Fresh Pick: Coming Soon!

For the past nine months, we’ve been hard at work on Fresh Pick: The Search for the Next Lunch Labber. Like last year’s Escape from Greasy World, this new Fizzy’s project was funded by the Ready to Learn grant from the US Department of Education.

Fresh Pick will challenge kids to prove that they have what it takes to help Fizzy run the Lunch Lab. In a mock reality show format, kids will have to complete 8 different challenges that each put their math, reasoning and culinary know-how to the test. The games are self-leveling, and each comes with accompanying cinematics featuring different Lunch Lab characters (produced with our partners at Hero 4 Hire Creative). Of course, Freezer Burn also makes a music video appearance at the end of the experience.

We also partnered with PBS and UCLA CRESST to implement extensive analytics on the games, so that we can all learn a great deal about their use post-launch. Now that production has wrapped up, we’re so excited for Fresh Pick to roll out for computers and tablets in November. Stay tuned for more info on the launch!

Negative Nimbus Wins First Award

As we mentioned last week, we spent Saturday at the Boston Festival of Indie Games, where Negative Nimbus picked up the “Awesome Aesthetics” award for best visuals and design in a game. We were humbled to be recognized among such talented and creative game studios from all over New England! It was also super exciting to see so many people playing (and enjoying!) the game. Aside from family and friends, this was our first time seeing Nimbus played by non-CloudKids, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

The award we won was especially meaningful, as the winners were chosen by the festival attendees. Big thanks to everyone who stopped by to check out the game and to all those who voted to give Nimbus this award! Now, we are even more excited for Negative Nimbus to make his app store debut in the next few weeks!

Announcing Negative Nimbus!

For months now, we’ve been hinting at the release of our first original iOS app. Well, good news loyal CK followers… the wait is almost over! Negative Nimbus, our lovable little rain cloud, along with his fellow Sunnyland inhabitants, will be coming to an iPad/iPhone near you very soon. In the meantime, Nimbus’, website, blog and trailer (also above) have all gone live. Check these out for lots of sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes looks at the production and development of the app. While you’re at it, please like Nimbus’ Facebook page. We’ll be posting all kinds of exciting updates there leading up to launch, and little Nimbus can use all the love he can get!

Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood App

It’s a beautiful day in the CloudKid HQ Neighborhood! The Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood App that we produced for PBS and the Fred Rogers Company was released last week, and it’s already having a ton of success! The app has spent nearly a week straight on the “new and noteworthy” section of the app store, and it is already the #2 education app. We were honored to work on this project, for which we ported three of Schell Games’ experiences from Daniel’s website. We also created an original sticker book experience for the app, and handled the design and animation for the main menu/wrapper experience. As big fans of the original Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, we were so excited to have a part in this next generation. Check out the app, and the new show, when you get a chance!

Peep’s iOS Debut

We were super pumped when our friends at WGBH asked for help in bringing Peep and the Big Wide World to the iOS app market. Starting with existing ActionScript games from their website, we handled the process of porting six games into standalone apps. We really enjoyed working on this project since we love the brand, and it gave us an opportunity to grow our proficiency in converting Flash content to native iOS apps.

The six apps (Quack’s Apples, Trash Stash, Paint Splat, House Hunt, Sounds Like Fun and Hide and Peep) went live on the app store today. Check them out!

“Count Me to Sheep” Live!

Back in November, we excitedly announced that we’d be producing our first interactive game for Sesame Workshop. Now, we’re even more excited to announce that the game, “Count Me to Sheep,” is live on the Sesame Street website! We were so honored to work on this project with some of our favorite characters and had an amazing time producing the game. Hope you all check it out 1 or 2 or 3 times (“Ah ah ah ah!”). Enjoy!

Emmy Nomination!

Last week the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced its nominations for the 2012 Daytime Emmy Awards, and we’re proud to announce that for the third straight year, Fizzy’s Lunch Lab was nominated in the Children’s New Approaches category!

This nomination is the result of our awesome artists and engineers that take many creative risks and work long hours to ensure that the Lunch Lab is always entertaining, informative (and looks great). Fizzy’s success couldn’t be possible without the tireless effort from the team and our advisors.

A big shout out the PBS Kids Interactive staff and the other nominees in our category, (which all happen to be PBS projects): Cyberchase, Design Squad, and Oh Noah.

The Daytime Emmys take place on Sunday, June 17th in Los Angeles. Hopefully, the third time’s a charm, and we’ll have some good news to report.  Our fingers, toes, legs, and eyes are crossed.

Snacka Stacka Comin’ Atcha

Amid all the new website hoopla, we forgot to mention that our latest game, Snacker Stacker, launched on the Lunch Lab site earlier this month.  A nod to a couple of our favorite classics (think Dr. Mario and Tetris), the game mixes in some signature Fizzy flair to an awesomely addictive game mechanic.  Players can chose to help Fizzy deliver colorful foods to hungry customers in marathon, timed, or even 2 player modes.

We recently play-tested this game (with real kids!) and they couldn’t wait to play again.  We have to admit, we’re with them — this game has been a huge hit internally at CKHQ and with our adult friends and family.  So check it out when you have the chance, but be warned that you and/or your kids may get hooked!

If you do catch the Snacker Stacker bug, you can also check out the game’s project gallery on our new site for more information and in-process production photos.

Happy stacking (and snacking) to you all!

 

Lunch Lab Hits One Million

Exciting news at CloudKid – over the past month, we had one million unique visitors to the Fizzy’s Lunch Lab site!  It’s the first time we’ve reached this milestone, and we’re pretty sure that the awesome new season of Lunch Lab had a lot to do with it! Thanks to everyone who’s been checking out Fizzy’s latest adventures, and stay tuned for more fresh material in the coming months. CloudKid forecast: next up, two million!

Lunch Lab Season 3 Official Launch

CloudKid HQ is abuzz with excitement over today’s official launch of Lunch Lab Season 3!  As we mentioned back in December, this season was unique, as we focussed on making upgrades to the site to make the experience more personalized for kids.  From the Custom Kitchen and Build a Bot creators to the magnets, leader boards, and login system, we hope these upgrades have been improving Lunch Labbers’ experiences with the content.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a new season without some new videos and games!  Along with our production partners, Hero 4 Hire Creative, we’re so excited for today’s content launch.  In addition to Season 3’s first webisode, “Hook Line and Stinker”, the new game “Sully’s Delivery Day” launched today on the site.  We’re really pumped about this game, in which players will have to help Sully navigate the body to make vital deliveries. The whole CloudKid team worked extremely hard on this game, and we really hope you all enjoy it!

Please take a minute to check out (and play!) the new content.  And don’t forget to check back over the next few weeks for more webisodes, and for the March launch of our addictively awesome game, Snacker Stacker (don’t say we didn’t warn you!).