Today I want to introduce you to Caleb, a medical doctor living in Singapore who has a dream: creating The Brain Train, a high-quality educational app for kids. I have had a lively email exchange for months with Caleb and he’s one of a kind. He had a vision for this app for years and on top of his full-time job, he succeeded in gathering around himself a team of professional from all around the world to launch a promising product. As a mother and a developer, I am very excited about this project. Let’s hear more from Caleb himself.

“It all started when they found the train…”. What is the concept behind your app and how did the idea start?

The Brain Train is essentially me combining all my passions into a game that my younger self would have thoroughly enjoyed.
Growing up, I loved encyclopaedias – especially ones related to oceans and dinosaurs. I read them over and over until their spines were worn and their pages faded. At the time, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it would have been a toss up between a marine biologist or a palaeontologist!
I also had a deep love for Usborne puzzle adventure storybooks – books with vividly illustrated puzzles built into the storyline. I built up quite a remarkable collection of them!

Probably not common at my age, I found myself preferring to browse through Discovery Channel, National Geographic and Animal Planet first, before “settling” for cartoons if I didn’t find anything interesting. My family calls me Nature Boy till this day!
Now, you probably think that I was the model child all parents wish they had. Unfortunately for my parents, I also discovered the joys of video games. All these interests fell to the wayside as video games outcompeted all other ‘productive’ passions and hobbies. Thankfully, my parents managed to keep me in check, but I do look back on all the hundreds of lost hours with some regrets on how much more I could have done and learnt.
Which brings me to the inspiration for The Brain Train. Parents these days have it even worse. Their kids are getting exposed to screens at a much younger age, whether they like it or not. Books are losing to screens. It’s inevitable. And then it hit me, let’s embrace this new age and use technology to our advantage. Let’s create a game that parents would approve of, and more importantly, actually benefit our kids. And so we have The Brain Train.

You have an incredible diverse team of creators, developers, and more, all scattered around the world. How did you get in touch in the first place and what working values make you stick together?

That’s one of the things I love about this experience. It’s getting to know and work with such an amazing, talented group of people. Initially, I hoped to work with local talent, but I soon realised that I was missing out on the wealth of creativity, experience and brilliance from across the continents. It took resourcefulness to make this dream happen; Google and Skype took care of the rest.
I started out without programming experience, so my journey began with lots of reading and research about the art of creating video games. That being said, much of this journey could not be learnt from a book and required plenty of trials and errors, or learning from the specialists themselves. I am a medical doctor by profession; my background in science and research combine well with the team’s experience in art, animation and game development – all of which are essential in creating this multi-faceted game.
In terms of values that I look for in a team member, integrity stands out from the rest. I have full faith in them giving their best efforts, and I firmly believe in fulfilling my end of the bargain no matter what. In addition to this, the most important quality I look for in a team member is flexibility. I tend to have a clear big picture in mind, but working out the finer details requires some trial and error. This ability to change direction at the drop of a hat will be essential to our success, especially in a field as fluid as education. It helps that we are perfectionists here and won’t stop till we get it right!

How many people are currently involved in the project?

At present, not including myself, we have five artists/animators, eight programmers, one writer, one editor… and growing!

What is the target age of users?

Anyone above the age of 6! The younger ones can enjoy it with parents reading the story and facts to them.

What languages will the app be in? Will it be accessible to pre-schoolers?

English at the moment, but we plan on translating the game to other languages if there’s a demand. Furthermore, we will be giving our game to non-profit organisations and disadvantaged children all over the world, so we definitely have plans to translate the game to other languages as required.

What is the development timeline, when will we be able to play with The Brain Train?

Our Kickstarter has started on the 29^th of January 2019 and based on our estimates, we’re looking at an App store launch date of end 2019!

Will there be a beta-testing programme, if someone is eager to start playing?

Yes! Each Kickstarter backer will eventually get a copy of the prototype (beta version) to test and provide feedback. This prototype will be regularly updated with more gameplay elements to test as deemed required.

Can you anticipate any details of the game, for instance, will interaction among gamers be possible? Is there a rewarding system inside the game?

This game is planned to be the first episode of many, and each episode will be designed as a stand-alone. Each episode is essentially a full complete adventure – no cliff-hangers, we promise!

For this first episode, the game is designed to be played individually. Gameplay that allows interaction between players requires a large back-end database server to store each player’s progress, which is too expensive for now… but that doesn’t mean we aren’t open to it in the future.

For now, the gameplay goes a little like this:
The player follows along with the characters on their incredible adventure, solving visual puzzles with the characters along the way to progress through the storyline. Depending on the environment that their adventure takes the characters through, the player will be able to interact with elements within a scene and learn fun facts about them. For example, if the Brain Train characters were travelling through an underwater scene, the player could then tap on a shark or an anemone and learn fun facts about them. Each fact will be paired with a Nat Geo-like photograph of that element in real life, giving the player something to relate to in the real world. The sky’s the limit when it comes to the variety of environments (and therefore the variety of things) players can learn about. Imagine an adventure to space, or back in time to the dinosaurs or the pyramids, or even an adventure through the modern world and picking up practical life skills like the best way to do household chores, finances, first aid and home fixes!

Will the content of the game grow in time or has the adventure a finale?

We have big plans for The Brain Train. One episode can only fit in so much content, so we will be spreading out the learning topics across more episodes to come. We want to create episode after episode for as long as we are able to financially sustain it. We hope that The Brain Train will be more than just a game; it’s a whole universe for children to experience and dream about. It’s all very grand and exciting!

httpss://youtu.be/5jpakK3kLbk

What makes The Brain Train unique?

Academic-related children’s educational apps are a dime a dozen, all aimed at improving a child’s chance at academic success in school. However, here at Thinkofmagic Studios, we believe in teaching children how to not only survive the game of life, but to get a head start and thrive. We are firm believers in the benefits of general knowledge, while the importance of learning essential life skills is self-explanatory. There are very few apps out there with a focus on general knowledge, and those that do, do not package it in a fun and engaging way. Much like throwing an encyclopaedia without pictures to a child, he won’t read it… these days, even a beautifully illustrated encyclopaedia doesn’t cut it. It’s the time of The Brain Train.

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Big thanks to my guest Caleb and to all his team for sharing their motivation and efforts in my blog. If you want to support them and make The Brain Train really possible, go ahead and support their Kickstarter campaign as a funder or simply shout out to your friends about it. You can follow Thinkofmagic Studios and The Brain Train on Facebook. Looking forward to playing it with my kids!

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