Coding Awbie — Creative Joy & Product Design

GAME LAUNCHED 2016 / 2020
ART LEAD / PLAY DESIGNER / PRODUCT LEAD

Coding Adventure Game

Osmo Coding Awbie is the first tangible coding game developed for Osmo. It teaches the basics of coding through a hands-on coding adventure with physical coding blocks.

My role started as Osmo’s first on-staff artist. I was responsible for designing UI, games assets, marketing graphics, and animation. It grew into level and play designer where I was involved with developing, play testing, and iterating on level design and UX.

I later became Product and Team Lead of engineers, artists, animators, and designers in updates for the Osmo Coding Starter Kit relaunch.

Product Film

Game Design

The initial game concept was co-designed with Felix Hu, Ariel Zekelman, Frances Judd and Michael Horn as a game called "Strawbies." It was acquired by Osmo in 2016, redesigned, and commercially launched on iOS and Amazon Fire.

Osmo Coding Awbie is played by planning where you want your character, Awbie, to go on screen, assembling and connecting Command Coding Blocks, and then running your code. By using the Osmo to see the blocks on the table, the code interacts and comes to life on your tablet.

Players progress through different obstacles in each level and collect as many delicious strawbies and items as they can. The game is scaffolded to be instructional at the start, but quickly allow for more advanced coders to earn rewards by using more coding commands to line up multiple strawbies in one run of code.

It was my responsibility to write and create detailed game documentation used for external usage.

View PDF Game Guide

Art Direction

The general style is bubbly and chunky shapes with occasional straight edges and points with smaller inner details. To achieve a friendly but stylistic look, I used a lot of repeating shapes and minimal shading.

World Building

Creating a unique world for kids to engage with was important. I designed and illustrated modular environmental assets (forests, jungles, snowy mountain, beaches, caves, and even a volcano) and supporting characters used throughout the game.

Awbie

Bouncy yet brave, Awbie is willing to make mistakes along the way, even if it means running into a tree or diving headfirst into a lake. Awbie will try anything to chow down on delicious strawbies!

Awbie does not speak, but instead visually acts out emotions: growing uncontrollably excited when discovering a treasure trove of strawbies or showing off with a backflip when jumping into a tricky spot.

Did we mention how much Awbie loves strawbies? A lot...

Characters

From fan mail to classroom decorations to multiple DIY birthday parties, Awbie and this world is a hit with kids, parents, and teachers. I create a unique but versatile character that through playful antics would make the basics of coding lighthearted and fun.

The world is filled with many unexpected creatures and new friends. Ranging from slugz to bunnies to all types of critters.