Nukotoys Interactive Trading Cards

Microsoft Xbox Live Social + Mobile

Professional Development & Education

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Professional Improvisation for Innovation

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Nukotoys Interactive Trading Cards

Merging Virtual Worlds with Physical Play

iOS Games and Interactive Trading Cards

After grad school I spent time mentoring mobile game entrepreneurs, in the design, development and launch of their mobile games. It was clear to me that I missed working with new products and a new opportunity with Nukotoys had presented itself. In my first job as a Product Manager in Silicon Valley I’d help magically bring trading cards to life on iOS in collaboration with Discovery Channel and Ology World fantasy book properties.

Nukotoys wanted to push the boundaries of children’s games on a tablet device as kids were becoming more digitally sophisticated. We did this with the help of the classic trading card, which promoted learning and play away from the computer.

The Nuko trading cards were printed with an “invisible ink”; When the card was tapped on the iPad screen, the game recognized the card, and inserted the animal (Animal Planet) or monster (Monsterology) printed on the Nuko card into the game onscreen, and the player continued to play as that character.

After managing both Animal Planet: Wildlands and Monsterology iOS games and trading card sets, internationalization and localization for 23 countries & languages, and product development for the next version of Nukotoys games we began exploring augmented reality as our next medium to extend the Nuko experience of giving kids fun, fantastical experiences through online and real-world play.

The success of Nukotoys’ iOS games were in large part due to 2 shifting behaviours in households with kids: 1.) Mobile devices, including tablets, were becoming pervasive in these households; and 2.) Parents were increasingly relying on these mobile devices as educational tools for their children. It was this changing tide that caught my curiosity towards how we use mobile devices in assisting us beyond the utility of communication, scheduling, navigation, and web browsing. The next step on this path of curiosity led to working on Google’s advanced technology project Tango, using accelerated mobile device sensors to perceive the physical world.