Creativity: At The Intersection Of Tech And IRL

A few months ago, things were snowballing out of control at our studio. In a good way.

It was busy season. And we’ve dealt with it year after year.

Knowing we were approaching some long(er) days at the studio, we wanted to find some new things for Mayhem to keep busy.

It took her exactly two days to knock out an entire friendship braiding kit and paracord bracelet kit. Clearly, we needed something that wouldn’t “end” or run out.

Keith said “Hey, don’t we have a Wii somewhere?” And indeed, we did.

The very next day, we had it set up at the studio and Mayhem was boxing, bowling and playing tennis like a pro.

Then she discovered the ability to change her Mii. And every single time she started a new game, she felt the need to change her Mii. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.

If she had a bad round of bowling, she needed to change the color of her Mii’s hair. Obviously.

Bad tennis match? Must be the color of her shirt.

This had been going on for about a month, when an email from Nintendo arrived in my inbox. (insert Twilight Zone music here)

They thought Mayhem might like to check out the Nintendo 2DS system and said they had a couple of games right up her alley.

I hesitated just a bit. Mostly because my experience with video games is was extremely minimal and super duper skewed.

I like the Wii because it keeps her active (the games we have anyway) and so I wasn’t so sure about the 2DS.

But I hopped on a call to find out more and as I jokingly explained how Mayhem spends more time standing around customizing her Mii than bowling, the girl on the other end said “Oh my gosh, she’s going to love Tomadachi Life and Animal Crossing New Leaf!”

A few days later we were unboxing a 2DS system and the games.

It took all of about 5 minutes for our family to be laughing and having fun creating Mayhem’s Mii in Tomodachi Life (complete with personality traits and voice!). After that, she started adding friends. And she is seriously having the best time creating Mii(s) that look just like her friends and family.

And once the clothing store “opened” in the game, she was set. I can assure you, the people of Alfrania Island (the name Mayhem came up with for her island) will starve before they go without new clothes.

So I asked her if she thought making a paper outfit like one of her game characters would be fun and she was all in.

She chose which outfit to make and we got to work:

And when it was finished, she said “wouldn’t it be fun if we could take a picture of them together”.

And so we did.

Massive thanks to the nice people at Nintendo for not only sponsoring this content, but for showing us that there are some super fun, super creative gaming options out there! You know we’ll never share anything with you that we don’t personally believe in, but it’s fun when we’re able to share with you new stuff we get introduced to. If you need us, you’ll most likely find us in the clothing store or photo studio on Alfrania Island. Over and out