Grumpy Snomwen: Brief Post Mortem

Late 2011 through January 2012, I was offered an opportunity to work in Michigan State University's Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) Lab on a light-hearted, holiday Angry Birds parody called Grumpy Snowmen.  I was asked to come on board as a 2D artist on a team that included William Jeffrey (Game Designer), Eric Musser (3D Artist), Dan Sosnowski (Programmer), Jon Moore (Programmer), and Professor Brian Winn (Producer/Game Designer).

Described as "a video game that features Michigan State University mascot Sparty taking on up-to-no-good snowmen", Grumpy Snowmen has been a fun ride, and out over 9,000 downloads in the App Store suggest that Spartans agree.  The game is available in the App Store as well as in a web-player.

Of course, I think you should play it!

MSU Creativity Initiative

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the MSU Creativity Initiative Kick Off.  This is an amazing new interdisciplinary project that has the potential to be interinstitutional as well as involving community partners (wonder how TFA could use empirical data on creativity and creative pedagogy).  As it centers around creative processes across disciplines, there is a potential for Serious Games to get in the mix

Overview:

Creativity Initiative Website
Twitter:  msu_creativity
Facebook Group: The Creativity Initiative

There is also a hash-tag list.  #msucreativity
This program is innovative.  They want it to be decentralized and act as a hub (which is why it is an initiative, not a center).  The areas of research are arranged in clusters, but these are not silos and collaboration and movement between clusters is both expected and encouraged.