Shown is a screenshot from the current version of Cube Cut, a mobile game being developed to direct potential apprentices to manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania. The game's developers are getting $158,735 in state funding to market and further develop another game that would be used as practice materials for people training to take mechanical aptitude tests.

New cell phone games intend to connect potential apprentices with manufacturing companies in places like Butler County.

Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic Development recently awarded $158,735 for the development and marketing of a mobile game to aid aspiring machinists. The grant was announced Monday by Gov. Tom Wolf's office. The game is being developed by Simcoach Games in connection with the grant's recipient, Catalyst Connection.

Both Simcoach and Catalyst are Pittsburgh-based, but have already looked north to Butler County for help developing the game.

Ken Eck, communications manager for Buffalo Township-based Oberg Industries, said Simcoach's team has already worked with his company's staff to build games that double as training and recruitment efforts. Oberg Industries is a precision manufacturing company.

“It's designed to test spatial relationships and reasoning for potential apprentices,” Eck said about one such finished game. The intention, Eck said, is that eventually such mobile games can be used to directly link potential apprentices with manufacturers, and to give employers a sense of an individual's skill set when looking for apprentices.

A game known as Cube Cut was born of the same partnership and already available on cell phone app stores. Jessica Trybus, the founder of Simcoach, said Cube Cut is the first in a series of similar games her company plans to build.

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“We want it to affirm an aptitude or an interest in advanced manufacturing and certain specific careers, such as becoming a machinist,” Trybus said.In Cube Cut, players must follow blueprints to manipulate a 3D cube. It's a rough approximation of a CNC machine.Simcoach developed everything in coordination with industry workers at companies like Oberg, Quality Mould Inc. and Schroeder Industries. Oberg's training program manager, Linda Wood, worked directly with the company for Cube Cut.During play, Cube Cut directs players to resources for manufacturing training programs.“It's addicting if you're good at spatial reasoning,” Trybus said.The new game getting state funding is meant to go a step further.According to a news release from the governor's office, the game is expected to provide practice material for people taking the National Tooling and Machining Association's mechanical aptitude test. The test is “used as the standard employment exam for a large number of manufacturers,” the release states.The $158,735 is from a $12 million state appropriation within DCED set aside in 2017 for manufacturing training and apprenticeship development, according to DCED's press secretary, Michael Gerber.Simcoach was born out of Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center.