What’s Bothering Carl?

By: Derek Yu

On: April 3rd, 2009

A slightly offbeat recommendation, but my friend and game developer Andy “astrospoon” Hull is starting something cool that I think is very much in the indie spirit – he’s creating interactive storybooks for kids through his new company, Story Fort (who would have thought that he once created a game called Nun n’ Gun?). Andy single-handedly wrote, illustrated, coded, narrated, and wrote music for his first book, What’s Bothering Carl?, which features lots of interactive bits on each page as well as a card-matching game and two full-length, animated music videos (!), which are a riot. I dunno, it’s a really nifty and inspiring thing, and brought back all kinds of good memories of when I was a kid, playing with educational stuff like Manhole">The Manhole and pix">Kid Pix, which had a big impact on me. I would have killed to have a book like this. Maybe you guys have or know of some younglings that might likewise appreciate it.