Clear Water Ahead! -- Week Ending 29 Oct

With two successful prototypes under our belts, we've rearranged ourselves and combined forces once again--this time to make a game for the Utah Museum of Natural History. I imagine that this is a new challenge for all of us...

The Team
- Team/Developer Name: Crystal Clear Entertainment
- Members
     - Ashley McMillan
          - Job: Artist
          - Status: One Year Older (Happy Recent Birthday!)
          - Skills: Vector art and stylized sprites
    - Adam Zaelit
          - Job: Technical Artist
          - Status: Ready to Rock
          - Skills: Animation art and scripts
     - Kamron Egan
          - Job: Engineer
          - Status: Hero
          - Skills: Combining programming languages into seamless programs
     - George Middleton
          - Job: Engineer
          - Status: Sweet Beard
          - Skills: ActionScript experience for well oiled Flash applications
     - Eric Levin
          - Job: Engineer
          - Status: Med-Student-Turned-Programmer-Extraordinaire
          - Skills: Doing the robot in Just Dance 3--and programming
     - Jesse Ferraro
          - Job: Producer
          - Status: East Coast Flavor
          - Skills: Flash mastery
     - Troy Johnson
          - Job: Producer
          - Status: Generic Utah Flavor
          - Skills: Talking to people

The Prototype (or, what had better be a legitimate game within 3 weeks)
- Title: Unnamed Water Management Educational Video Game (We've been so busy hammering out design details and development processes that we haven't solidified our title yet)
- Status: In hectic pre-pro/production
- Skills: Being a fun, new installment at the Utah Museum of Natural History!

We've been hired by the UMNH to create a game for display when they open next month! It is a one-to-five-player game that receives input from five individual touchscreens and displays the main game via projection on a large, rounded wall. Pretty cool opportunity for first-semester MGS students.

For our pitch, we took what we thought were the best elements from their original canceled game (water management choices, aggregate effects on the valley) and suggested new ways of presenting those elements more simply and fun. There's a timeline-focused game board that avatars move along with each choice they submit, crisp vector art, gamification in the form of awards and titles, and no "beginner mode" or other complexities that inhibit quick exhibit enjoyment.

That might still sound a bit vague, but we're excited to show more of what it all means next week. Plans are moving full-steam ahead, and we've got the team that can make it happen.

Check back often for updates on the progress of this exciting opportunity! And turn off the faucet while you're brushing your teeth.

- Troy