It all started when Frank was a boy, frustrated by the lack of organization in the Meehan household. Being the nerdy kid that he was, he spent an entire summer creating a computer database to catalog all of the items in his house so that he could find stuff. Frank sure has come a long way since that summer— his latest venture is about to completely disrupt the educational app-based gaming industry.
Frank Meehan, Founder and CEO of Kuato Studios, is already well known around Silicon Valley and beyond as part of Horizons Ventures and for serving on the boards of technology companies, including SRI—you know, that company responsible for Siri, the virtual assistant Apple purchased and incorporated into iOS. But Kuato Studios is Frank’s latest venture. He has built a magnificent team around Hakitzu, an epic, fun iPad game that also happens to teach players how to code basic JavaScript. In fact, you can’t do much in the game without typing commands into the console to carry out your next moves. It is very easy to get started and Hakitzu provides plenty of tips. Once you’ve done a few things in the game, you’ll be ready for more.
Meet Hakitzu
Due for release in the Apple iTunes App store on Tuesday, March 26, 2013, Hakitzu is a unique turn-based robot battle game for the iPad2 and later models. Hakitzu’s stunning graphics and intense music and sound effects quickly draws kids and adults alike into the game.
Getting started is simple. First, you join Game Center, invite a friend into the game, choose, customize and arm your robot warriors, (or CodeWalkers as they’re called in the game), and then you’re ready to play . . . err, code. Using built-in functions, players determine their strategy and then type their programmed moves into the console like:
Move (“Forward”,5);
Turn (“Left”,1);
LaunchRocket ();
Touch the Execute button on the iPad screen and watch as your CodeWalker diligently carries out your commands.
The game probably appeals to kids 11 and older, but my 10 year-old enjoyed Hakitzu tremendously, playing against Vicky, Hakitzu lead developer via Game Center on an iPad mini. Judging by my son’s initial reaction after successfully executing his first move, I knew he was hooked.
“That was Awesome! It went exactly like I wanted it to. I didn’t expect it to work, but it did.”
[youtube]http://youtu.be/r1UhbKnxlTw[/youtube]
Learning By Doing
The thing that really differentiates Hakitzu from other educational games is that it is so much fun. Kids learn more about JavaScript than they realize because they’re focused on game strategy instead of straight coding. And that’s where Frank’s Dad comes in. Frank’s father, Anthony Meehan, teaches computer science and science at Carlingford High School in Sydney, Australia. Over the last several years, Anthony noticed that his students seemed increasingly detached from their educational applications, even on tablet devices. The educational apps just didn’t do a great job of making learning fun. Anthony pleaded with Frank to create something fun that might truly inspire his students to learn. So, Frank’s team set out to do just that. Based on feedback from middle and high school students who beta tested Hakitzu in the U.S., the game is going to be a big hit.
Currently, Hakitzu is free and hosts only a handful of basic JavaScript coding options like calling various pre-built functions and providing some attributes. But Frank noted that as a player progresses, she can incrementally add to Hakitzu by purchasing inexpensive add-in modules. Hakitzu is clearly just getting started, though. Frank notes that as the team works through any bugs, they’ll quickly rollout versions for the iPhone, iPod Touch and then Android and other platforms. With the supplemental education market estimated to exceed $100 billion dollars by 2017, there’s a lot of room for Kuato Studios to grow, yet the most anticipated Hakitzu feature is not even available yet.
Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence
Frank’s Kuato Studios team is developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based Virtual Learning Companion with SRI International (the founders of Siri). This new platform promises natural language interaction with players and will even detect when a player is struggling and offer hints or advice on tactics or code. Frank estimates that this new feature will be available in about six months. In the mean time, the Kuato Studios team is committed to aggressively releasing Hakitzu updates every four weeks.
Will Hakitzu transform players into JavaScript Jedi? Probably not, but JavaScript (and programming in general) will look a lot less intimidating after a few games of Hakitzu. Because the game is so immersive, the lines between gaming and learning truly blur. And when the AI feature comes online, learning will be even more personalized and cool. I can’t think of a better way to start learning JavaScript.
