Straylight Studios was a game development studio based in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, active from March 2004 to March 2009. Straylight's focus was on the application of " meaningful play", a term coined by CEO Timothy Nixon to describe play that borrows from

serious Games A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...

and

casual Games A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a Hardcore gamer, hardcore game, which is targeted at Gamer#Dedication spectrum, hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They genera ...

to produce an entertaining and meaningful (if not strictly "educational") experience. From 2007, Straylight was located in the

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

of Dunedin. Prior to that, it was in the Centre for Innovation research facility at the

University of Otago , image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate u ...

. Early in 2008, Nixon launched hi
Meaningful Play blog
to promote and encourage discussion about the application of gaming technology as a learning tool.

Industry awards

Straylight received an award at

TUANZ The Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) represents corporate and individual end users of telecommunications in New Zealand. Its previous stated mission was to "...raise New Zealand into the OECD’s Top 10 countries in inf ...

, 2005. * Winner: TUANZ Entertainment Award for ''StarTag'' * Finalist: Computerworld Excellence Awards, Innovation in IT for ''The Kitchen''

Games developed

* ''

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

'

* '' StarTag'

References

{{Authority control Video game development companies Video game companies established in 2004 Video game companies disestablished in 2009 Defunct video game companies of New Zealand