Game designer Honey P. Rosenbloom shares their vision for the inclusive future of interactive media on Rosenbloomboom.xyz

Rosenbloomboom.xyz – Ionos customer – (United States)

.XYZ’s reputation as a domain for forward-thinkers has inspired creatives and developers from around the globe to join the movement and brand on .xyz domains themselves. Meet a developer that has set their sights on the gaming industry, and is working toward it’s evolution. This week’s #WebsiteWednesday features the portfolio of a distinctive game designer with a hopeful vision for the future of gaming: Rosenbloomboom.xyz

Rosenbloomboom.xyz is the personal portfolio website of Silicon Valley-based game designer and programmer, Honey P. Rosenbloom. Honey works as a full-time employee for Google as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Analyst. Their position plays a major role in the company’s commitment to build programming to lead to a more diverse and inclusive Google, including Employee Resource Groups, Leadership Councils, and Diversity Councils. Honey is also co-creator of Friendship Garden, a nonprofit organization “sowing the seeds of inclusivity to cultivate a gentle, playful, and sustainable games industry that welcomes and supports people of all historically marginalized communities.”

Honey aims to foster interactions that allow players to have fun while being vulnerable, connect with others, and explore themselves. Most importantly, they hope to use games to tell stories from the personal experience of living at an intersection of marginalized identities. Honey creates games as tools to inspire new perspectives from those who play them, as explained on their portfolio website.

Honey’s gaming projects include physical, digital, and hybrid games that include the usage of a variety of technological solutions, including Unity3D, C++, JavaScript, and Ionic. One thing the designs have in common is the intent to positively impact the players, whether it be socially, cognitively, or educationally.

Trash Traders is an example of an educational game that intends to positively impact players. Honey developed Trash Traders while studying at the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center. The game was designed for Apple’s iPad platform and helped introduce elementary school students to sustainability, recycling, and pollution dangers. Players in the game team up on iPads and each iPad serves as a different recycling center. The teams must quickly sort the trash that comes in, otherwise it goes to the landfill and increases pollution.

Honey designs games for adults as well. Butterfly Fields is a large-scale social game that Honey initially designed for a birthday party. Butterfly Fields encourages players to meet and mingle in social situations – utilizing secret challenges, fun icebreakers, and personal questions to encourage players to be vulnerable and develop new friendships. Honey added the ability for players to join and leave at any time without penalty, providing late-comers and those who may need to excuse themselves early some leniency, enhancing an infectious party game where no one is left out and everyone can be a social butterfly.

Honey also enjoys some competition theirself and has presented various unique projects at a handful of game design conferences over the years, including Serious Play and Connected Learning Summit. They have won prizes at competitions such as the Student Game Design Competition at 2017 CHI PLAY and the 2016 Whiskey Rebellion Festival.

Rosenbloomboom.xyz is a website set up to capture many layers of Honey P. Rosenbloom. Honey shares gaming projects and career highlights alongside their mission of changing the landscape of gaming. We are proud to have forward-thinkers like Honey defining the .xyz community. Just as .xyz is reshaping the future of the internet, Honey is working to reshape the future of the gaming industry. It’s a great fit.

See more of Honey’s work by following along on Instagram and LinkedIn, or checking out Rosenbloomboom.xyz.