Detroit native Emily Engelson’s friend Daniel, a game developer, invited her to participate in a 3-day challenge to create a game from scratch, the theme was Evolution. “As a graphic designer, my skills fit quite well with Daniel’s in respect to such a contest,” she explains, “the only problem being that I had never designed a game before. Not only that, I never play electronic games.”

“For three days, we didn’t sleep, but we made a game. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked, and it sure was weird (I mean wonderful). We didn’t win the contest, but we both considered placing eleventh (out of 400+) in the humor category a success.”

“Inspired by our humble victory, we spent the next few months perfecting and developing the game, and finished by successfully submitting it to the Apple iOS and Android mobile stores. A month later we created a sequel, “Christmas Treevolution,” which also made its way to the iOS and Android stores. I saw this as a huge step for myself as a designer, and the unpredictable direction that my work took. I had never before worked so hard on a project that was so completely out of the scope of my interest, and in the end felt such success and inspiration.”