North Smithfield, RI – “Pollywog Pond,” a video game portal for early learners has been nominated for a prestigious 2019 Kidscreen Award in the category of “Best New Video Game App – Original.” The game, created and developed over the past few years by Bill Culbertson of North Smithfield, has been released for play on PC, Mac and on Google Play as an android app for phones and tablets. “We’ve invested a lot of hours and a ton of energy to get to this point.” says Culbertson. “It’s awesome to be recognized by this nomination. It’s like getting nominated for an “Oscar” in the Kid’s Entertainment industry.” The winners will be announced at the Kidscreen Summit held in Miami, Florida in February.
With an underlying soft-curriculum, Pollywog Pond emphasizes problem solving, social and emotional literacy and teamwork. Things at Pollywog Pond happen at a nice, easy pace. The intent is to encourage even the youngest viewers to see, think and understand. Initially developed as a puppet show for broadcast, the development took a twist a few years ago to become a video game portal. “Everything came together perfectly. With the portal approach, we can offer early learners a broad base of activities from live-action video to early reading. By creating our own world, we can integrate the stories and themes together, creating support that ties it all together,” said Culbertson. “The characters are colorful and appealing with well defined personalities that relate to our audience. Playing in the game is a lot of fun! Our young game testers like to play for hours on end. The look of the game environment is unique in that the player is in a 3D environment. Characters move through the landscape, not on top of it as they do in most 2D games for this age group.”
While playing, children do not have direct access to the internet. “Child safety is paramount to us,” said Bill Culbertson, creator and developer of Pollywog Pond. “This game was created for ages 3 and up. Feedback from parents has confirmed our belief that early learners are best kept away from chat and interactions on the web.”
The base game of Pollywog Pond is free to play. For enhanced play with unlimited access to all the activities, a monthly subscription is available. In the game, players earn “Fun Points” that they can use to trade for new mini-games, songs, videos, books, accessories and more. “In our game testing, we learned little girls especially like collecting things,” said Culbertson. “We invested about six months of work to add enough items to satisfy even the most avid collector in the game. It was a lot of work, but added greatly to the play value. Both player and parents love the variety of activities.”
The free to play game and further information are available from the web site: www.PollywogPond.com.
With an underlying soft-curriculum, Pollywog Pond emphasizes problem solving, social and emotional literacy and teamwork. Things at Pollywog Pond happen at a nice, easy pace. The intent is to encourage even the youngest viewers to see, think and understand. Initially developed as a puppet show for broadcast, the development took a twist a few years ago to become a video game portal. “Everything came together perfectly. With the portal approach, we can offer early learners a broad base of activities from live-action video to early reading. By creating our own world, we can integrate the stories and themes together, creating support that ties it all together,” said Culbertson. “The characters are colorful and appealing with well defined personalities that relate to our audience. Playing in the game is a lot of fun! Our young game testers like to play for hours on end. The look of the game environment is unique in that the player is in a 3D environment. Characters move through the landscape, not on top of it as they do in most 2D games for this age group.”
While playing, children do not have direct access to the internet. “Child safety is paramount to us,” said Bill Culbertson, creator and developer of Pollywog Pond. “This game was created for ages 3 and up. Feedback from parents has confirmed our belief that early learners are best kept away from chat and interactions on the web.”
The base game of Pollywog Pond is free to play. For enhanced play with unlimited access to all the activities, a monthly subscription is available. In the game, players earn “Fun Points” that they can use to trade for new mini-games, songs, videos, books, accessories and more. “In our game testing, we learned little girls especially like collecting things,” said Culbertson. “We invested about six months of work to add enough items to satisfy even the most avid collector in the game. It was a lot of work, but added greatly to the play value. Both player and parents love the variety of activities.”
The free to play game and further information are available from the web site: www.PollywogPond.com.
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