There are gender wars, and then there are casualties. It wasn’t until 2011 that the behemoth toymaker LEGO acknowledged girls’ desire to build with bricks, even though the company had long before made a seemingly effortless pivot to co-branding, video games, and major motion pictures. So it’s little wonder that girls face all-too-real obstacles when […]
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Innovation through Genre Synthesis
IDEA Games thrives on the collective energy, creativity, and ethical drive that permeate nonprofit organizations and socially responsible game studios. Leveraging a highly iterative and collaborative process, we explore the intersection between technology and narrative, ensuring our games are enjoyable, technically forward-thinking, and inclusive, breaking down barriers often encountered in conventional gaming experiences.
One distinguishing feature of IDEA Games is our inventiveness in blending game genres, particularly in the realm of word and puzzle games. Instead of simply juxtaposing different gaming styles, we weave them together, charting previously unexplored territories in gameplay and narrative experience. Our unique intellectual property—a rich linguistic database—is fortified with artificial intelligence, enabling us to manipulate and explore language in ways that are typically out of reach for other studios. This fusion also allows us to delve deeper into the intricacies and beauties of language, crafting experiences that are both challenging and enlightening.
At its core, our studio champions an inclusive and socially-driven approach to gaming. Word games often cater to a specific audience, defined by particular interests and vocabulary skills. IDEA Games is committed to dismantling these limitations by developing games that appeal and adapt to players with a broad spectrum of lived experience and abilities. Our overarching social mission propels us further, guiding us to create experiences that celebrate linguistic richness and cultivate a deeper understanding of the English language. By strategically bridging cultures and challenging conventional perceptions within word associations, we strive to make every player, from every background, feel seen, valued, and engaged in a collective exploration of language and connection.
OtherWordly
IDEA Games is venturing into a virtually untapped market by merging word associations with projectile physics mechanics in its debut game, OtherWorldly. This unique blend both crafts a novel gaming experience and sets the stage for a content generation pipeline. This approach promises fresh and engaging word association games blended with other beloved game mechanics to deliver word games that feel thoughtful and represent time well spent.
Distinctive Language Manipulation
IDEA Games utilizes the latest generation of fine-tuned generative AI and Linguabase, a proprietary graph database of 50 million weighted word pairs based on 500,000 terms to enable real-time moderation of user-generated content. This ensures a gaming environment that is both safe and respectful by efficiently handling potential issues with inappropriate word combinations and challenging cultural nuances. For example, it navigates the complications arising from thousands of benign words that can become derogatory in certain contexts, such as “buckwheat,” “girl,” or “fairy.”
Strategically Backed and Thoughtfully Monetized
The studio was built using a $500,000 incubation fund and $275,000 in non-dilutive seed funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Leveraging this support, IDEA Games has devised a dual subscription model targeting a broad user demographic. The project aims to reach a user base of 1 to 2 million players globally, tapping into a market of over 1 billion English speakers worldwide, two-thirds of whom are non-native English speakers.
Award-Winning Beta Phase
Despite being in the beta stage, IDEA Games’ first title, OtherWorldly, has secured multiple industry awards, including recognitions from TIGA, MAGFest, IndiePrize, and Serious Play, underlining the strength and potential of the game’s concept and its solid execution. This achievement establishes a confident footing in the competitive app market.
Prosocial Impact and Educational Value
IDEA Games is committed to social good, embedding prosocial values in gaming with a strong focus on reducing xenophobia and enhancing English vocabulary fluency and critical thinking across its user base. It consciously crafts a narrative rich in diversity and inclusivity, addressing pressing social issues like confidence, bullying, and prejudice. This approach fosters a platform where players can enjoy the game while expanding their vocabulary knowledge and developing a greater understanding of and appreciation for diverse cultures and viewpoints.
Inclusive and Diverse Core Team
With representation from the LGBTQ+ community, women, and the BIPOC community, IDEA Games has diversity and inclusion in its DNA, while catering to a broader audience by incorporating a rich variety of perspectives into the game development process. Moreover, by collaborating with over 30 interns from the University of Victoria and Northeastern University, as well as dozens of freelancers, IDEA Games has harnessed an ocean of insights to refine both content and moderation algorithms.