Brief

The eSafety Commissioner wanted to teach primary school children how to stay safe online working within the established Mighty Heroes world. It needed to work as something a teacher could run with a class as a group, and something a child would want to play at home, alone or with a parent.

Solution

Rather than another explainer animation which was the standard approach, we created a game. An interactive adventure where students take on a series of online safety challenges to defeat Robo Raven and restore the internet to a safe place for everyone.

To make the game more appealing and ‘cooler’ for kids, I took the art direction down a retro pixel art path and introduced a new villain character into the Mighty Heroes line-up. We ran focus groups with parents and children at every stage to make sure the game genuinely resonated and did its job, and the direction was validated throughout that testing. I designed and animated the pixel characters, including the walk cycles, and used AI image generation, still in its infancy at the time, to create all the game environments. This let us produce something high quality within a modest budget. I animated the environmental assets in After Effects into a library ready for build, and shaped the structure of the game, the quiz logic and the interface. The quizzes woven through the story are the heart of it, covering digital footprints, respectful relationships, recognising when something feels unsafe, and thinking critically about scams and fake news. The game is curriculum-aligned, co-designed with educators, parents and children, and is now live in classrooms across Australia.

Credits
Digital/Product Designer : Ephraim Sanowski
Designer : Tina Tran
Copywriter: Thabani Tshuma

Brief

Create an app to assist counsellors and carers to help children who are victims of abuse or suffering emotional difficulties.

Solution

Working with ACF counsellors, we gained an understanding of the problems young children faced and the techniques they used to support them. Our idea was The Big Tree, home to various creatures each with their own story aimed at helping children understand different emotions that they might be feeling. We created four stories that were narrated by ambassador Chris Hemsworth and his mother Leonie. As the story of each character progresses they a challenged with an obstacle they must overcome. We created games utilising the features of the device such as motion, touch and audio. This gave children the opportunity to help the characters and learn problem-solving strategies such as mindfulness, calm breathing, talking about their feelings with their carer or counselor, music, and art.  As well as developing the concept with Emma Park, I was also responsible for creating the artwork together with Christine Calo.  

Credits
Senior Copywriter : Emma Park
Designer / illustrator : Christine Calo
Developer : Anton Wintergerst
Voice artists : Chris Hemsworth, Leonie Hemsworth

ANZ launched a TVC featuring Kevin the ATM to promote the fact that they were installing more ATMs. To compliment this we created asocial media campaign and platform game, giving customers the chance to become Kevin. We loaded Kevin up with a power ups that gave him the ability to transform and complete each level. Working together with Michael Battle on the concept, I created the artwork and designed the games interface.

Credits
Developer : Michael Battle

As the then official sponsor of the Australian swimming squad, ANZ briefed us to create a game to raise awareness. Riding off the success of Kevin the ATM we created Theo the pig. Our aim was to create an educational, fun and unique game that wouldn't be like anything anyone had played before. As well as releasing a game, the bank also created limited edition piggy banks with Theo to celebrate the sponsorship.

Credits
Developer : Michael Battle