Read why
Memory is the thing I care about most, and there are diseases that take it. So my studio puts a fixed share of everything it earns toward the people working on cures, and we are 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.
01 / 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.
02 / The pledge
Turtlevania Games gives five percent of what it earns to memory disease research. It comes off the top, before anyone in the studio gets paid, including me.
Off the top is the part that matters, so here is what it means. When a game earns money, the five percent comes out first. Whatever is left is what gets split between the company and the people who built it. Nobody sits down afterward and decides what counted as profit.
The studio's five percent is calculated from project-level proceeds: net after platform and payment fees, taxes, refunds, recoupment and direct project costs.
This started August 3, 2026 as my own pledge, out of my share and nobody else's, because a company with more than one owner in it was not mine to promise. On August 8, 2026 I asked my business partner whether the whole studio should do it instead. He said do it. So it is not my mission now, it is the studio's, and we wrote it into our operating agreement so it is not just something we said.
There is no additional pledge from my personal share of Turtlevania Games. I give five percent of what I earn from my own projects outside TVG: the platform I license and the work I build for other people. Book sales are twenty percent. Not my day job. I cannot afford to do that, and I would rather tell you exactly where the line is than let you assume there is not one.
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.
03 / The public record
$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, why I picked them, and which of the two it came out of. If this stays empty, you will be able to see that it stayed empty.
$0 collected toward the $25,000 first donation
Everyone who works on a Turtlevania game is filling the same jar. The studio's five percent collects toward $25,000, and that is the first donation. I am not setting aside my own savings for it right now, because I have other things to get in order first. When the jar is full it goes out, and I will show you the receipt and the bank record.
See the bar on the studio's mission page. What I give from my own work goes into the same jar.
Two different pockets pay into this list. The studio gives five percent of what it earns, off the top. I give five percent of what I earn on my own outside it, and twenty percent of book sales. Every row says which, because a dollar arriving somewhere is only half of where it came from.
04 / Open work
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.
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 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.
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.
05 / Taking part
This is the one I need most. The first donation will be $25,000, 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.
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.
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.
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.
The whole thing goes in public as it happens, including the parts that do not work.
I build websites and apps for a living. Sites from $900 and custom apps from $7,500. Five percent of everything I earn from that work goes straight into this.
The artwork on this page is by Oscar Stashwick.