KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jutka T. Emoke Barabas, at home with the computer game "Aerobeak," displays her patriotism with several American flags around her home.
Reaching higher A colorful parrot goes bicycling around an enchanted island, picking up pineapples, bumping into trees and meeting up with inquisitive snakes and fish in one of the latest games developed for Pocket PC.
Pocket PC game also
focuses on family valuesBy Michelle Ramos
mramos@starbulletin.comOn the surface, Aerobeak Goes on a Ride seems like any other kids' game, but for its creator, Jutka T. Emoke Barabas, Aerobeak is fighting a greater mission.
Aerobeak needs to collect a certain number of pineapples to pass each level. Along the way, the colorful parrot is stopped by various characters, including:
>> PuffRuff, a poisonous puffer fish who has multiple-choice questions and logic puzzles for gamers to solve.>> Pupulala, a wise old crone whose magic glasses help uncover answers to the multiple-choice questions and logic puzzles.
>> Neffy, a cuckoo who left her cuckoo clock in Switzerland for Hawaii, and offers up her alphorn to frighten bad guys.
"Our goal is not just to teach and entertain," Emoke Barabas said. "We also want to focus on family values, the environment and, of course, promoting kindness to others."
9ISLES INTERNATIONAL INC. / COURTESY OF JUTKA T. EMOKE BARABAS American values all, even though Emoke Barabas, now 51, wasn't raised here.
She was born to freedom fighters in a cellar in Budapest. By the time she was 21, she had published two novels, various poems, four plays and even organized an amateur theater group to keep the Hungarian culture alive in Romania.
She was jailed, beaten and even lost her fiance to the brutality of the communist regime, and became a political refugee, escaping to Switzerland by hiding in a fruit box.
"I don't hate them," she says of the people who beat her. "Those were just the times."
Her eyes are a constant reminder of the beatings she endured 30 years ago. As a result of kicks to her head, she can work only a couple of hours at a time on her computer before her eyes begin to water and/or her head begins to ache.
But it is through her computer that Emoke Barabas continues her fight for nonviolence in the world.
AEROBEAK IS A GOOD start in her mission to spread the aloha spirit around the globe.
"I love Hawaii," Emoke Barabas said as she logged onto her game Web site. So it's no coincidence that Aerobeak resides on Hawaii's ninth "Enchanted Island."
The game begins with the parrot arriving via boat on a sandy, palm tree-lined shore where he hops on a bike, picks up those pineapples and answers educational multiple-choice questions such as "Who invented the telephone?" and "What kind of staple is made from taro?" Anyone can enjoy the game, she said, whether age 3 or 99.
Emoke Barabas created all the characters, graphics and even arranged some of the game's music. To create the relaxing underwater composition found in Level 2, the "Blue Coral Lagoon," she recorded the waves crashing at Ala Moana and combined it with music she played using water-filled glasses and other homemade sounds.
EMOKE BARABAS, who received her U.S. citizenship on Jan. 26, 2000, markets the game through 9Isles International Inc., a company she co-founded last April with Zoltán Horváth, who lives in her native Hungary. They unveiled their game at the COMDEX technology fair in Las Vegas in November and within nine weeks received more than 208,000 hits from more than 100 countries stretching from the Czech Republic to Jamaica.
9ISLES INTERNATIONAL INC.
In the game "Aerobeak Goes on a Ride," a parrot picks up pineapples and answers multiple-choice questions.
"I was so excited I sat here and cried," Emoke Barabas said. "Maybe my books reach, at the most, 100,000 people, and most of the sales were in Germany, but with the Internet I can reach so many more."
This is just the beginning of Aerobeak's adventures. The company is working on Aerobeak's third island adventure, Scorched Dragons Isle of Fire. Their plans include having Aerobeak vacation in different parts of the world so players can learn about different cultures through the game.
And for gamers who need more than the satisfaction of completing a game, the company is in the process of patenting its 2RPM advertising system to give players tangible awards that can be redeemed at various businesses.
She and her business partners came up with the system to help Hawaii's struggling tourist industry after Sept. 11, 2001.
2RPM, which stands for Repetitive, Regenerative and Promotional Marketing, allows businesses to promote themselves through Aerobeak's game by offering discounts or prizes. A gamer who wins a $25 certificate to a local restaurant can activate the award in the 2RPM Promotion "Bank." If the award cannot be used by the gamer -- let's say the gamer lives in Japan -- then the player can replace the award through the Promotion Exchange Service, which, Emoke Barabas said, eventually would have promotions from around the world.
If Emoke Barabas has her way, Aerobeak will make his way into e-books (which she's already working on), trading cards, videos and toy shelves.
She continues to write books and is in the process of writing a book in English that she hopes will be done by year's end. "Rest is not in my agenda. ... I'm running out of time," she said.
Aerobeak's adventure can be played on desktops and Pocket PCs and can be downloaded at www.aerobeak.com for $19.95 on desktops and $24.95 on Pocket PCs.
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