Inspired by my daughter, I designed a game to help her and her brother learn to read.
The split screen nature of the game creates a space for the us to engage in some serious monster bashing fun, whilst I can help her to figure out and spell the the words we need to escape the forest.
The words are sourced from Key-stages 1 & 2 of the National Curriculum, so she is exposed to words her teacher will be studying with her class at some point during her term.
Also there is a custom word feature so specific words can be entered to generate the geometry for the level.
Myself, the wife and kids had been having an extraordinary amount of fun playing the Lego Super Heroes games (both 1 & 2), What was most surprising was the fact that my wife would actively be involved in starting the game herself (that is a major thing, she usually is very reluctant to play video games) .
I am not totally unobservant, so I found my self thinking how did Travellers Tales get that from inside her? and wouldn’t it be good if they were actually learning something from accumulating all those play hours.
The back of my mind cooked up Stella. It’s a mixture of all those elements, my family, with a bit of Lego co-op,and a dash of learning. I would love to have the resources to make more individually designed levels. But I am but one guy.