It started as a little joke with one of our regulars. A guy won a shirt, and when we asked him if he minded getting a different color than what he’d expected, he replied, “Does this mean you’re gonna buy a pink shirt and bedazzle State of Decay on it?”
CHALLENGE. ACCEPTED.
Within two minutes I repeated that to Jeff and borrowed the company credit card. Within five minutes I ordered the rhinestone setter. Within two days I was gluing down something like five hundred freaking rhinestones. And within five days, the shirt was on the player.
Of course I couldn’t shut up about it and bored everyone to catatonia with the anecdote. But something interesting happened next. More that one person said, hey, I actually really want that shirt.
That’s the thing about State of Decay. Our players reflect our game. To paraphrase something I said earlier this week, our very premise is that on the day the shit hits the fan, your survival enclave has women, men, disabled people, gay people, older people, veterans, armchair warriors, the strong, the weak, the clever, the dumb. There are people of all races, genders, creeds, and attitudes. Everyone has something to offer.
And that’s the thing about the community that surrounds State of Decay. We have been very fortunate from the beginning to have an unusually diverse community, and that has made us better developers and made our game world more real. We’ve had a lot of viewpoints giving us a lot of good advice, enriching and deepening the stories we tell. Our community belongs to everyone, has a place for everyone. We’ve got room for the camo pants and the sparkly shirts, and sometimes both on the same person. People of all sizes and identities and abilities. Everyone contributes, and everyone matters, and the group is stronger as a result.
Hey, nobody survives alone.
So without irony this time, but with a little too much help, I’ve made two more sparkly pink shirts. One will be a community giveaway at some point, closer to the holidays. The other is going right now to AbleGamers, so they can auction it off and use the money to help players with disabilities play games like State of Decay.
This is an Adroit. It replaces the game controller. You customize it according to your personal needs – need extra large buttons? A touchpad? Foot controls? A sip-and-puff joystick for movement? All of these options and more plug right into the base unit. With the right combination of tools, a veteran who has lost the use of his hands can still play. Someone suffering from arthritis can still play. Someone with neurological disabilities can still play.
They can all still play. But it’s not cheap. (The rig for a vet with artificial hands might cost $725. If Lily was real, she’d need around $700 to compensate for her lupus.) That’s where AbleGamers comes in. They help each person who comes to them to figure out what technology will do the trick, and they provide grants to make it happen.
You won’t be able to buy a rhinestone State of Decay shirt in any store. Winning this shirt will help someone — maybe your future co-op teammate — headshot a zombie with a trigger button on the floor.
So check it out, help ’em out, and let’s sparkle and shine together: http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/232038730939