For more than 20 years, Filament Games has partnered with leading brands, publishers, and institutions to create educational games that make real impact. From VR experiences to mobile apps, from K-12 classrooms to corporate training - we bring learning to life through play.
You know your business. We know educational game design. Our partnership approach empowers your team and embeds them at the core of the development process.
Educational games require a specific methodology – one which we’ve spent the last 20 years developing and perfecting. Our knowledge of the industry is unmatched, and at your disposal.
With more than 400 projects under our belt, we know what works and what doesn’t. Our methodology will guide your project to the most impactful conclusion possible.
Our production team knows how to drive on-time and on-budget projects. You’ll have a clear view of progress from start to finish, and full confidence you’ll hit your deadlines.
We don’t develop products in a vacuum. We take a holistic view of the product, business model, and identified market needs as well as your goals and learning outcomes for your learners.
Innovation is part of our company’s core values. Filament will always have a mentality of continuous improvement, so you’re always getting the best version of our team.
We maintain strong connections to the world of digital learning theory. Regular engagement with our academic colleagues allows us to stay on the vanguard of game-based learning.
Our accomplished marketing team can amplify your products through our content platforms, and can also partner with you to nominate projects for awards and speaking engagements.
Our tenure in the industry has equipped us with an extensive network of Ed Tech leaders and organizations. Use our connections to explore future partnerships for interactive digital learning.
Our deep understanding of FERPA, COPPA, PII collection, and other student privacy considerations will infuse your product with turnkey privacy compliance, critical for schools.
The technical craft of making games for learning isn’t all that different from making entertainment video games. But we also have a lot in common with traditional e-learning companies who think about how to best engage learners.
A well-made learning game creates an impact—whether the intended impact takes the form of new knowledge, broader empathy, or a fresh perspective. We’ll work with you to hone in on a set of learning objectives and outcomes. We’ll use this to inform everything about the game—the design, the visuals, and the mechanics are tuned to transfer knowledge, behaviors or mindsets to the player.
Scaffolding is critical to creating the “pleasing frustration” of learning and discovery. Our team balances the challenge of the game to meet each learner at their level, and can even design the game to speed up or slow down depending on the user. On the backend, we pour in a healthy dose of feedback to engage and motivate the player to keep going.
In every game, you are asked to be someone – whether that be a war hero, a monkey, or waiter – that works with the narrative of the game. Our game design methodology takes this one step further, equipping learners with an inclusive identity that specifically empowers them to learn and succeed.
Learning can happen anywhere, and with the current state of technology, so can learning games. We work with our clients to tune the project to its hardware environment, educational use case, target end users, distribution plan, reporting needs, and any other critical consideration
Dan White believes that good gameplay and good learning are complementary rather than oppositional forces. An alumnus of Cornell University and UW-Madison, Dan earned an M.S. in Education Technology under seminal learning game scholars Drs. Kurt Squire and James Paul Gee. Prior to founding Filament, Dan worked as a teacher, an instructional designer, and a game developer.
Dan Norton loves approaching each new project at Filament as an opportunity to find authentic passion and engagement around learning new things. Dan blends his love for game design with his love of collaborative creativity to support Filament’s design and artistic teams.
Alex Stone has decades of experience developing educational software and is credited on hundreds of math, science, literacy, and civics games in programmer, technical lead, and executive producer roles. Alex has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Georgia developed a keen interest in education while teaching English overseas before ultimately venturing into the field of educational games. She assists in testing various projects and values the joy and challenge in attempting to break things.
Shawn has never been content pursuing just one creative endeavor and has had experience designing in a number of industries. He is in constant pursuit of a well-thought-out and artistic interface.
Laura has been designing educational and positive impact games and interactives for over a decade. She loves blending learning and play into new experiences. Her favorite thing about it is exploring such a wide variety of topics!
Travis has been playing video games ever since he was able to hold a controller, and always wanted to eventually create his own. As a recent UW-Madison graduate, Travis loves programming, but definitely has the most fun working on games!
Straight out of UW-Whitewater with degrees in Math, Computer Science, and Game Design, Leah is excited to be working on games that make people smile. She never wants to stop learning and loves putting her skills to the test in game jams.
Meghan began her 3D journey because she loved creating fun and wacky environments. More recently she is also known to dabble in character art where she gives faces to the mundane objects. Life has also led her to do things like rotoscoping puppets, decorating cakes and 3D scanning human remains.
Nick is passionate about games and the good they can do. He likes group bike rides, reading non-fiction, and rhythm games. Nick is a golf enthusiast but wishes the sport was more action-packed.
Brian has been doing software QA since 2007. He tested Epic’s CVIS for 5 years before making the switch to Filament in 2013. In his free time he enjoys biking, canoeing, travelling, reading, trying new beers, and relaxing with his wife, sons, and dog.
From software engineer, to full-time musician, to game developer, Michael loves pretty much any hobby that involves making cool things. Except cooking, which has too many steps.
Dwight is creative, friendly, and passionate about using games to make the world a better place. He loves absurd game genre mashups and is insistent that game jams are the ultimate free-time activity.
In college, Miah learned UX design while pursuing a more technical IT degree. There she found her niche exploring user interactions in games and extended reality. She loves creating immersive experiences that help players have fun while learning.
Ian is a game engineer, passionate for the medium of games and how they evolve through time. He enjoys experimenting with procedural generation, and has a fascination with making wild predictions on the future of the gaming industry.
Kylie joined Filament as her first job out of college, where she majored in game design and development. Making educational games is the perfect intersection of her two passions: programming games that make people happy and learning obscure trivia.
Marvin is a producer with over 10 years of experience in project management. He got his start in production working on games, teaching doctors. His favorite part of the job is helping facilitate teams doing their best work. Marvin is an avid sports fan and will occasionally drop a sports metaphor in reference to project management.
Jennifer works with people from all over the globe who potentially want to work with Filament to make games, simulations, and VR and AR experiences that make an impact. She helps them understand what Filament can do and how we do it.
As a Game Designer, Luke works with clients and with Filament’s talented development team to find fun and effective ways to help players learn. Luke loves working on educational games because the wide range of subjects makes every game unique.
Roma is a graduate of Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, where she studied illustration and animation. She puts both of those skills to use at Filament, drawing various chickens and jungle plants. In her spare time, she watches cheesy 80’s films and draws clowns who are also cops.
Charlie produces clean and concise financial reports and budgets in an effort to create clarity in a rapidly changing business environment. He is a CPA and CMA who enjoys the professional challenges of working in the learning games and technology sectors.
If you’re exploring educational games, digital learning tools, or interactive simulations, Filament Games can help you design and build experiences that deliver measurable impact.
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We embrace experimentation and continuous improvement. The field of game-based learning is young, and we're committed to pushing its boundaries.
We measure success by learning outcomes, not just entertainment value. Every game we create aims to make a real difference in learners' lives.
We succeed when our clients succeed. Your expertise and vision are at the center of every project we undertake.
We remain students of our craft, constantly learning from research, users, and each other.
We create games that serve all learners, designing for accessibility and cultural responsiveness from day one.
Learning should be joyful. If it's not fun, we're not doing our job.
Over our 20-year history, we've been honored with multiple industry awards and recognitions:
