Empowering young women with NZ developers new AR game The Zingoshi Chronicles

The small New Zealand group Team Zingoshi has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the game The Zingoshi Chronicles. The project will feature augmented reality components, driving an adventure of creativity and leadership for young women.

The Zingoshi Chronicles is a narrative adventure game. A child is brought to ‘Planet Zingoshi‘ to help solve an illusive mystery.  Working with magical winged creatures and the Queen of the planet, the player and character learns intuitive leadership skills.

There is a strong focus on educational elements and ‘outside of the game‘ gameplay. The augmented reality features are ‘woven throughout the experience‘, allowing the use of a mobile device if they choose to. Most activities will ask players to think about STEAM objectives – that is Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics for those of us who don’t remember way back to Primary/Secondary school.

The game itself is primarily built for pre-adolescent women, however the developers aren’t excluding anyone. They clearly recognise and welcome everyone to play the game, implementing an optimistic story that teaches morals relevant for anyone.  The narrative guides players to ‘become creative, visionary leaders through fun, engaging content, and exciting technology‘.

The team from Auckland is aiming to raise $100,000 NZD in the next month to fund the thoughtful title. Co-founders of Team Zingoshi, Bridget Ellis-Pegler and Ronel Schodt, both have expansive experience in interactive entertainment industries. With the current concepts, synopsis, and pitch behind the game – there’s good reason to support the idealistic project.

Megan Gaiser, the mastermind behind the recent Nancy Drew games, is getting involved, too. Gaiser is a prolific activist for diversity in the games industry and in general. She holds awards for ‘Game Industry’s 100 Most Influential Women‘ and  ‘Top 10 Most Influential Women of the Decade‘ and ‘2011 IndieCade Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award‘.

The development team Metia Interactive is being led by industry expert Maru Nihoniho. With impressive titles across multiple platforms in entertainment, educational and e-therapy markets, her dev team will not dissapoint. The group has received multiple achievements for their games. The ‘United Nations World Summit Award‘ for the Cube game in 2009, the ‘United Nations World Summit Award‘ in 2011 and ‘UNESCO Netexplo Award‘ in 2013 for SPARX.

The Zingoshi Chronicles has the potential to be the next Zoombini’s AND be an incredible learning experience for young women. Its amazing to see such progress in diverse gaming so far in 2019. We can’t wait to see how it evolves with time. You can contribute to its Kickstarter right now.