Rebecca Heineman — founding member of Interplay and developer of Apple II games The Bard’s Tale, Dragon Wars, Out of This World, Tass Times in Tone Town, Ultima, and many more — has launched a GoFundMe to help cover medical bills incurred as she fights an aggressive form of cancer known as adenocarcinoma.
Shortly after attending PAX West in Seattle last month, Becky went to the hospital, where she received her diagnosis.
She writes on GoFundMe:
I went from being an active outgoing computer nerd into a nearly bedridden cancer patient who is non-stop exhausted. This is the fight for my life. Please help me. I want to keep creating games and comics and I need your support to beat this cancer.
Becky shared this update today (Monday, October 6), after being admitted to the hospital the day before:
… they found my mostly healthy left lung had blood clots causing the lung to not oxygenate and my right lungs tumor has grown in size impeding the use of the right lung.
I’m admitted and am on oxygen and finally some pain killers. Once the morphine kicked in, I was pain-free for the first time in weeks. I slept for over 12 hours catching up and after waking, I got to remember what “normal” felt like.
At the time of this reporting, the GoFundMe has raised US$69,152 of its $75,000 goal. Unlike Kickstarter, GoFundMe is not an “all or nothing” platform; all donated funds (minus platform fees) will be given to Becky.
In addition to being CEO & CTO of game development studio Olde Sküül, “Burger” Becky Heineman has been a frequent attendee at KansasFest, including as keynote speaker in 2015. Many of her talks are available online, and she continues to post updates on Mastodon.
While it is not the policy of A2Central.com to report on individuals’ health or on personal (non-Kickstarter) fundraisers, we’re making an exception to support someone who has been so pivotal to the history and prominence of the Apple II.