Workinman Interactive was proud to attend the opening of the Strong National Museum of Play’s expansion, and to finally see players enjoy our games at the ESL Digital Worlds: Level Up exhibit.
When entering the exhibit, players get RFID tagged bracelets, create an avatar, and as they tackle challenges throughout the experience, they gain achievements and level up their characters. Among the assortment of games and interactive experiences at Strong’s new 90,000-square-foot expansion, three Workinman Interactive-designed exhibits stand out.
Players design their own buildings and add them to the landscape in City Sim: Building Designer. Using an assortment of familiar in-game design tools, players craft their own buildings for a Sim City-inspired metropolis. From their touchscreen design kiosk, they sent completed creations to the city on a massive projected display, where they can see their buildings being constructed from the ground up. Each player’s custom structure adds to the landscape, fitting in with other artist’s architectures, and creating a unique, independent, yet social interactive throwback to city-sim games. Over the past 15 years, Workinman Interactive has made dozens of games using a variety of digital paint and design tools for young users, so City Sims was an excellent opportunity to build off of our experiences.
Inspired by flashy arcade rhythm games, Beat the Boss, challenges up to 4 players to work together to take on rock-inspired bosses in an epic battle of rhythm. By tapping giant arcade buttons to the beat, players attack each of the 3 massive bosses as they perform on a giant concert stage. Keeping the rhythm across the 3 music tracks, sends attacks leading to the flashy defeat of that track’s imposing boss. Workinman’s design team took special care to visually communicate the health bars of the boss and players, the score, and each note’s timing, so that any player of any skill level could follow along and shred those bosses without missing a beat.
Taking inspiration from popular mobile and console “made-to-order” cooking games, Quick Cook is a fast-paced game where players become the chef and have to put together orders using toy ingredients and a large cooking pot. A cast of unique, and often demanding customers appear in the window, requesting anything from simple dishes to bizarre creations. Before they grow impatient and look elsewhere, the chef needs to find the right ingredients, which are tagged with RFID chips, and get them into the pot. One bad ingredient and the impatient customer could grow sour. Workinman’s design team created a large cast of animated customer characters, and a procedural recipe list in order to ensure every experience is a fresh one.
After seeing the expansion, guests can see two of our other displays at the Strong National Museum of Play. On the first floor, color some fish, and scan them to populate our Interactive Sketch Tank. And in the National Toy Hall of Fame, ask our 6-foot Magic 8-Ball to answer your most burning questions. Workinman Interactive is a Game Developer and Interactive Digital Exhibit Design studio located in Rochester, NY, home of the Strong National Museum of Play.
