Ahoy friends! I’m Carol, captain/founder of Blackwater Buccaneers. I’m primarily a graphic designer by day and a gamer by night but I’m also a photographer, artist, educator, and entrepreneur. I hail from Alabama where I currently live with my husband/first-mate and our cats Chloe and Olivia. I earned an MFA in Visual Communication Design from Jacksonville State University in 2021, and a BFA with concentrations in graphic design and photography in 2011. I currently split most of my time between my own art and design projects, and client work mostly focusing on web and publication design.
Out of all my interests game-based learning is one of my favorites. I’ve been passionate about both gaming and education all of my life but it wasn’t until grad school that I got serious about game-based learning. I took a game design class during undergrad just for fun and designed a few simple video game prototypes but I didn’t consider it a realistic pursuit so I moved on to other things. Thankfully when I returned to JSU to attend grad school in 2016 I was encouraged to create a tabletop game which reunited me with my love designing games.
My first tabletop game was a matching game called Star Fall featuring the constellations found in the northern hemisphere. I created it for a class project and I enjoyed the process so much I continued to create other games whenever I had the chance. 🌠
My second game was a board game called Escape from Tox City created an an interactive art piece for an art history class. It was more conceptual in nature and was created to help simulate an experience and raise awareness about toxicity online, especially in certain gaming communities. 🎲
My third tabletop game and the game I am currently focusing on was created as part of my MFA thesis project on game-based learning. Lumen: A Game of Photographic Terminology was created primarily to serve as a tool in the classroom that serves as both an icebreaker and a warm up for photographic critique and discussion. It turned out great and there’s been a ton of interest in it so I am currently trying to figure out how to make it available to the public at an affordable cost. If all goes well I would love to create other versions of this game because the mechanics are super simple and lend themselves to a variety of subjects.
I’ve also created prototypes for a couple of apps but creating a functioning app is currently beyond my realm of capability so I’m focusing on my tabletop games first. One of the apps I designed is a family history learning app that I would personally love to see exist. If any of you happen to know anything about creating or producing apps please reach out. 😅
All of my games were originally created as passion projects but thanks to the encouragement of my friends and peers I’ve decided to dive even deeper into game design. I am currently learning all I can about game publishing so I can try to make my games available for others. It’s taking a while but I’m making progress and am hoping Lumen will be available within the next year.
