New animations for Playnormous.

I’m getting very excited because we are starting to get more content for our site. Playnormous is teaming up with our friend Jay Drayer, owner of CareFlash. What does this mean for us? Well, Playnormous + CareFlash = more cool animations on our site!

Why we care.

CareFlash is a free service (ah, yes, just like the Playnormous “free philosophy”) that facilitates the communication between friends and family during a health-related event. You can share your story and easily keep loved ones in the loop about your circumstances throughout your recovery process. Public forums provide an outlet to share experiences and get support from others in similar situations.

Why it’s Flash(y).

CareFlash has hundreds of Flash-based 3D healthcare animations on disorders, procedures, and anatomy, all medically accurate and narrated in plain language. Plain language in multiple languages actually. The animations are available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch, and Hungarian. Pretty awesome. They’re also very high quality animations, hence “flashy.”

We’re all about using media to talk about health in simple terms, so we’re adding CareFlash content to our Playnormous library. Starting as soon as next week, we will be featuring CareFlash 3D animation videos which will answer burning health questions like:

• What happens to my sandwich after I eat it? Digestion
• Why do I get cavities if I don’t brush my teeth? Cavities
• Do only kids get chickenpox? Chickenpox
• How does my heart work? How the Heart Works
• Why do I need glasses? Near/Far-Sightedness
• Why is my face covered in pimples?! Acne
• Won’t my throat miss my tonsils? Tonsillectomy
• Why bother taking a multi-vitamin in the morning? Vitamins and Minerals
• Why do I sneeze in the Spring? Allergies

Return of the Flash Friday updates.

Last Friday we had a VERY productive Playnormous board meeting (aka Flash Friday meeting). With all the other projects we have going on for our parent company, Archimage, it has been hard to really nail down dates for all the Playnormous games we want to make.

So many good ideas, so little time.

On Friday Jon, our lead programmer, carefully mapped out a schedule on a large white board, designating different weeks for different project deadlines for different people. He even color coded it. Who knew Jon could use colors? (Just kidding Jon.) Unfortunately, the white board was so jam packed that no one could read it.

So we had to go to Plan B. Now we have this super fancy system of note cards pinned to one of our conference room walls courtesy of Playnormous President, Jerald. Colored note cards too. Fancy, fancy!

Game spoilers.

With the aid of our super fancy scheduling system, we have finally nailed down release dates for 10 new Playnormous games. Now, from what I’ve read, one knows they are a good corporate blogger when they feel as if they are giving away too much information. Well, that’s exactly how I feel.

Deep breath…

So, against my better “you-never-know-what-could-happen-so-don’t-give-out-the-release-dates” judgment, I’m going to share with you what games we have cooking here at Playnormous and when we anticipate their release. But, just as a disclaimer, don’t hold me to these exact dates. You never know what could happen… Oh, and names may be changed to protect the innocent.

• Bubble Trouble – an exercise game – June 30-July 4, 2008
• The Lunch Crunch – a meal balance game – July 28-Aug 1, 2008
• Choose or Lose – a fruit identification game – July 28-Aug 1, 2008
• Breakfast Blast – a morning meal balance game – Aug 11-Aug 15, 2008
• Brain Gain – a health quiz game – Aug 25-Aug 29, 2008
• V for Vegetable – a vegetable identification game – Sept 8-Sept 12, 2008
• The Fruit Chute – a fruit portion size game – Sept 29-Oct 3, 2008:
• Give and Take – a veggie portion size game – Oct 13-Oct 17, 2008
• Fast Food Fumble – a fast food menu game – Oct 20-Oct 24, 2008
• Juice Jumble – a drink content game – Nov 17-Nov 21, 2008

We’ve had a little wave of press lately. The month of May must be a lucky one for us. There’s a little something for everyone…

For the entrepreneur and investor.

A story by The Houston Business Journal was released on May 23 featuring Playnormous and Food Fury entitled “Houston team rolls dice in health gaming industry.” How exciting to know that reporters like Monica Perin are taking notice of the start-up technology community in Houston.

Didn’t know Houston even had start-up technology companies? Check out THE BEST source in town for all things Houston…and start-up…and technology…appropriately named Startup Houston.

For the serious game designer and researcher.

Playnormous parent company Archimage was also recently featured in an article by Gamasutra on May 21. It’s all about our experiences working with researchers and the medical community. Definitely worth a read for those interested in creating serious games for health.

This is the end.

Don’t panic! It’s not the end of the world or the game or anything like that. However, this does mark the end of my series on how to create a casual game for health using the example of Bubble Trouble.

Did I miss anything? Any other details you would like to know about?

Release date.

And just fyi, our underwater adventure in exercise, Bubble Trouble, is scheduled for release on July 4, 2008. Check back soon to play the game and let us know what you think.

What’s in a name (and theme)?

The evolution of the title of the Bubble Trouble game alone is a great example of how casual games evolve.

1. The original name What’s An Aerobic Exercise, due to the goals we wanted the player to achieve–to identify what is an aerobic exercise and what isn’t an aerobic exercise. Kind of obvious.
2. We had this hitting round icons thing going, so this naturally led to an underwater theme. Our lead artist renamed the game Bubble Trouble.
3. Once the monster character designed for the game was presented at a Flash Friday meeting, we all decided that it looked like a cross between a chicken, a frog, and a bull dog. Jerald then dubbed it Chicken of the Sea. I thought it was very clever personally. However, one has to be practical from a business standpoint, and we were pretty sure that the canned tuna industry wouldn’t appreciate us using the name Chicken of the Sea.
4. So, we returned to the name Bubble Trouble, and I think this one will stick. At least for now…

And last but not least, FUN.

To quote our VP, Richard, “If there’s no fun, there’s no game.” This may seem obvious to the average online game player. However, when you’re dealing with serious content, like health, sometimes fun can take a back seat.

When things like learning and behavior change goals enter the picture, it’s easy to forget that we’re trying to design a game.

How to make a “serious” game fun.

How do we make casual games that are about serious topics fun? Well, all I can say is experience. LOTS of experience. Making casual games for health is a balancing act: balancing something that people will want to play with something that gets a healthy message across.

Ultimately, in my opinion, making a serious game fun involves 3 elements:

1. A familiar or easy-to-understand game mechanic.
2. Gameplay that is challenging but age appropriate.
3. Good artwork.
4. Stealthily weaving in health content.

What a character!

I’ve discussed game mechanics and gameplay extensively, but what about the art? We didn’t want just a big orange ball flying around the screen. That’s no fun. And we’re all about monsters, so where’s the monster? Enter stage left our newest monster. An underwater monster to be exact. I find it amazing how Iva, our Playnormous designer and creator of this little underwater monster, can go from sketches on random pieces of paper to a complete such an amazing finished product. Isn’t he cute?!

I think characters, like our underwater monster, have great value in a game like this. There is nothing health-related about him at all. He’s just fun. And without fun, there is no game.