Level Up! Flash Umbrellas Are the Future

September 7, 2011

I spend a LOT of my time engrossed in games. They cater to my innate desire to have unimaginable power, to save the world, to fly – that sort of thing. Occasionally it’s nice to save the world with, say, an umbrella instead of a sword. Or to take it one step further and take over the world, then force everyone to carry my chosen brand of umbrellas. Or to fly. The point is, it’s exciting to find something unexpected and refreshing in a game.

The growing indie games space, and the Flash games market in particular, are making my future umbrella world possible. There are a lot of cool things happening in the field that are unexpected and sometimes completely awesome. Thanks to Flash and a lot of hungry developers (literally and figuratively; a career in games doesn’t always equal big paychecks), we’re seeing more small teams coming up with really fun, random, and interesting stuff.

What does that look like? Well it might be:

-        A game where you have to scare people out of a house by possessing a moose head. And other things.  (Haunt the House)

-        Or how about adventuring as a laser-shooting elephant on a quest to retrieve your bowler hat (Elephant Quest)

-        Not your thing? Maybe you’d prefer to be a bison escaping from a kingdom of evil gummi bears (Burrito Bison)

These games show you don’t need a huge budget to make a game that people will love, and players don’t need hundreds of dollars to enjoy them. The space – and technology – are opening up to provide opportunities to anyone with a good idea, some programming knowledge, and time.

This is great news for HopeLab because it allows us to look at games for health through a whole new lens. Online Flash games may be a way to develop, test, and distribute small, impactful play-based experiences specifically targeted at health issues facing young people. It also allows us to stay current with what young people love, evolving with the technology they access and making something positive and compelling for them.

Tags:	Austin Harley, customer, flash, gaming, Level Up!, Technology, tweens, videogames
Posted In:	Our People, Research

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We need your flash games! – by Austin Harley

April 1, 2011

Hi all,

Austin here! I’m a research associate for HopeLab. What does that mean? I could be best described as that guy who happily runs around and does whatever is needed on the research team here. What do you guys do? If you answered either of the following, then I could really use your help:

1.    “I play addicting flash games, I know too many for my own good!”
2.    “I make addicting flash games and want them to be a part of some totally sweet research”

Why you ask? HopeLab is creating a research study that rewards kids aged 11-14 for doing physical activity. Fun flash games are one of the key rewards we’d like to give participants in our program. Every fun game we can get means a cool reward for a tween out there working hard to stay active.

OK, so maybe not EVERY fun game, there are some things that are better for us than others. Luckily I’ve created a list of cool games below that give you an idea of what we’re looking for. They’re also pretty fun to play, so…. BONUS!

Games:

Alien Thief

Fancy Pants Adventure
Typing Defense
GemClix
Freaky Cows

So that’s pretty much it from me, I’m going back to my corner to hunt down more cool flash games on the web (tough gig – Tom). If you want to send some links my way, or have a conversation about licensing your game, please leave a link or comment on this post or send me an e-mail at aharley(at)hopelab.org. And if you just want to chat about games in general or have questions about our project that’s cool as well!

Thanks!

Tags:	Alien Thief, Austin Harley, call for participation, Fancy Pants Adventure, flash games, Freaky Cows, games, Games for Health, GemClix, Typing Defense
Posted In:	Research

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