The mission

Memory is the thing I care about most, and there are diseases that take it. So I am putting a fixed share of my own money toward the people working on cures, and I am doing the whole thing in public, starting from nothing.

This page is day one. Almost everything below is unfinished, and it is dated so you can watch it either fill in or not.

Why

Several people in my family have had it. Most of them are gone now.

The last time I saw my uncle, he remembered my name. He was crying, and he told me he wanted to go home.

That hasn't left me. I don't want anyone else to go through it.

One more thing, because I keep finding out how many people do not know it. The Alzheimer's Association puts it plainly: "Alzheimer's is not just memory loss. Alzheimer's kills." I am not going to say it softer than they do.

The pledge

Twenty percent of everything I personally earn from Turtlevania Games goes to memory disease research. Not a share of profit after I decide what counts. Twenty percent of what I actually take home.

It started August 3, 2026. The studio is small right now and most of what it makes goes back into building it, so this will be a small number for a while. I would rather tell you that than dress it up.

I want to get the whole company there eventually and I am going to work on it. I am not going to tell you it is already done, because it is not. Right now it is my share, and that part I can promise.

What is set aside

$25,000 earmarked for memory disease research

I want to be exact about what that word means, because a lot of people are not. This is my own money and it is sitting in my savings account. It has not been donated. It is in an account I control, which means I could technically move it. I am telling you it is marked, and this page is where you would find out if that ever changed.

It has not gone anywhere yet because I have not decided where it should go, and I would rather be slow about that than fast.

The ledger

$0 actually directed to research so far

Nothing has moved yet. When it does, every dollar appears here with the date, the amount, who received it, and why I picked them. If this stays empty, you will be able to see that it stayed empty.

What I am building

All of it is free, and all of it is meant to be taken and built on by anyone. That is the point of writing the formats down.

• The Life Story File In progress

  An open format for keeping a record of who a person is, for families and caregivers dealing with memory loss. Plain files anyone can read, on any device. Free, and free to build on.

• A wall display you can build In progress

  A small offline screen that shows today's date, what is happening today, and who visited yesterday. Around a hundred and twenty dollars in parts, and the build guide will be free.

• Where the money should go Researching

  Working out which research organizations actually move toward cures, and the right way to move money to them. The reasoning gets published alongside the first pick, not just the result.

What this is not

This is not medicine. Nothing I build treats, slows, or prevents any disease, and I am never going to say otherwise. What I build are care aids: ways for a family to hold on to who someone is. The people working on cures are researchers, and my job is to fund them and to build things families can actually use.

I am not asking you for money. There is no foundation yet and no charity to give to, so there is nothing to donate to and no link to do it. The only money moving here is mine, going out. If that changes, it changes on this page first.

Who is saying this

If you want to help

There are four ways, and none of them is a donation.

• If you know where the money should go

  This is the one I need most. I have $25,000 marked and I have not picked a recipient. If you know a research organization that genuinely moves toward cures, tell me about it. I am going to read the evidence myself and publish my reasoning next to whatever I pick, so a suggestion is a starting point rather than a vote. I would still rather start from what people who know this field would point me at than from a search engine. Send it to hello@andrewdetwiler.com.

• If you work in dementia care

  Come tear the format apart before I tell anyone it is any good. This is worth more to me right now than money is, and I mean that literally.

• If you want to help financially

  Buy something the studio already made. Twenty percent of what I make from it goes straight to this.

• If you build things

  Take any of this when it lands and make something better. Or point your own work at something you care about and tell people what you are doing with it.

Follow along

The whole thing goes in public as it happens, including the parts that do not work.

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