Hullo. We are a small, nonprofit online publication about ny city policy and issues (congestion pricing, land use, voting rights, election reform, etc.). We have a grant to develop a few games based on these public policy issues and are looking for a talented person to help develop the interface.

The current game we are working on deals with the NYC budget in the form of a labyrinthine dungeon. Think Indiana Jones, I guess. Which dusty book will you pull of the shelf to find out how to get to the next level? The one labeled "Washington DC" or the on labeled "NYC Department of Youth Services" -- choose wrong too many times and you'll run out of time--the City Council will pass their budget without funding for your program.

So the game is conceived of as a Budget Maze of sorts, with 3 levels of play. Each level has 4-7 multiple choice questions (with 3-5 answers each), with the right answer moving you on to the next challenge question.

The concept, graphics and interface questions for the game have been already created -- we just need a developer to step in after the group we were previously working with unexpectedly backed out at the last minute.

The original programmers had come up with a smart approach to providing a maze environment: they were building out a 3D environment and creating animated gifs to give you the sense of traveling through a maze. So you'd decide to go forward (click) and a short animation would steer you around a corner or two before landing you at either a dead end or another turn in the maze or a room where a challenge question was waiting for you.

We are hoping to finish this project in the next month before the city budget is passed. As our previous developers sort of left us in the lurch, we're trying to scramble to keep things up to schedule.

Thanks much,
ya shen