I have this mental block sometimes… when I think of ‘corporate training’ I use one part of my brain, when I think of educational games for kids, I use another. It could be that I was partially lobotomized at birth (I’m kidding.. who would write such a horrible thing!) or it could be the odd but persistent weight of client expectations of how one type of project should look depending on the target audience.

Is it a given that kids can only be entertained with excitement, clever puzzles and captivating characters? Or maybe it’s that adult training happens to land more around the area of “here’s how to refinance your home using our 15 step mortgage calculator”. The following projects are made for kids, but more often these days we’re looking to get creative characters, engaging environments and unified (short & to the point) goals that are memorable and have long lasting educational value into adult training.

This first piece is the NCFL (National Center for Family Literacy) “Literacy House”. I had the pleasure of working with a great idea of theirs, and helped turn it into a living breathing experience with a variety of illustrations, photos and multiple voice overs. I got to bring in my 2 year old daughter Elena into the project (that’s her voice you can hear throughout) while I played the role of daddy (how fitting!).

Users can explore a house and simply roll over and click different areas of interest to learn about various ways you can incorporate literacy into every day of your child’s life. Rarely do I find a project I can bring into my own personal life, but this one honestly works with kids – there are a ton of ideas and suggestions throughout, so take a look!

Our other two project launches (both with NCFL and Smithsonian) are the “How would you feel” Greensboro Sit Ins simulation, which teaches the user about various perspectives of a variety of people throughout a sit in. And finally the Find  a Flag is more along the lines of where’s waldo for U.S. flags – explore the environment to discover fun facts about the U.S. flag, and if you find them all you get a surprise at the end!

 The projects are filed under Educational Games and Basic Simulations in our eLearning portfolio, check them out today!

Ahh, many know of my career’s origins, my true love around the ages of 10-13 – it was a little game company called LucasArts, and they made some of the best action adventures ever to land on a computer screen.

Monkey Island, the first and the best!

Reading through Ron Gilbert’s blog: the Grumpy Gamer (this guy was one of the original creators of ‘Monkey Island’), he had announced the release of early 1990’s era point and click classics such as Loom, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and many others to Valve’s online Steam system. While originally used to sell virtual copies of Half Life and Half Life 2, Steam has become a great library of online games & game media (over 1,500 so far), allowing companies who can’t afford to pay publishers to sell their wares.

Loom - a short game but heavy on plot and character development

When I first played some of these games, I was floored.. the level of detail in the story, the non-linear gaming, the cause and effect action in the plot and the great characters all came together to form a memorable and life changing experience. I can only think of a few games in the last 8 years that have stuck with me as being fond memories, but nothing tops the nostalgia and thrill of those old classics 19 or so years after first playing them.. now that’s staying power.

Monkey Island 2, where else can you row a coffin through a swamp?

Those games got me interested in interaction, game development, character animation, story and plot, which in turn pointed me to a life in eLearning and educational games. I’m simply happy that a new generation of kids and adults now has instant access to these games, and might possibly get inspired the same way I did back in the day.