2021 Top Picks 🎮 AND the Creators of Cat Ninja!
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Season 2: Episode 48 Description
In today's episode: It's a Ten News Kid Takeover! 🏆 Host Bethany Van Delft hands the show over to let the kids share the best apps and games of the year. 📚 Hear about an EPIC reading app that has over 40,000 books and one of the most popular comic book series, Cat Ninja.🪐 The best place to play video games is in outer space? And, test your gaming knowledge in today's Trivia on the Ten. ✅
Sources:
The 20 Best Nintendo Switch Games of 2021 - Paste (pastemagazine.com)
Toca Life World | The Power of Play | Toca Boca
Minecraft Caves and Cliffs Part 2: Version 1.18 will release on Nov. 30 - The Washington Post
Fun Facts About Video Games (scified.com)
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TRANSCRIPT:
Miles 0:03
Calling all Ten'ers. This is a Ten News Kid Takeover. The new year is almost here, so Bethany turned the show over to the kids to countdown some of our favorite things from 2021. Today, we're sharing our picks for the best apps and games of the year. I'm Miles. It's Thursday, December 23rd. And this is the Ten News Top Picks Kid Takeover.
Various Voices 0:28
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Miles 0:35
Do you even epic, bro? Not to be confused with Epic Games, the makers of Fortnight. Epic is a reading app with over 40,000 books for kids, which is pretty epic. You're right. One of the most popular comic book series made, especially for Epic, is Cat Ninja, which is about a cat who is also a ninja. Wow. Today, we're talking to Cat Ninjas creators.
Bethany Van Delft 1:00
Thank you so much for joining us for this, we're so excited. Can you introduce yourselves and say what part of Cat Ninja you are responsible for?
Chad Thomas 1:12
I'm Chad Thomas. And I get to draw Cat Ninja. And I love it.
Matthew Cody 1:18
And I'm Matthew Cody, and I get to write Cat Ninja and I love it. And I also get to write things for Chad to draw, which is the coolest part of the job.
Bethany Van Delft 1:28
So, Cat Ninja is an Epic original and a lot of us know and a lot of our listeners know Epic was huge during the pandemic. Tell us a little bit about Epic as a platform, and what it's like working for Epic?
Matthew Cody 1:47
Well, it's, it's great. I will say first off, you know about the platform before we get into the court. It's um, it's a wonderful platform. You know, we've got over 40,000 titles on there, 250 different publishers, but I think the most impressive number is that we provide content on that platform reading content, that's read by 50 million kids, used by 2 million teachers. Last year, kids last year alone, kids read like over 1 billion books on Epic. These numbers I can't even think about in my head. Right. So the wonderful thing about Epic is that it is I think it's you know, it's technology at its best. We are sharing books with kids all over the US and beyond. It's a digital reading platform, its children go on their students go on there and they have access to books that they may not have access to readily and they can just binge read and read and read and read. It's a wonderful platform in that way. And then Chad and I work for the Department of originals of epic, which is the originals. And the originals department is exactly what it sounds like we do original content that we put on there that you can only find on the platform or later in bookstores.
Bethany Van Delft 3:21
Awesome. So, where did the idea of Cat Ninja come from?
Matthew Cody 3:26
We work in interesting ways, we're a very collaborative group within the original team, all various different kinds of publishing backgrounds. But we were having a brainstorm a few years ago, and I think someone would put it up on the board, like what are some of the things that are kids most interested in on the app? Like where do they know, what kind of things do kids think are cool? You know, on the predictable list, there were ninjas, and there were cats, amongst other things. And that was it. It was just okay, let's take those two things and smush them together and see if we could come up with something fun. And then out of that. That was just the high concept. I really wanted to do a story about kids and family, and how families are ultimately what you make of them. Right. And so I think the great thing about fantasy is about superheroes, stories, whatever it is being able to take something and really, really use all those tropes to talk about something true and I think the truth in Cat Ninja is we've got these kids who are going through their parents were being developed and getting divorced. They've got these two pets that they just love dearly and those two pets what they don't know happened to be the city's greatest superhero in the form of Cat Ninja and his arch-rival Master Hamster and they so these two built this you know archenemy and hero, battle by day and then come home and they have to like truce because they're home with the kids, you know, and it just took off. It was just something, something clicked with it. And I think it's the humor and the heart and of course the action and it's gone on you know, Chad joined us issue six I think after he did the one shot and just blew out the world and it's just become this huge playground you know where people can come and tell all kinds of fun silly stories but we always try to hit the humor in the heart of it, too.
Bethany Van Delft 5:28
It works. It totally works. Chad, Matt kind of hinted at this a little bit earlier, which it sounds so interesting, but it sounds like Matt writes things for you to then draw. Is that how it goes like, you've got words and then you draw the pictures that go with it?
Chad Thomas 5:46
Yeah, so what Matt will do is he'll write a script for me that I get to work from and like he's got in his brain, he's got an idea of how he wants the story to go, how he thinks like the page could break down and panels, what might happen in that panel, how it could lead to the next one, the dialogue, the acting, and there are just some really, very basic descriptors in there to kind of like, give me to encourage me to maybe go in this direction, or like, how about this. And working with Matt is wonderful because he's not so married to that he's not like, Oh, you've got to draw it this specific way. And he kind of gives me a lot of freedom to draw it the way that I like to draw, which is why I think we have such a great partnership. I think he knows how to write for me, and I think I know how to draw for him.
Bethany Van Delft 6:34
So, this is a funny thing. Our producer's son had been loving hard on Cat Ninja, and she didn't even know she didn't even know about it. Or you know, what Cat Ninja was? Or what he was reading on Epic? Does this happen often that parents kind of don't know, like, what, what their kids' lives are on Epic?
Chad Thomas 6:52
Yeah. Comic book signing, I was signing some I used to draw some ninja for comics. And I was signing some deals with the store. And when kids would walk up to me, it was like, Hey, do you have Epic at school? And they'd say, Yeah, and I was like, What's your favorite book on Epic? And, they'd say, 99% of the time they say Cat Ninja. And I was like, I get to draw that. And kids would just explode and get so excited in their parents. Like, wait, what?
Matthew Cody 7:18
And my wife likes to say that I am a school library-famous.
Bethany Van Delft 7:23
A very important famous. That's very important.
Matthew Cody 7:27
And I'm like, That's the perfect level of famous and I think that the thing about epic and Cat Ninja as a character is, you know, it's had this sort of direct connection to kids through the platform. And while I do meet a lot of parents less and less now we're getting more and more people that are the parents that are reaching out to us now because they've seen the books in the stores and things like that. But the educators know us, as teachers know us very well and keep teachers known, Cat Ninja. And, you know, we both get fan mail like Cat Ninja got a Valentine's Day card this year sent to my go find Cat Ninja and give it to him. Oh, you know, and the other great anecdote the other day that I saw review, a reader's review on one of the sites and it was a grandmother who was saying how her child loves it. And she started reading it with her and she's like, oh, and I love it too. You know. So, it's getting out. It's getting there. But more and more parents are discovering this silly, silly little cat in a ninja costume.
Bethany Van Delft 8:28
And cats are taking over the world. Look out, dogs.
Matthew Cody 8:32
I have three of them out.
Bethany Van Delft 8:34
Cats?
Matthew Cody 8:35
Yes.
Bethany Van Delft 8:35
Yeah. There. Yes, cats rule the world. Okay, I won't say that. Because I don't want to. I don't want to upset any of our listeners. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. This is so exciting. I feel like I need to go read some Cat Ninja right now after talking to you.
Matthew Cody 8:56
Yeah, and there's more to come. You know, we do. There's a spin-off called Time Buddies that's coming out and stars Cat Ninja's newest sidekick, which is a baby owl, Hoot that Chad and I created and it's got its own spin-off series. She's got her own spin-off series. There's a lot happening on Epic that is going to really broaden the reading experience. So more to come. Stay tuned. I was like Yeah.
Bethany Van Delft 9:23
We hope you'll come back when the "more" is coming out. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. And we will talk to you really soon.
Chad Thomas 9:34
Thank you. It's been wonderful. Getting to spend some time with you. I appreciate it.
Matthew Cody 9:38
I love being on the good news. This is great.
Miles 9:42
Thanks, Bethany, for that epic interview. Up next, it's time for the Ten News topics of 2021 and, drumroll please, apps and games. Our best game for Pokemon lovers is the new Pokemon Snap. Aspiring photographers welcome to the lentil region. In this game, players hop in a pod and travel to New islands to snap pictures of Pokemon in the wild. Our best game for Mario fans is Super Mario 3D world and Bowser's Fury. Giant Bowser has lost control, playing as part of a team or by yourself, roaming around collecting coins in a cat-themed world. Our best game for kid bosses is Toca Life World. Create your own world and play out any story you'd like. Build your own world, create characters, visit new places and basically be the boss of everything. Our best game of date for expert builders is Minecraft Caves and Cliffs. Huge mountains, deep caves, and new creatures are all waiting to be explored in the overworld. You can even make friends with a mountain goat or have a pet Axolotl. Or pick for the game we've been waiting for forever is Zelda Breath of the Wild 2. Seriously, we've been waiting for 2019 for this game, which has cloud cities you paraglide to, creatures in dungeons, and maybe even time travel. We're counting down the minutes until we can finally get our hands on this game in 2022. Are you kidding me? Today's fun fact comes to us from space. Did you know that the first video game to go to space was Tetris? In 1993, Russian cosmonaut S.A. Aleksandr brought his Nintendo Gameboy onto a Russian rocket and played Tetris while heading to the MIR space station. And now it's...
Various Voices 11:51
What, what, what's the big idea?
Miles 11:54
Trivia on the Ten. Some science says video games can be good for your brain? Can you guess which skill gaming improves? Is it a) memory, b) attention or c) decision making? Did you guess it? The answer is b) attention. There's evidence that video games change our brains and people who play video games are better at paying attention. Excellent. Your grownups are not going to believe this. So, have them check out the study linked in the show notes. Gaming may also make some parts of the brain bigger like the Hippocampus, which does not help us spot hippos while camping, but it does help us move based on what we see around us. Awesome. Time's up, but before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Thanks for listening to the Ten News. Look out for new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News creative team is asking for more video game time, and includes Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Adam Barnard, Tessa Flannery and Nathalie Alonso. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle. And our executive producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I'm Miles in for Bethany Van Delft, and thanks for listening to the Ten News. Gotta go feed my pet Axolotl.
