“Josh’s World,” a CD-ROM interactive children's computer game for
kids, ages 2-9 is the culmination of a dream of my husband’s and
mine.
The road to “Josh’s World” has spanned over six years from idea
to reality, but it really began nineteen years ago. Struggling
to survive in the little town of Ashland, Oregon, I was working
at the Shakespeare Festival Box Office while attending college
to acquire an elementary teaching certificate. My husband was
working at a local restaurant at night and taking care of our
2-year-old daughter during the day. After reading a book about
the computer revolution, we acquired a small loan from a local
bank for a Radio Shack Model I computer. We spent many long hours
teaching ourselves everything we needed to know about the computer’s
operation, taking it apart, learning its modular structure and
studying business software and their applications. It wasn’t long
before my husband was hitchhiking to town with our daughter knocking
on local business doors selling our services as computer consultants.
The reception from local businesses was cool, but we didn’t give
up, didn’t let constant rejections deter us from our goal.
After five years, I was teaching a computer class at a local
elementary school and we had a struggling computer sales and consulting
business that eventually evolved into 3D art and graphics servicing
the computer gaming industry. We volunteered for the Computer
Game Development Conference that is held every year in California
and met many people in the industry. Having seen how engaging
kid's software if for children, we started dreaming about developing
quality games that feature positive role models for children.
The real world Joshua in the children's computer game is the
six-year-old version of the one-year-old boy I cared for ten months
while his mother, Michelle Blackmon, an actress, performed at
the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1996. Being a single mother
in the performing arts required many hours away from her child.
Hence, I became Joshua’s other Mama.
Talking to my husband one afternoon after Joshua and his mother
had left for Seattle after the end of the theatre season, we were
reminiscing about our time with Joshua and missing him terribly.
Our daughter was now a teenager. Joshua had brought us back to
those magic years of the young child. At the time, we were offering
a practicum to college students in multimedia production. Again,
our dream about producing a truly positive interactive computer
game for young children re-emerged, but we wanted it to be unique,
capturing the wonder and curiosity of the young child.
We both agreed we wanted to create a magic 3D world for these
little people where they could explore different environments
and at the same time offer options to those children who preferred
to play games.
An associate of my husband’s, a 3D artist who was between projects,
expressed interest in our project. We asked him if he’d like to
create an environment for the young child. He came up with the
first few huts, which would later become part of "Josh's World.”
Then along can Bart Platt and Kelly Rossi, two practicum students,
who worked two terms together designing what was to become, in
the final production, the night side of "Josh's World.” Bart continued
working on "Josh's World" through his senior year coming up with
a complete game design. He brought his design to us on the heels
of an inheritance I had just received after the death of my beloved
father. Instead of investing in the stock market, as I had been
encouraged to do by other family members, I decided to invest
in our dream. The stock market was about money. This project was
about people.
Enter Larry Vaughn, programmer and 3D artist, who had worked
with my husband as a practicum student a few years back. After
leaving college, he was hired on by a major gaming company and
was between jobs.
With the collaboration of these two talented young men, my husband
and myself, young Joshua and his mother, and all those other practicum
students who learned multimedia production while building on our
dream, we came up with what is now “Josh’s World.”
While filming Joshua in Seattle, his mother, Michelle, commented
on how smoothly everything was coming together. “ I guess this
is meant to be,” she said with a grand smile.
She was right! After 6 years of hard work on our dream we have
produced "Josh's World". You can find more on "Josh's World" on
our web site http://www.joshsworld.net.
Featuring Josh, a young African-American, as the lead in our
computer game, we have produced one of the few computer games
featuring a positive African-American role model for children.
This aspect of our title is really exciting to us. "Josh's World,”
in a clear, uncontrived fashion, provides children the fun and
delight of engaging in a 3D interactive play land they can explore,
with Josh there to provide help and companionship along the way.
