Drum roll please....Thank You!

Get out the celebratory bottles, PerBlue is one year old! Woop! It has been quite a year to get here and to celebrate we are starting the scroll hunt to launch the third age of Parallel Kingdom: The Age of Emergence. (feature list)

The scrolls will be out tomorrow and in the mean time Justin, the guy who got all of this started, would like to take some time to thank everyone for what they've done. I'll pass you over to him...

Hey everyone! So tomorrow, October 31st, is our one year anniversary! Can you believe it? It has been an amazing year getting here, with lots of ups and downs, but I'm extremely happy to be where we are. I have been wanting to do this for a long time and I am only sorry that I didn't take the time to do this sooner, but I want to thank everyone that has made this whole thing possible. There are a lot of people that lent a hand in this and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone but here is a brief little intro and thank you to the team behind this adventure. I'll make sure Jamie starts working some posts to explain exactly what everyone does and who they are, we are all in this and I think it's time that YOU met the team... (by the way, I'm not even going to try to put this in any order, I'm just hoping my rambling makes sense and I forget as few as possible)

To start off, Andrew Hanson, he has been a great co-founder and even better friend (and roommate for that matter). I'm still not sure who else would be crazy enough to start something like this with me, but I'm so glad I found Andrew my partner on this enterprise.

Next, our tech and development team. These guys make sure that the games, products, websites, servers and everything else run smoothly without blowing up when I start dipping my hand in it to do some coding (long story). Here they are:
Jon Steinich a lot of you PK players probably know him better as Brick, oh and sorry for overtaking your room with all of my boxes
Forrest Woolworth he was our point person on GeoBuzz and Operator Sue and he has made the cool new things on the PK site
Jason Malinowski he has put up with me for over 8 years, through high school and college (don't ask me how or why he)
Nate Glasser he and I have been working on our longtime addiction game, Tempest Chess
Colin Juillard Android clients
Jesse Benson iPhone clients and Grunt
Shane Schaefer Windows Mobile and J2ME
Benjamin Fortin iPhone clients
Bill Pulec you may not like him because he made those monsters so hard to beat, but he does a lot for us

Our creative and art team has made a HUGE difference, I don't know how they do it. Somehow they can handle my weird descriptions of what I want and turn it into something that looks amazing!
Tim Collins he has made all those pretty web designs, splash screens and trailers
Nathan McCoic he has thought up all of those awesome in-game creatures and concepts
Alayna Lemmer she has made those awesome buildings and dungeons
Jon Ruland he came up with the original artwork and some of the 3D images

I don't know how to classify this next group, they do a lot of things that I can't do and just make everything run 100 times better.
Kendra Melinowski my personal assistant... just kidding! Somehow she managed to keep me organized
Hans Wegmueller he has worked on the game design and gets to respond to all of your emails, be nice to him because he is all powerful
Gene Shiau he actually helped me write the original business plan for PerBlue
Chris Meyer he can make location-based gaming sound prettier than a sunset, he also played a big part in figuring out what PerBlue should actually do
Andy Gilbertson he has been responsible for all the PK marketing madness, could sell ice to an eskimo
Jamie Holzhuter he has worked on the marketing for a lot of the PerBlue projects, but don't be nice to him because he tends to make fun of me

Our PK testers! They put countless hours in to make sure that everything makes sense and they give us great feedback that has made a huge difference in how PK turns out. There have been a lot over the past year, this group helped us with Age of Emergence:
hitesh
dziki
merytrin
kepesk
urdtrain
xuzzette
thewoollybully
venoba
lancelotlink
firereaction
mimerneos
moneytoo
creighton
peacemaker
terabyte
dolio
infiniteexodus
banshee
cbkbamf
JasonM
kamlyn
triaz
jc2001
caern
rhagrok
techette

Huge thanks to our family and friends that came on as investors with both monetary and emotional support, the money makes a big difference but they have helped a lot in keeping us going mentally.

Also, I would never be where I am today without these phenomenal mentors and advisors.
Dan Morrill from Google Android
Pete Johnson a Madison Entrepreneur
Malcolm Thorne marketing strategy professor
Steve Davis he has been with us from the beginning and has been our legal guardian angel
Deven McGlenn coached me in the early times
Teresa Esser for the great inspiration and lessons from her class
Dan Stuntebeck "Stunt" he was the one that got me into this whole starting-companies thing
Lance Rudolph some how he saw potential in me and spent two years polishing me up and making me into something
Keith Beck my Dad he has enabled my dreams and has always supported me in any way he could
Dorothy Beck my Mom she taught me ambition, excitement, and passion for life and that is the fuel that keeps everything going

And let's see here, who am I forgetting... oh, YOU!! All of you out there that have been interested in PerBlue and our projects, thanks for backing us up. When we started this we weren't sure what peoples' reactions would be so we are definitely glad to have you.

So to all of you on this list (and a special thank and apology to anyone that I forgot): THANK YOU. PerBlue would not be anywhere near where it is if it weren't for you, every bit of effort has helped us and I want to make sure that you really understand how much I appreciate all of it. Thanks again.

Alright, enough of the serious stuff (I think we all know that's not our strength). Let's celebrate, we have a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Justin
CEO PerBlue