Two avid gamers Matthew Zakutny and Kelly Mitchell have launched a Kickstarter campaign for a mobile game Soul Catchers (Souls) that is poised to be the next quantum jump in the space of dynamic, relevant education. Souls which is 70% complete is focused on bringing history to life by incorporating hands-on practical learning while engaging with friends and the community.
While speaking about the mobile game, Kelly Mitchell who worked on the design indicated that the mobile game will help someone understand history from across the world by being part of it.
“Our philosophy builds on the knowledge that interest perpetuates involvement for this and future generations. A passion for local and distant history across nations can initiate appreciation, respect, and understanding for the world at large and everything in it.”
Soul takes the player to travel with their family and friends to specific points of interest to capture Souls who are significant historical figures and learn about their life and accomplishments. It provides an opportunity to follow the paths that these historical figures walked. During this traveling, one encounters several goblins, ghouls, and zombies to help them ‘level up’ your Soul catching skills.
There are 4 genres namely politics, entertainment, influencers and sports. The Souls can only be acquired by going to a specific location and can only be caught a limited amount of times which gives them value for trades and collecting. This value affords the unique opportunity to further player engagement and interest by utilizing local business venues with historical significance to feature local Souls and events, like ghost tours. The game is interactive and allows players to submit their own local Souls, history, or even a ghost in their likeness.
Soul Catchers entertains and educates a diverse population by developing 3 separate modes. These modes are assigned automatically upon entering the User’s birth date. The first mode Generations Mode is for all users. The Scholars Mode is made for educators and schools. Schools can present their syllabus schedule and it will be customized by Souls to compliment the segments of the historical figures children are learning about. The students can create their own ghost as an assignment and it will be exalted as a featured ghost for 30 days. The Nefarious Mode is for 18+ years of age and focuses on criminals, occults, serial killers, and fictional horror movie icons. It is designed to be a subscription add-on to complement haunted tours and fans of the dark beyond and paranormal.
Soul Catchers also promotes community investment and interaction by providing local businesses a platform to participate in strategized in-game advertising with banners enticing users to visit their locations in order to ‘catch’ featured ghosts. Businesses can sponsor or create their own ghosts to promote ghost tours or paranormal experiences, such as the Las Vegas Mob Museum, enhancing tourism efforts. Soul Catchers is dynamic and developed in a way that schools and other entities can create teams similar to eSports which boasts 557 million users by the end of next year. To contribute towards the completion of this project visit Kickstarter.
About
Matthew Zakutny and Kelly Mitchell are the creative design team behind Soul Catchers. Both are avid gamers advocating for the utilization of game theory and psychology in education. They formed Vicinanza Studios LLC (https://www.vicinanzastudios.com/) to help realize this mission. Mitchell also works as the Director of Content Design for LifeHub at Electus Global Education (https://lifehubjobs.com/job-designers/) teaching kids about financial literacy and entrepreneurship through tasks where they earn real money. Their vision was to harness the explosive interest in ghosts, mobility of family gameplay, and introduce an educational historic component. Soul Catchers was born. This game promotes learning, appreciation of culture and history, enjoyment of horror fandom, quality family time, and is portable - allowing the family to experience history. Souls has the potential to be played by millions and is equipped with a robust nature for longevity.
