Creatures. Creatures. Everywhere. Creature Features For One and All!

Creature Feature Installation Concept

This concept was initially conceived at a Marketing Margarita Thursday between Devin Reeson (Social Media Manager) and Jacob Stagray (CEO); at El Paso in Mandeville, LA.

Jacob began this conversation by floating the idea of something like our Throwback Thursday Extinct Creature events currently circulating on Instagram. 

This new feature, to be termed “Creature Feature”, was initially designed solely for premium content user; those who signed up for our emailing list. We coined the term for this feature based upon the Darwinian manuscript-like notes and diagrams of creatures from within the game. These creature fact cards are designed to help to illustrate additional concepts and factoids about creatures users can evolve in our game overtime. Ultimately, we intend to compile all of these factoid creature cards and complete an entire “ETA Darwinian Manuscript” text.

We proceeded to determine a consistent timeline for emails to be sent out; allowing users to depend on us for regularly providing feature updates. As to not over-extend ourselves with the corporate workload, we examined the already established Instagram posting schedule; which was as follows:

Monday -Motivational Monday

Tuesday- Trivia/Factoid 

Wednesday -Rotating Post Content (Unscheduled Posts)

Thursday -Throwback Extinct Creature Thursday

Friday - Rotating Post Content (Unscheduled Posts)

Saturday - None

Sunday -Game Screenshot Sundays

It was determine that the best day to schedule creature feature would be on Friday. This day offered more flexibility in schedule freedom; due to the alternating type of content that was previously being scheduled for posting on our social media platforms on this specific day.

Based upon current rates for integration and programming of creatures into the game worlds, Devin and I composed a list of creatures for initial round of “Creature Features” posts. The list included the following organisms and their appropriate location “worlds” where they can be located within our game:

We determined the best way to entice people to join our emailing list was to coincide and additional and similarly themed “free user” content on our social media platform. This free user content also then included, and expanded upon, in or premium user email. It was decided that our Instagram page would also have a “Creature Feature” event. The event on Instagram is a small token component of “Creature Feature” factoid sheets that are then greatly expanded upon within our email. Premium content is only available to users who have previously signed up for our emailing list prior to the weekly Friday events.

To expand upon the concept of free user content “Creature Feature”, these posts will include a similar design to the aforementioned “Throwback to Extinct Creature Thursday” events; however, the Creature Feature post will have two images side-by-side. The first image will be an image of the creature taken in their native environments. The second image will be an in-game screenshot from Evolution Through the Ages. 

 Creature Feature Progress Towards Premium Content Development

Summarizing Research Notes into bullet-point Darwinian Creature Feature Factoid Cards:

On the morning of April 20, 2019, I spent a few hours setting up the starting phases for premium content production. I went through the remainder of the original game research manuscript and separated each of the creatures Devin and I previously discussed (at the first meeting) onto individual pages within a Microsoft Word document. This document was printed out; allowing me to hand-edit the research manuscript for important concepts to later be included in the Darwinian Manuscript.

Within the first day of editing, I had already completed reading 12 out of the initial 15 Creature Feature research notes; annotating important factoids to later be summarized into bullet-point formatting for the Creature Feature factoid carThe images below serve to depict my overall process and flow of production of “Creature Feature” factoid sheet . I have also included excerpts from my personal journals of my accounts of throughout the process. I hope you enjoy learning a little more about how the Creature Feature became a corner stone of Evolution Through the Ages.

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Jacob Stagray's editing notes can be seen below.

These notes were used for determination of important information

for the Darwinian Manuscript factoid entries.

Hand-writing the summarized bullet points into Darwinian Manuscript journal entries.

First draft of the Darwinian Manuscript factoid sheets in their bullet-point

formatting can be seen below. These drafts would eventually serve as my templates

to produce the final Darwinian Manuscript hand-written sections.

– April 22, 2019

“ I spent the first four hours of the day working on the Darwinian Manuscript pages. All of the bullet-point creature factoid sheets have been hand-written by Jacob Stagray. Now I merely need to go back to add diagrams to each of these sheets; to better represent the creatures within the game.”

Hand-drawn diagram of the creatures by Jacob Stagray

Based on images of creatures from the game;

as well as their research based image from the manuscript

– April 28, 2019

“At today's meeting [at Starbucks in Covington, LA] Sean and I worked on our individual projects for the successful soft launch of the most recent creature additions. We also patches sound-files to V.5 of the game to increase the quality of user gameplay. 

I began by starting the initial setup of an email list management account on MailChimp.Meanwhile, Sean worked to complete the animations for the creatures previously listed (April 26, 2019).

From 1130 A.M until 2:40 P.M., I worked on the Creature Feature factoid sheet diagram production at my parents house; resulting in the completion of the following creatures: LUCA, euglenozoa, rhodophyta, choanoflagellate, giardia, centipede, spider, octopus, velociraptor, snail, crocodile.”

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Over the course of the next three days, I spent an additional hour each day re-touching creature ink-drawings; to help clean up their lines and contrast shading.

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Designing the email “Creature Feature” template:

On April 25, 2019, at another Marketing Margarita Thursday at El Paso, Mandeville LA; Jacob Stagray drew the first sketch of what he intended “Creature Feature” emails to resemble. (see below)

--April 26, 2019

“The last several days, I have been extensively dedicated to producing premium content for ETA. I have spent several hours organizing, reducing, and uploading documents to the corporate Google Drive account; allowing for easier accessing and use for our employees.

I also spent five hours constructing slides that will eventually be incorporated in our educational youtube videos. These video files were also decided to be included weekly emails as part of the “Creature Feature” marketing initiative.

At meeting with Sean at Starbucks in Slidell, LA, we discussed the final steps for incorporation of eight new macro-world creatures for the soft launch on April 28, 2019. These creatures are to include: Sponge, snail, crab, turtle, koi fish, crocodile, t-rex, and wolf”.

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