Listen to this articleHeR Interactive has released 30+ games, won 30 Parents’ Choice Awards and sold more than 9 million copies of its games. The company began developing and publishing Nancy Drew PC/Mac games for an underserved female gamer market in 1998. Below is our interview with Penny Milliken, CEO at Her Interactive:
Q: Penny, could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to HeR Interactive?
A: Based in Bellevue, Washington, the company has released 32 games, won 30 Parents’ Choice awards and has sold more than 9 million copies of our games. From the beginning the games have been encouraging STEM education and careers as evidenced by the many fan letters, emails, posts and tweets the company has received over the years. Recently, a fan told us she was becoming a NASA astronaut and that playing our Nancy Drew games helped her develop her STEM skills.
It is because of all these fan testimonials, that we created Nancy Drew: Codes & Clues. Our goal is to spark an interest in coding with children 5-8 while solving a fun Nancy Drew mystery. We see again and again how engaged kids are with our app. They want to code robot puppy and solve the mystery. So hopefully, they will take this positive Nancy Drew coding experience when they are introduced to block coding in elementary school.
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Q: You’ve recently partnered with Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, to bring the gift of this pioneering app to 800 preschoolers in the Bellevue School District; tell us something more?
A: The Bellevue School District has a strong computer science program for K-12.
In fact, it is ranked #2 in the world, behind Shanghai at #1! We learned that kindergartners already learn sequences and loops – that are introduced in Nancy Drew Codes & Clues- so our donation needed to be for preschoolers.
Q: Can you give us more insights about your games for females?
A: HeR Interactive was a pioneer in 1998 when it began developing and publishing Nancy Drew interactive games for females. At the time there were no such games with a female lead. A female lead that is a positive , smart role model. Nancy Drew’s superpower is her brain.
In our games, you never see Nancy Drew. The player is Nancy and through our games players develop critical thinking skills.
Our games have been used in classrooms or helped with homework. They expose players to world cultures and are geographically and factually accurate and all this information is wrapped up in a compelling mystery to solve.
Recommended: Q: What are your plans for the first half of 2017?
A: With all the increased national emphasis on STEM and coding, we will be focusing on marketing all our games and apps to a broader audience.
Q: What’s the best thing about HeR Interactive that people might not know about?
A: That everyone who works here is passionate about developing and marketing our Nancy Drew games, and that we love the feedback we get from our fans.
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