WoU, Who? Meet Kathy

Kathy has spent years on the move. At a young age her family's movements opened her mind to travel and her imagination did the rest, taking her ways of thinking into new areas outside of the daily norms. “I’ve always been intrigued by the world of possibilities, the subjunctive mood, utopian ideals. Maybe because the world – as is – is less than perfect, I escaped the mundane in the fantastic. The more I learned about the world at large, the less I felt a place in it. But the world of the imagination is infinite.”

After discovering programming in college she tailored her English Degree to accommodate her passion for human computer interaction. “My views on AI were shaped by John Searle there, who has a famous thought experiment on the topic”.

“We’ve made a lot of the sci-fi computer world of my childhood true, and unfortunately so much of the dystopian world as well. We need new stories to disrupt destructive paths and forge a restorative future.” And so, her connection to creating the World of Us felt like not only a chance to bring her hopes to life but a reflection of the way she was raised celebrating the interplay of truth and beauty.

At TALES, Kathy connects and communicates with various teams creating software output – translating requirements into code. “I try to anticipate where people will be heading, making sure the tech will be there to support. I’m pretty good at detecting subtle logic flaws in a creative brief that would create downstream bugs, and then helping the team iron them out.” 
    
During her interview a story told by our CEO ignited Kathy’s curiosity. Hearing of how a child in Brazil was offered an internship at a game company through intersecting with our work became a level of inspiration for the mission Kathy deemed ‘infectious’. “I didn’t know I was missing it till I heard it, and how could you say no to it?”

“If we say that an education is not just to gain knowledge of facts and figures, but also to learn how to ask better questions, then game design should also follow that sense of exploration, of giving just enough of a clue about how to get to the next level.” Just like in education, the key to good gaming lies in the ability to push the players to spot the patterns and hone their logic-based skills. “If you get kids in a state of play, then they will take in more information then if you just close off their branches of exploration. And, as I said, logic games help you learn how to reason. I wouldn’t be able to do the programming I have without playing logic games and solving puzzles from a young age.”

When it comes to making a game that reflects the world, it’s no secret that the way to make this happen is through getting out there and getting inspired on the ground. But to also be able to translate this into a game Kathy applies her logic to help simplify how the user finds and interacts with this wider knowledge. “World of Us is geared as a cooperative multiplayer game, and how it’s created is organized through cooperative teamplay with emergent properties discovered along the way through participatory art direction, fusing not only our point of view but that of the places we take inspiration from. We might go through a creative process where we make three things, and cut two, leaving only what is necessary to tell the story.”

But with so many factors of education and tech to consider, it can be hard to understand how World of Us is able to take on the task of solving a larger issue – how to teach children about the world, unfiltered. “Because we are funded as a non-profit, we can take the space to make sure we are doing the right thing for ourselves, the communities we serve, and the planet. This infuses with the game, the purity of heart can be seen and makes you want to play longer. It is fascinating to me as a technologist how so many emotions can be transmitted through computers.”

For our guardians, Kathy has some wise words to share. “It’s ok if you play, too. I feel better after our playtest sessions. It’s ok for adults to let their inner child have a few hours of restorative joy.” As creators of games we understand how play can benefit the brain, so you can take our word for it that a few hours exploring an online world might be exactly what you need to shake off the daily stresses. Allow yourself to access that childlike play and you – and your little ones – could be better for it.

A final insider tip: “Look Up! The clouds are so pretty. They give a dreamlike illustrative quality like you are in a cartoon but not in a cartoon, it immediately draws you in.” 
So there you have it, the World of Us through the words of Kathy – our Technical Director and possibly one of the most curious minds amongst us.