Since releasing their first Nancy Drew adventure game, Secrets Can Kill, back in 1998, Her Interactive has inspired thousands to pick up a virtual magnifying glass and take on the role of amateur detective—including 2015 STEM Challenge winner Olivia Thomas. Based out of Bellevue, Washington, the Her Interactive team has produced over 30 first-person mystery games in the last 18 years. This month, they launched Nancy Drew: Codes & Clues, aimed at introducing early learners to coding and STEM skills.

To get the inside scoop on all things Nancy Drew, we did what any good sleuth would do—we went straight to the source. Read on for insights on game design and story development from twin sisters Cathy Roiter, lead game designer, and Jeanne Roiter, lead tester at Her Interactive.

When did you become interested in developing and testing video games?

Cathy: I discovered design in a roundabout way through computer graphics. Interested in becoming an animator but wanting a broader education, I received my B.A. in art from a liberal arts college. The liberal arts background is actually an ideal match for design, as I need to pull from various subjects (such as language, math, science, theater or art) for any given game. Though animation was what lead me to games, I received the opportunity to assist in design and quickly realized design was a great match for me.

Jeanne: I am lucky enough to have parents who encouraged learning and grew up surrounded by STEAM. My earliest game experience, King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, cemented a lifelong gaming love of logic, puzzles, and looking for loopholes. Turns out this drive to find alternative solutions is a perfect fit for game development.

How do you translate a Nancy Drew story into an engaging experience for players?

Cathy: One of the great things about Nancy is that she’s a curious person. Her detective work provides logical opportunities to integrate learning into games in a fun and unassuming way. Players make these discoveries with Nancy as they investigate, whether that’s deciphering hieroglyphics in Tomb of the Lost Queen or learning the basics of coding in Codes & Clues.

For story based mystery adventure games such as ours, we begin with the five Ws of investigation: who, what, where, when, and why. Once we have this mystery synopsis set, we flush out characters and story points to a full narrative outline. Then the visual style is chosen, and we start designing puzzles and activities based around story points.

As the team begins creating the art and code for the game, we dive into an iterative design process with weekly build reviews and walkthroughs to provide feedback on the current state of the game. Changes are made as needed, with the designer responsible for ensuring design integrity. This collaborative iterative process continues through to the end of the project.

Jeanne: There also needs to be a certain level of authenticity to the game content. While presented within a fictitious game setting, players still need to be able to trust that the learning material they encounter through art, dialog, or written assets is legitimate. Careful attention to detail within our games enables players to trust in the accuracy of our educational content.

What’s the toughest part of the development process? How do you work through it?

Cathy: The most challenging part of the process is putting all of the pieces together. It takes incredible organizational skills, fine attention to detail, a logical mind and creative problem solving to blend it into a cohesive whole.

I’ve found the best tool is to create a visual logic map of the entire game, displaying how elements connect and all the possible paths through the game. Having this reference to quickly see how a change at the end may cause a cascading effect back to the beginning is invaluable in keeping the design stable and the story on track.

Jeanne: In quality assurance, you focus on quality, but you’re also an advocate for the end user. It can be a challenge to anticipate their reactions and needs in game play. Sometimes the things we consider imperative to fix really don’t impact the player’s experience at all, and vice versa. Getting user feedback throughout the development process is critical for a successful end product.

What advice do you have for young people interested in designing and developing video games of their own?

Cathy: Go out and try as many things as you can. Take classes in different subjects, go to an event you wouldn’t normally attend, travel as much as you can, talk to new people—the more you learn and experience, the more you have to draw from when designing your own games.

Another great exercise is to look at the world around you with a critical and creative eye. Take an object and then come up with a variety of ways to solve the problem it presents. For example, to open a locked wooden door: use a key, lock pick, take an axe to it, pop the hinges, program robot puppy to crawl under the door, get a beaver to chew a hole through the door – the solutions are as endless as your imagination. This sort of creative problem solving is essential in creating games.

Jeanne: Remember to work as a team. The creative collaboration of game development is such a rewarding aspect of the industry. So make sure you learn how to work with a wide variety of people and inputs. There will always be some give and take, be okay with that, and you’ll be amazed at what your team can accomplish.

Any additional tips for aspiring game designers ?

Cathy and Jeanne: Game design is a wonderfully rewarding career, but there are a few things that will help you become a better designer:

• The key to any great design is in the details; start broad and then dive in to fully develop every aspect.

• Be able to take criticism and be willing to make changes, but also stand up for the integrity of your design.

• Communication skills are essential for a designer—you can’t expect your team to read your mind. You’ll need to be able to communicate detailed designs clearly in writing and in person.

• The first project will always take longer than you expect. Plan accordingly.

• One of the most valuable resources you can have are fellow industry professionals. There are local and national gaming groups for all branches of game development that individuals can join. Search your area for a group that aligns with your interests and sign up.

• What you begin with is never what you end up with. Embrace the iterative process and be open to change to create the best game possible!

What stories inspire you to explore new skills or subjects? Share your favorites in the comments.

Last week, Sandhya Nankani wrote about the White House Conference on gender and diversity in toys. Here she describes the toy industry’s efforts to break down existing stereotypes and create new narratives that empower girls.

 

The toy world is abuzz with the recent launch of the newest Barbie doll, modeled after Misty Copeland, the first black female principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. The doll is a part of Barbie’s Sheroes collection, which celebrates female heroes who “like Barbie, have broken boundaries, challenged gender norms and proven girls can be anything they want to be.”

The Misty Copeland doll follows on the heels of the much-publicized launch earlier this year of Barbie’s Fashionistas collection that introduced a range of ethnicities as well as body types for the iconic dolls. These changes were made in a recognition of the need for Barbie to “stay relevant to culture and be more inclusive.”

Mattel is not the only toy company engaged with the challenge to diversify its product line. At a recent White House conference on breaking gender stereotypes in children’s media and toys, representatives from Mattel, Disney, and Lego shared fascinating case studies of their teams’ efforts to create new narratives and products that reflect the world of girls today.

From Disney, we heard about the “Dream Big Princess” campaign that aims to bring “the spirit of adventure and pulling it through Disney’s existing princess product line” by showcasing girls as champions with qualities of inner strength, bravery, and aspiration.

And, DC Comics has introduced the DC Super Heroes Girls line which introduces teenage versions of superheroes like Wonder Woman and Supergirl. The campaign wants to send the message to girls that “Yes, you can be the creator of your own stories.”

These large brands’ “If she can see it, she can be it” campaigns have clearly been inspired by research from places such as the Geena Davis Institute, which found that that “girls are nowhere to be scene” in films. And the research presented at the White House conference was surely meant to encourage them to amp up their commitments to pushing boundaries.

Presentations throughout the day looked at the representations of girls in the media—television, video games, advertising, and toys—and challenged creators of children’s content to reimagine the dominant narrative in TV and children’s media that focuses on the way girls look rather than what they can do and be. They also made clear the intersection of gender and race and the “epidemic of invisibility” that stalks the industry—sharing dramatic data that showed the absence of diverse representations of children of color and stereotype-free gender representations of girls. The new Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity (CARD) study, for example, analyzed 11,306 speaking characters in 414 stories (see page 1), finding that 20% didn’t feature a single speaking black character and at least half or more of all cinematic, television, or streaming stories fail to portray one speaking or named Asian or Asian American on screen. Additionally, Dr. Kevin Clark shared revealing data about the absence of characters of color in video games, apps, and children’s books. (Listen to Dr. Clark in the Diversity in Apps podcast below.)

 

Further, the sexualization of young girls begins early, especially for girls of color as demonstrated by Fatima Goss Graves from the National Women’s Law Center, who shared her research findings on how race and gender stereotypes shape the school experiences of girls of color and result in opportunity gaps for them in education. She gave examples of the depiction of black girls as angry and oppressive, model minority Asian girls as quiet, passive or left out, or Latina girls as quick tempered. This hypersexualization of girls impacts their academic opportunities and leadership.

As the mother of a 6-year-old who carefully curates my daughter’s media intake and toy collection, I was profoundly struck by all this data. The power of media in early childhood is profound and cannot be ignored. As early as between the ages of 3 and 5, children discover gender constructions and and that by the time they reach age 8, they have learned to define themselves in relationship to or in context of the opposite sex.

And this is why we must pay attention to this study of over 7,000 Sears Toys catalogues which found that in the 1970s, less than 2% of toys were identified or branded as for either boys or girls. Today, the aisles of toy stores are color-coded and gendered marketing is the norm. This “genderification” of toys directly affects the choices that children make about what to play or not play with. Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where painting blocks pink “gives girls permission to play with blocks.” Another study by Lisa Dinella and her team showed that when “girls’ toys’ were painted white, boys played with them and that when ‘boys’ toys” were painted pink, girls played with them. Children broke down their own likes and dislikes and played with toys that crossed the gender divide such as blocks, trucks, and kitchen sets!

Such gendered branding and product construction can have profound effects on career choices that men and women make, the pay gap, and confidence levels of young girls. It’s all connected.

Therein lies the rub. I look around and I see an industry that is making concerted efforts to push gender boundaries by re-branding existing products to celebrate stereotypes and to shift the toy and children’s media industry to place more what a girl can do instead of just focusing on what a girl can look like.

But what we also need, the White House conference showed, are toys and media that disrupt existing narratives and retell the stories of girls and boys. Companies such as I am Elemental (girl action figures with core superpowers like wisdom and bravery), WonderCrew (dolls that combine action figures with the comfort of a stuffed animal), littleBits (gender neutral electronic building blocks), and buddingSTEM (clothing line that celebrates girls’ smarts and STEM) are doing incredible work to push the industry to a new place and changing the conversations at the design tables, marketing rooms, and store shelves so that we can get closer to making this statement by Lisa Dinella a reality: “There’s no such things as girl toys and boy toys. There’s just toys and there’s just kids. It’s our responsibility to make this statement true.”

In celebration of Children’s Book Week and the power of storytelling throughout generations, we asked Cooney Center staff members to reflect on their favorite children’s books, along with the new stories they’re excited to share with their own children. We hope you’ll share your favorites, new and old, in the comments.

Executive Director Michael Levine loved books that captured his imagination as a child, from Where the Wild Things Are to Goodnight Moon. “Two other favorites were Stone Soup and Brother Eagle, Sister Sky—I loved the simple beauty of the illustrations, social justice messages, and loving humor that the wise storytellers passed down.” Michael says his kids were thrilled with hearing stories about the kind of village it takes to be happy and successful.

Lili Toutounas, Senior Manager of Administration,  relishes sharing her childhood favorites with her 4-year-old son, Omar. “Babar hooked me as a child with its intricate story lines and the aspect of mystery,” she explains. “Now, we both love the Babar books.” Some of Omar’s recent favorites include Three Billy Goats Gruff, But No Elephants, A Color of His Own, and Caps for Sale.

“I don’t think my four-year-old has come across a book that she doesn’t love,” says Director of Web and Strategic Communications Catherine Jhee. “This morning, she told me her current favorite is Ella Bella Ballerina and the Sleeping Beauty by James Mayhew.” One of her daughter’s favorite e-books is Goldilocks and Little Bear by Nosy Crow. “It doesn’t seem to get old for her,” Catherine explains. “She’s able to enjoy it with and without narration, as well as from Goldilocks’ and Little Bear’s perspectives.” While A Wrinkle in Time and the Ramona books are long-time favorites from her own childhood, Room on the Broom is one book she’s come to love as a parent. “It’s a wonderfully told story of friendship, teamwork, and inclusion,” she said. “And the movie is great too!”

Senior Research Scientist Vikki Katz had a stand-out favorite author as a child—Roald Dahl. “What stays with me are the intricate worlds he created, and how he treated children,” she explains. “They really mattered, and they were smart (usually, smarter than the adults!). Matilda was probably my absolute favorite, though it’s hard to pick just one.” Now that she’s reading with her son, who turned 1 in March, Where do diggers sleep at night? has become a new favorite. “The author, who is the mother of two young boys herself, has created a beautiful set of questions about where different kinds of trucks sleep at night, and how,” says Vikki.

Also a fan of Roald Dahl, Director of Partnerships and Planning Sadaf Sajwani’s childhood favorite was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Her logic is hard to deny: “What kid doesn’t dream about living in a magical world full of chocolates and candy?!”

For Cooney Center Fellow Elisabeth McClure, two of her favorite childhood reads—Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and Watership Down— hold even more meaning when she re-reads them now. “I love that when I read them as a child, I read them simply as very intense and engaging stories about animals,” says Elisabeth. “As I got older I came to realize what they symbolized–that NIMH was the National Institutes of Mental Health and that the warrens the rabbits encounter in Watership Down demonstrate different political systems and structures,” she explains. “I’ve grown up and become more aware of the world, and they’ve continued to grow with me and take on new meaning.”

Reading has always been a family affair for Senior Fellow Sarah Vaala. “My brother, sister, and I were very into Shel Silverstein as kids,” she says, “We had A Light On in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends in print and on a cassette tape, which we nearly wore out in the family car.” Sarah and her siblings loved Shel’s poems then because they truly felt like they were written for kids. “They were silly and sometimes pushed the envelope a little bit so you felt like you were in on a joke,” she explains, “They still resonate now because mixed in with all the silliness are timeless words of wisdom – no one is perfect (not quite), and we should all ignore ‘the mustn’ts’ sometimes and remember that ‘anything can be.'”

Kristen Kohm, Research Associate, was an avid reader of the Wayside School series by Lous Sachar growing up, following the zany antics of the students and teachers at the school closely. In addition, Kristen read the Harry Potter series religiously. “My parents would pre-order the books so that we received each one the day they came out,” she explains. “I would read them immediately and not sleep until I was finished!”

Erica Rabner, Program Associate, grew up reading Are you my mother? by P.D. Eastman with her own mom, a memory she treasures. “I still remember her pausing to let me jump in with the punch line or last word on each page,” says Erica. She also enjoyed Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. “From a distance, the story seemed fairly black and white,” Erica explains, “but giving it a closer look shed light on some complex nuances at grey areas even a kid could pick up on—The Giving Tree made me think.”

Post-Doctoral Scholar Amber Levinson shares that one of her 5-year-old son’s favorites is Zen Shorts by John J. Muth. The book tells the story of a panda named Stillwater who moves in next door to three kids and becomes their friend. As each of the children gets to know Stillwater, he tells them Zen stories that each illustrate a life lesson linked to something they’re thinking about at the moment. “With its whimsical illustrations the book manages to be both entertaining and thought-provoking, without being too didactic,” says Amber. “It’s been fun to see how as my son gets older, he asks more questions about the stories and sees more of their deeper meaning.”

What stories from your childhood have stuck with you? Share your favorites in the comments and @CooneyCenter on Twitter.

April was a busy month at the White House. In addition to the Early STEM Learning Symposium (which Elisabeth McLure reported on last week), the White House also played host to a day-long conference, “Helping Children Explore, Learn, and Dream Without Limits: Breaking Down Gender Stereotypes in Media and Toys.”

Organized by the White House Council on Women and Girls, the US Department of Education, and the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California, the conference brought together an impressive interdisciplinary mix of leading researchers, content creators, and advocates working in the area of children’s media. The researchers gave us an in-depth look at current research on how notions of boyhood, masculinity, and femininity are affecting children today and the impact of gender disparities in children’s media and toys. It was especially interesting to hear the results of the new Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity (CARD) led by Dr. Stacy Smith, which examines the issue of inclusion on screen and behind the camera in works distributed by 10 major media companies; the report examined every speaking character across film, television, and digital content as well as the gender and race of directors, CEOs, and other employees.

The event also featured industry leaders from Mattel, Disney, Lego, and DC Entertainment/Warner Bros, as well as startups like littleBits. These were fascinating case studies of the ways that toy and media companies recognize the need to dissolve the pink/blue aisles and gender stereotyping in product design. And, finally, parent, blogger, and policy advocates of youth-serving organizations including Common Sense Media and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls presented recommendations for developing more inclusive children’s media and toys that disrupt gender stereotypes.

One of the guiding forces behind the event was author, educator, and champion for girls empowerment Jess Weiner. From her pioneering work with Mattel as an advisor on Barbie’s latest body evolution to her role as ambassador of Dove’s Real Women campaign, she has advocated for partnering with the media that create the messaging that reaches girls. This was clearly was the underlying theme of the White House event: to go beyond the blaming and the shaming in order to bring an interdisciplinary mix of stakeholders invested in children’s media who recognize the impact that gender representations can have on girls’ social-emotional development, and the opportunities that breaking stereotypes can bring to girls’ lives as well as to businesses and the overall childen’s media industry. (Check out what she had to say about the event on her blog.)

The White House has been working with the media and entertainment industry to raise awareness about STEM careers, and has really made a push to raise awareness about the role of women in non-traditional careers. At the conference, Megan Smith, United States Chief Technology Officer, announced the Untold Stories in STEM series. The initiative invites women from across the Administration tell the stories of their personal heroes across the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

As Valerie Jarrett, Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, put it, “We are here to get rid of outdated notions of what boys and girls can and cannot do and to figure out how to create a space where a girl can think of herself as not just a pretty girl in a pretty dress but as a child for whom infinite potential lies ahead.”

Jarrett spoke eloquently about the lack of men in professions such as nursing and teaching, and the lack of women in STEM careers and its long term impact on our economy. She cited the “CSI Effect”, which demonstrates the impact that television media can have on altering perceptions of acceptable careers for men and women. In the early 2000s, the introduction of various fictional CSI crime shows which portrayed men and women in positive, dramatic forensic science roles spurred significant increases in forensic science program applications at universities, with undergraduate and graduate degree enrollment in these programs almost doubling from 2000 to 2005.

Just as targeted efforts by the entertainment community to enhance the profile of STEM jobs can influence young people’s career choices, Jarrett noted that targeted efforts by the children’s media industry to move past stereotypes can dramatically impact and improve young girls’ self-confidence, self-image, career choices, and social-emotional health.

I have been working in the field of children’s media and education since 1999. If I had to trace the roots of my career choice, I would return to the summer after my sophomore year of college in 1994 when I was an intern at Ms. Magazine and became fully aware of the intersections of gender, class, and race and the incredible way in which notions and representations of gender impact women’s lives in areas ranging from daily social interactions to economics. It was therefore a deeply powerful moment for me, then, to attend this conference where some of the leading women in the Obama administration—Stephanie Sprow, Deputy Director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative, Tina Tchen, Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, and Megan Smith, United States Chief Technology Officer—all took the stage to focus the nation’s attention on the impact that media depictions of gender can have on girls (and boys) during early childhood.

 

Stay tuned for part 2, which will give additional highlights of research and recommendations from the conference.

 

Sandhya Nankani is the founder of Literary Safari, which curates, produces, and publishes quality content that celebrates literacy, global learning, diversity, including its award-winning children’s literacy and storytelling apps—Dentist Bird: A West African Folktale and HangArt. Born and raised in Ghana, India, and the United States, Sandhya is also a co-founder of the coalition Diversity in Apps, which is committed to raising awareness about the need for inclusive, equitable, and diverse children’s digital media and to highlighting best practices in the industry.