Game Night
From left, Mary, Paul and Tommy Hebert show off their Time Enforcers gear.
Alumni Develop and Launch Video Game
By Rebecca Maxon
June 24, 2024 — Game time is family time.
Paul Hebert, MBA’22 (Metro); wife, Mary, MA’89 (Flor); daughter Elizabeth, MA’22 (Flor); and his three sons have developed a new video role-playing game, “Time Enforcers.” It’s available for download on Windows, Mac and Android systems from timeenforcers.com and is scheduled for release on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
“I wanted to develop a way for kids to learn about history in a fun and engaging way — essentially gamifying the history-learning experience,” says Hebert.
Hebert, an avid history buff and the mastermind of the project, envisioned the game’s premise, wrote the script and illustrated and programmed the game in collaboration with his son, Paul, Jr.
Time Enforcers offers a unique opportunity for players to learn about history at their own pace.
Elizabeth and Paul Hebert at the Garden State Winter Comic Fest in Sussex, N.J.
Accessible to children as young as elementary school age, the game allows parents the opportunity to participate with their kids, as though “sitting down with your child to read a book,” says Mary, director of FDU’s Florham Campus Regional Center for Learning Disabilities. For those players who embark on missions on their own, the game is also suitable for teens and young adults.
Time Enforcers takes a multi-sensory approach to its presentation with speech bubbles accompanying the spoken word. “The more modalities used when you engage people in learning, the better, in terms of processing, engagement and sustaining attention,” says Mary.
“It’s a very colorful experience, but more important is the closed captioning. Everything is being said out loud so players can hear it and can see it in written form,” she continues. “I think that is essential for young players who may have learning differences, auditory-processing challenges or visual challenges.”
The role-playing game features villain Chronolith, who travels back in time to change history. The Time Enforcers team must follow him to reverse the damage he does and save the present. His lieutenant, The Inquisitor, joins the fray to challenge players to discover historical facts about the era in which the Game’s Episode takes place.
The Time Enforcers team is comprised of a diverse cast of historic figures, most of them real: author H.G. Wells, known as “the father of science fiction”; Christiaan Huygens, a physicist, engineer and inventor who invented the pendulum clock; Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a single-propeller airplane; Benjamin Banneker, an African-American man who invented the first wooden clock in America; and the fictional ancient Samurai warrior Kaizen, whose name means “Continuous Improvement” in Japanese.
Mary contributes not only as an educational consultant but to the public-relations aspect of marketing the game. She also provides the voice of Amelia Earhart. Daughter Elizabeth voices Chronolith’s henchman, The Inquisitor. Elizabeth is also responsible for building a social-media presence for the game on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Discord.
A 30-year marketing professional, Hebert has applied all of his business experience to developing the game, including art and content creation, print production, web development, video creation, advertising and marketing. He’s also created a stand-alone digital comic book based on the game available on Timeenforcers.com.
“A lot of what I learned throughout my career has been a trial by fire,” Hebert says. Earning his executive MBA at FDU in 2022 solidified his business acumen. “Having this background has been very helpful, especially when launching a project like this.” His undergraduate degree from Rhode Island School of Design was instrumental as he developed the game’s illustration and interface.
The game soft launched in May 2024, and the team recently appeared at the Garden State Comic Fest on June 22 and 23, in Morristown, N.J., to promote the game.