Category: fun

Apps, ARTHUR, fun, games, html5

Wizard Academy!

We’re very excited to let you know that the new ARTHUR game, WIZARD ACADEMY, has launched!

You can find it in the PBS Kids games app, on the PBS Kids site, and on the ARTHUR site at: https://pbskids.org/arthur/games/wizard-academy

Welcome to Wizard Academy! Arthur is ready to begin his magical training, but the troublemaker Moldywart has stolen the textbooks AND whisked away all the students! Arthur needs your help to learn new spells, save his friends, and ultimately defeat Moldywart in his tower lair – revealing more secret passages and silly potions to explore! Can Arthur save his beloved school? It’s all up to you!

The game features:

  • 10 increasingly challenging levels, set at Pigblisters Wizard Academy (as introduced in the TV show)
  • 4 richly decorated areas of the academy: the library wing, the botanical wing, the abandoned wing, and Moldywart’s tower hideaway
  • A boss battle where you come face to face with the very naughty Moldywart!
  • A full set of hidden passages and treasures in all 10 levels, available only once you’ve defeated Moldywart
  • 4 magical spells to learn
  • 18 classmates to rescue (plus Professor Rattledore!)
  • Hundreds of coins to collect throughout the levels, with the chance to earn 12 bonus outfits
  • 15 deep, dark (and funny) secrets to learn about Moldywart
  • An original soundtrack, including scene-setting moody themes for the main gameplay, and silly songs for the potions
  • 9 silly potions to discover in the secret passages (and then experience!):
    • Duck Shoes potion
    • Snow potion
    • Bubbles potion
    • Fireworks potion
    • Crazy Bus potion (the most annoying potion EVER created!)
    • Happy Birthday potion (with an Easter egg on Arthur’s ACTUAL birthday!)
    • Storm potion
    • Dance potion (featuring a dance version of the ARTHUR theme song)
    • Cow potion

CREDITS:

  • Nolan (Digital Designer): lead game design, character design, level design, main music themes
  • Jolin (Senior Developer): lead game developer
  • Jenny (Associate Digital Designer): design support, decorative artwork, potion art
  • Gentry (Senior Producer): story, script, sound design, original potion music, voice of Moldywart (Mwah-hah-hah-haaaa…)

Thanks also to the full ARTHUR team, including Kacie and Carol for their feedback, and Kate for budget support; Melissa and the digital team at PBS; and Tolon and Marc Brown.

fun, games, html5

Search It Up: The Game

GBH Kids Digital is excited to announce the launch of “Search It Up: The Game” to complement their award-winning series of live-action shorts, Search It Up!

Funded by Comcast’s Internet Essentials, “Search It Up: The Game” is designed to help kids 4-7 safely explore and enjoy the world they’re already in, the world of computers, tablets, sharing, and the internet. It offers eight mini-games, each based on a fun, kid-friendly theme. Through lively gameplay, kids learn how to be a digital upstander; how to judge which photos should (and shouldn’t) be shared; how to have healthy boundaries for digital content; which calls and texts to respond to; and, surprisingly, that even cows can be connected to the internet!  

“Search It Up: The Game” was created by Senior Executive Producer & Director of Digital Partnerships Bill Shribman, Senior Digital Producer Gentry Menzel, Senior Developer Jolin Yim, Senior Digital Designer Becca Quigley, Senior Digital Designer Jesse Haley, Associate Digital Designer Jenny DeMarines, Associate Digital Designer Lauren Kane, with support from Business Manager Kate Hewitt. Original music by Geoff Adams.

Apps, fun, Research, Video

Small Wonders

GBH Kids has launched Small Wonders, a free app developed for Reach Every Reader, and supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Small Wonders offers families a co-play experience of original games, activities, and songs with embedded prompts to help parents support language development through conversation, a key pre-literacy skill. A special Grown-Ups section also offers language-rich activity ideas and animated dialogues illustrating ways to make the most of the app and to extend learning beyond the screen experience. 

This project began in Fall 2018 and was completed during the pandemic. The app’s approach is based on current research in children’s early language and literacy development and is published by our partners at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, marking their first foray into publishing content for families.

The project involved Children’s Media and Education and Digital Services, including over 30 GBHers as we conducted formative research in public housing, completed extensive prototyping and user testing at HeadStart day care centers and the Boston Children’s Museum, and finalized twelve digital games, four songs, five guide videos, and supporting print materials.

The app is available for free at Apple and Google Play.

Apps, ARTHUR, fun, games, html5

Moving Art Machines

George’s Moving Art Machines is live on the ARTHUR website and PBS KIDS Games app.

George’s Moving Art Machines is an extremely flexible HTML5 art tool, allowing endless variations in four themes: shapes, lights, characters, and sounds.

Players select art assets; place, customize, and connect them; then set them in motion to make amazing kinetic art!

This game is unique and a lot of fun, and its quality is a direct result of the tremendous efforts of Gentry, Kal and Nolan.

Awards, fun

Search It Up Wins!

For more: https://www.wgbh.org/search-it-up

Our pilot video series Search It Up just won a Public Media Award at the 2021 NETA Conference. “The Public Media Awards honor our members’ finest work in education, community engagement, marketing/communications and content. This year saw a record number of entries from stations across the country as new categories were introduced recognizing excellence in podcasts and digital media use as well as awards in each category specific to the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Apps, ARTHUR, Events, fun, games, html5

An Elwood City Thanksgiving!

Join Arthur, Muffy, Buster, and Mr. Ratburn as they celebrate “An Elwood City Thanksgiving,” a new digital game from PBS Kids. It’s on the ARTHUR website and in the PBS KIDS games app.

Visit the four families, serve up holiday food, and then help with some wonderful family traditions by making a thankfulness poster with Arthur, donating food with Muffy, taking in a traditional Native American harvest with Buster, and baking a delicious cake with Mr. Ratburn.

And don’t forget the family photos! So come visit, and see there’s more than one way to celebrate Thanksgiving.

And “An Arthur Thanksgiving” premieres this Monday on GBH 2 and the PBS Kids Video App! 

#TeamGBH

Apps, fun, games, html5, Molly of Denali

Super Snowboarder

Go snowboarding with Molly and Auntie Midge!

Learn cool new tricks using videos and books, and practice your moves in the Freestyle area in out latest game for Molly of Denali.

Our snowboarding adviser for this game was Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, an Olympic snowboarder and the first Alaska Native to make an Olympic team.

This dynamic HTML5 game is available at both the Molly of Denali website and the PBS KIDS Games app.

Go Team Molly!

Apps, ARTHUR, fun, games, html5

Arthur’s Puppet Theater!

ARTHUR’S PUPPET THEATER offers three classic fairy tales designed as interactive stories, all performed by ARTHUR characters. First, choose from three stories: Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, or Goldilocks and the three Bears. Then enjoy the show, with YOU as the director! Cast the actors – Arthur, D.W., Muffy, and Buster – in the roles you want, then lean in to make fun decisions to guide the story.

Would you like a more traditional Little Red Riding Hood, or perhaps the more swashbuckling Little Green Pirate Hat? Do you think Cinderella would prefer the electronically inclined Prince-Bot 5000, or the diva-tastic Prince Megastar? And should a hungry Goldilocks choose the bowls of porridge, tacos, or spaghetti and meatballs? Whichever you decide, there’s more fun right around the corner with more choices. And when you reach “happily ever after,” you can begin again with new choices. So come enjoy some classics as only ARTHUR can deliver!

For ARTHUR’S PUPPET THEATER, GBH worked with Two Moos.