With a new year (and decade!!) fast approaching, we can’t help but reminisce on our team’s biggest successes of the past twelve months. Care to join us for a trip down memory lane?
(Image source: Giphy)
2019 was, simply put, a landmark year for our studio. As a team, we tackled dozens of new projects, unveiled our most ambitious game yet, and gained countless new colleagues, clients, and friends along the way. But that’s merely the tip of the iceberg – read on to find out what other moments we felt help define the year in Filament Games!
We made a ton of great games!
As one of the world’s leading education game developers, our primary role is…well, making learning games! And with 2019 now behind us, we can safely say that we kicked butt at this all year round! Throughout the year, we worked in collaboration with organizations across the country to create dozens of brand new learning games – from civics games like NewsFeed Defenders and Race to Ratify with iCivics, to computational thinking game Beats Empire with Teachers College, Columbia University, and even a suite of ELA learning games dubbed W.O.R.D. for client Scholastic!
We won a Webby!
Not only did we develop a ton of amazing new games and apps, but we received a record number of awards, nominations, and honors for our games. Among the highlights were receiving the People’s Voice Award (Best Game – Education category) for our VR experience Breaking Boundaries in Science at the 2019 Webby Awards (pictured below), which marked our seventh award for the title! In addition, our team took home awards for Scholastic W.O.R.D., Beats Empire, and NewsFeed Defenders from renowned game-based learning awards programs Serious Play Awards, Fast Company’s World Changing Idea Awards, EdTech Digest’s EdTech Awards, and more!
We spoke at SXSW EDU!
In the world of game-based learning events and conferences, SXSW EDU stands in a league of its own – which made it a huge honor that our CEO Dan White was invited to share his expertise on the VR funding landscape as a speaker at their 2019 event! And not only that – but our talk at this year’s event was such a success that we were again invited to share our game-based learning insights with the world at SXSW EDU 2020! But that’s not all – throughout 2019, we traveled and spoke at even more renowned events across the country like Games for Change Festival, Serious Play Conference, Connected Learning Summit, Play Make Learn, and more…and we can’t wait to see where our travels take us in the new year!
We raised $2,000+ for Extra Life!
Remember when we marathon livestreamed 12 hours of gaming AND helped raise $2,110 for Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin? That’s right – Extra Life 2019 was a thing, and a smashing success at that. Want to learn more about the gaming-focused charity and catch a recording of our full stream? Check out our recap blog, and mark your calendars for November 2020 – we’ll be back with more games, more shenanigans, and more hype for Extra Life 2020!
We unveiled RoboCo!
Last but not least, 2019 marked the official unveiling of our much-anticipated robotics sandbox game RoboCo – which is slated to release on Steam for PC/VR next year. A wholesome sandbox game about designing and building robots to serve the needs of squishy, hapless humans in the world of tomorrow, RoboCo is inspired by makerspace programs and robotics organizations and hopes to foster interest in STEM fields by offering players the tools to unleash their problem-solving skills and creative potential. If you’re new to the game, we invite you to check out our wacky teaser trailer below – and be sure to follow our progress on Twitter, Steam, and the official RoboCo dev blog!