WONDER CITY is a comic-book-style adventure game where players realize their own ideals of leadership and heroism by shaping the story of a teenage superheroine. Targeted to tween audiences, players will have to balance different values, outcomes, and relationships to determine what’s important to them and how they think a hero should act.
Last year, through the Tribeca Film Institute, we were honored with a fellowship with Games for Change — an organization that facilitates the creation and distribution of social-impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts. Games for Change has come aboard as one of our key non-profit partners. We also had the opportunity to participate in the BAVC Producers’ Institute for New Media, where we worked with key members from Games for Change to further develop WONDER CITY.
WONDER CITY’S talented creators now include:
Naomi Clark has been designing and producing digital games and virtual worlds for nearly 20 years, starting by designing early virtual worlds as a teenager. She has grown and managed many online communities, from message boards for youth groups to the vibrant community surrounding one of the first multiplayer web games, Sissyfight 2000. In the last decade, Clark has worked as a producer, game designer and creative director at studios such as Gamelab, Blue Fang, and Fresh Planet. These projects included downloadable games such as Egg vs. Chicken and Miss Management; web games such as Josefina’s Market Day for American Girl; Facebook games like Zoo Kingdom and The Specialists; and large community projects such as Gamestar Mechanic, a website where kids create and share their own games.
Tamarind King is a recent graduate of Stanford University Bachelor of Arts program. She has worked as a graphic artist, animator, and sequential artist and is a bright young star in the illustrative arts. King did the title and credit sequence for the WONDER WOMEN! film and will do the concept art for the game.
Phoebe Harris Elefante directs narratives. Drawing on a background in political science and economics, with a masters in media management, she synthesizes vast immersive story worlds with multi-platform distribution strategies to meet the demands of 21st century players. As the founder of Mstrmnd Ltd, she developed and produced a print and web magazine, “Mstrmnd,” designed games and web experiences for several clients, including: CBS, Sprint, Rockstar Games, and Melissa Auf der Maur’s music video project “Out Of Our Minds.” Phoebe’s writing credits include “Captain Heartless: Legend of the Lost Heart,” a literacy-building adventure game, AT<’s “The Lost Function,” an algebra role-playing game, and “The Tides,” a casual MMO for tween girls.
Melody Lu likes thinking with a pencil or a stylus in hand, and she pretty much never stops drawing. Over the years, she’s created illustrations and animations for TV series pitches, medical textbooks, kid’s books, magazines, comics and commercials, but most of her recent work has been in social games, including Top 10 Free iTunes and Android Marketplace games. Melody studied animation at Vancouver Film School and has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Yale University.
We’re aiming to role out the game’s pilot episode – in an abbreviated form – at the time of our April 15 PBS | Independent Lens broadcast. Be sure to check back for further updates in March.
