickstarter

Here's a quick update on the Kickstarter projects from our 4th newsletter:

• Kurechii successfully raised 106% of their goal, to record scores of music for "King's League" with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony of Atlanta.
• Unfortunately, Sector 13 wasn't funded, but they were greenlit on Steam. They appreciate all the votes; follow them on Twitter @LifeInSector13 for more updates.
• Unfortunately, ZFiles: Infection wasn't funded, but their campaign had more than € 7,000 in pledges. Follow them on Twitter @ZFilesInfection to learn about their future plans.

Thank you to everyone that joined us in supporting all of them! Visit their sites (by clicking on the linked text above) for updates on their games. Also, you can check our Kickstarter Profile for a full list of the 43 indie campaigns we've supported. Here are two more indie projects that we've recently backed:

Refuge

Refuge is a 2 player hide + seek survival game set on a mysterious settlement named 'The Ark'. Will you hunt your opponent or attempt to out-survive them? The choice is yours.

The aim of the game is simple: to eliminate the other player. This is achievable in many ways - such as directly hunting them down or alternatively by out-surviving them...

Refuge will initially be developed for the PC on Steam, with plans for Mac and iOS in the future. They've raised 50% of their $38K goal so far, with 67 hours to go.

NOOZh: a dark and unique story-teller dungeon crawler

Deep in the nightmares of a girl, NOOZh is a Storyteller/Dungeon crawler with endless levels containing mysteries, traps and puzzles. They've raised 34% of their $15K goal so far, with 10 days to go.

If you like either (or both ) of those games, please help them reach their funding goals!

FREE GAME ALERT!!!!

Like endless brawlers? Like cephalopods? Quadropus Rampage is the game for you, from Butterscotch Shenanigans (@BScotchShenani). Quadropus Rampage is an Endless Roguelike that casts you, the player, as an enraged, four-legged cephalopod named Tack. It is your quest to reach the bottom of the ocean and destroy Pete, the evil god of the sea, before his army of abyssal creatures can overtake LITERALLY EVERYTHING. .

You can get Quadropus Rampage on iOS and Android

Indie Game Fan Picks

Our Indie Game Fan Pick is Duelyst @PlayDuelyst. Duelyst is a fast-paced competitive strategy game focused on tactical combat and squad building. Play Duelyst FREE today!

Our indie game fan pick comes recommended from our Twitter follower Will Nations @willnations. Will lives in Waco, Texas; he's a Christian Game Designer/Developer, and he's studying Computer Science, Film, & Digital Media at Baylor. Thanks for recommending Duelyst to us, Will. You've won a copy of @RevealTheDeep on Steam.

Come join in the fun! Are you playing some cool indie games we should know about? Tweet them to us, so we can retweet them to our followers. Everyone who participates will have a chance to win a FREE game, and be highlighted in our next newsletter. Thanks in advance for helping us support indie games!

Raffle for FREE Indie Game Codes

Reveal The Deep (@RevealTheDeep) is sponsored by Lazy Monday Games and Squareface (@SquarefaceGame) is sponsored by VAN CUBO . Follow them for a chance to win their games. We’ll select our winners from their followers list. Remember, you'll UNLOCK 1 Indie Dev game code for every 5 RTs of our pinned tweet on #IndieFeatureMonday and #IndieFeatureFriday. Learn more about their games below.

Reveal The Deep

Reveal The Deep is a short exploration game set in the wreck of a 19th century steamship. Navigate through expansive levels, uncovering the stories of the ship's demise and it's passengers. Keep your nerve, your wits about you, and prepare to reveal the secrets of the deep.

Squareface

Squareface is a premium 3rd-person action RPG, exclusively for iOS. The purpose of the game is to have genuine fun whilst completing all the challenging missions, destroying all enemies, exploring and discovering a vast world filled with present day items and secrets. The player will be able to use various weapons, gadgets, even a pet A.I., and build cardboard structures to successfully achieve the set goals.

ProjectMQ Dev Update

Here's a quick summary of the recent progress we've made with ProjectMQ:

• Fixed the login form on the login page.
• Added support to link games to external purchase pages (like Steam, iTunes, etc.).
• Embedded our trailer in the login page; this page is now the default for anonymous users.

Sneak Preview in February

We'll continue doing sneak previews regularly, to let you test drive the site, and get important feedback from you. The next preview will be sometime mid-February. Stay tuned to our next newsletter for more details about that invite-only event.

To be part of the fun, answer 5 short multiple-choice questions from our pilot survey: bit.ly/ProjectMQSurvey. THIS PART IS IMPORTANT: don't forget to include your email address. If you've already taken the survey and included your email address, you're good to go. Keep an eye out for our invite email from marcus[at]howardci[dot]net or malcolm[at]howardci[dot]net.

Next Time, On DragonballProjectMQ(Z)…

• What's for lunch? Creative meal budgeting
• Details on the next sneak preview in February
• Completing the console tri-force (because we're still working on that).

Thanks,
Marcus and Malcolm

P.S. A few people took our survey, but unfortunately didn't see our email about the December preview. We'll be sending you user credentials from marcus[at]howardci[dot]net and malcolm[at]howardci[dot]net. Make sure to whitelist our emails, so you don't miss out.

P.S.S. Don't forget to share the survey link with your friends. #SharingIsCaring

P.S.S.S. As always, your feedback is encouraged and appreciated.