Besides the idea of a bunch of aliens playing baseball, my favorite thing about Alien All Stars is the opportunity to build something amazing with a bunch of like-minded people. And by like-minded people, I don’t just mean the people who work for our company (although they most certainly do rock). I mean everybody. A fictional world, designed by its fans and inhabited by their alien characters- I think that’s the coolest thing ever.
I’ve seen this model work in amazing ways. As a creative writing teacher I’ve worked with tons of kids, developing story skeletons and fleshing out their story details. During our story designing sessions, the students brainstorm possibilities and vote for their favorite ideas. Brainstorm and vote. Brainstorm and vote. My job is simply to facilitate their conversation and make sure they stick to their story structure.
At first I was terrified to try this writing workshop out. Handing over creative control to 50 third graders definitely felt like a leap of faith. But in the end, it didn’t matter if I was working with 8th graders or 1st graders. From the first time I did this, the stories they came up with have always been amazing. Always. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the brilliance of concentrated imagination.
For Alien All Stars, our team is in the process of putting this same system of concentrated imagination in place. Our fans will have the opportunity to define new alien baseball players, equipment, planets, alien candy bars… you name it. Our artists will render them made-to-order, based on these specifications, and mix them into the alien world. And conversely, our artists will create alien characters, spaceships, new pitches, etc., that will in turn be named and defined by the fans. Brainstorm and vote. Brainstorm and vote. This is the perpetual process we’ll use to build out the galaxy.
And for the gaming aspects, we’ll be doing pretty much the same thing. By playing our online baseball games, each fan will have a direct impact on the events that happen in Galactic League Baseball, from team statistics right down to determining the Galactic Series champions. Put simply, we’re building a fantasy baseball league where fans are actually in charge of the fantasy.
As the creator of Alien All Stars, I’ve seriously spent hundred of hours thinking about alien baseball team names and alien baseball player names and all kinds of alien baseball stuff. It’ll be tough to surrender all that creative control. But I know that this project wasn’t built just for me. It’s for everybody. And I also know, without a doubt, that a million imaginations will bring Alien All-Stars to life in ways I’ve never dreamed. Wild stuff, this collaborative art. Let’s play ball!
