Polar Design Navigates the Creative and Technical Challenges Created by an Interactive Game that Helps Youth Navigate their Financial Futures.

 

[North Andover, MA] – September 12, 2006 – Polar Design has announced today its development of a futuristic interactive finance game targeting high school and college students, Show Me the Future.

 

Polar Design produced and assisted Mapping Your Future, Inc. in concept development for this stimulating simulation that teaches young adults financial tools and life skills, and is available for anyone, anywhere, anytime free of charge on ShowMeTheFuture.org.

 

Continuing its path of innovation and technical advancement in web based multimedia interface development, Polar Design created a ground breaking content management system that allows non-technical game administrators to update the game’s options such as character attributes, functions like interest rates, as well as the Flash interface itself.  Show Me the Future can thus keep the game up-to-date with current economic trends and market prices.  Polar Design developed the technical architecture for this content management solution and developed it based on .NET technology thereby taking advantage of Flash’s growing ability to interact with databases and software via “web services”.

 

Working closely with Mapping You Future staff, Polar Design also assisted with the design, animation, character and item illustration, audio and 3D production. In addition, over 500 individual characters and other objects were fashioned for the game.

 

This stimulating new game teaches young adults financial tool and life skills and is available for anyone, anywhere, anytime free of charge. Players begin with a job, marital status, income, education level, number of offspring and even an amount of student loans. From there, players make important financial decisions based on their budgets and lifestyles, aiming to end the game without breaking the bank.

 

“Since the advent of the Flash player in the 1990s, the promise of widespread multimedia educational content has always loomed large. Today, with Flash’s growing modularity and support of advanced Internet technologies such as .NET web services (that make Flash applications easier to manage), multimedia education and entertainment is a practical means of training, communication or marketing to more and more organizations. Polar Design is excited to be at the forefront, assisting its client in understanding and developing their own compelling multimedia for the web,” explains Mark Jaklovsky, Polar Design’s Managing Director and Managing Partner.

 

About Polar Design

Polar Design, a mid-sized interactive agency with offices in the United States and Europe, founded in 1999 with the mission of elevating corporations' and non-profits' Internet communications.  Our 25 employees serve the web marketing and e-commerce needs of Fortune 1000 and small businesses alike through their diverse specialties, from identity and concept development, to graphic and multimedia flash design, to programming and database development.  In addition to custom design and development, Polar Design provides a range of marketing solutions, an affordable “hosted” content management and e-commerce platform, as well as application hosting with twenty-four hour support.

 

About Mapping Your Future

Mapping Your Future is a national organization of the financial aid industry aimed at providing free financial services concerning college, career, financial aid and financial literacy.

 

About Flash

Adobe Flash is an authoring environment for use in creating animated and interactive  digital media. Adobe Flash Player is used to view the digital media created in Adobe Flash. Both are copyright © 2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated.