Immersive-experience creator XRIO has a brand-new learning game on Kickstarter!

Continuing on their stated mission, “building the future of immersive play and learning”, XRIO has created “Blender Start Here”. The goal: to simplify the learning process for creatives wanting to learn the Blender 3D modeling program.

“Blender Start Here” presents the program in the context of a role-playing game. Players have quests to accomplish, villains to vanquish and items to pick up Along the way, almost without realizing they’re learning, they’re gaining essential Blender skills.

XRIO’s creators

XRIO Co-founders Nina Faye Lin and Dave Mills came to Blender through their backgrounds as artists, educators and storytellers.

Nina’s areas of expertise include interior design and architecture and urban planning. She is also the founder of Hawaii’s first self-directed learning center. Dave is an Emerging Technologies developer with an MFA in Creative Technologies, and a background in guiding students in the use of new media.

And their remote company, XRIO, came about as a result of their collaboration on an immersive project which blew everyone away. Today, their creative team includes members from Hawaii, California and the East Coast.

From there, their experience, watching friends struggle with Blender, led to “Blender Start Here”.

(Like to back the project? Their Kickstarter campaign runs through June 21st!)

Navigating a sometimes-daunting program

(Not familiar with Blender? This is a great, completely free and open-source project, geared towards putting 3D modeling within reach for any creator who’d like to use it. It’s made by hundreds of contributors around the world, with a highly supportive community for learners.

The only drawback: the program is so involved that many learners tend to give up.)

“There’s an enormous dropoff, of people who want to learn Blender, and people who actually learn Blender,” says Dave, who is XRIO’s CTO and the game lead on Blender Start Here.

“These programs are not easy to learn (especially when you’re transitioning from having learned a different 3D software program),” says Nina, who is the CEO of XRIO.

“A lot of us share that pain point.”

Nina and Dave talked about their experiences with creating XRIO, discussed the creative process behind “Blender Start Here” and offered a preview of the way the game helps players learn.

On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:

• How Nina and Dave each came to realize the power of combining art with technology to create educational experiences;

• The story of XRIO;

• How “Blender Start Here” came about;

• The attrition rate of people learning the Blender software program;

• What players experience, in the “Blender Start Here” game;

• Nina and Dave’s creative journey, with their new game, from concept to marketing;

• A closer look at their Kickstarter goals (both the bare minimum and the “stretch” goals!);

• What was involved, in the creative process of building the game;

• How Nina and Dave collaborated with some of the experts currently teaching Blender;

• The most fun each of them has had, since creating “Blender Start Here”;

• What works well, for a creative team working on a project such as this game;

• Their dream vision, for XRIO;

• Their thoughts on self-motivation, when guiding students in doing creative projects.