staffinsights Archives | Page 14 of 42

Medical Applications for Virtual Reality

Last time I checked in on the Virtual Reality space I was looking at VR projects that were creating a positive impact on the world, and I found no shortage of material. One thing I was intrigued by was the sheer number of medical projects already underway, so I did some investigation. As it turns…

July 17, 2017 // Brandon Pittser

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

Speed Sketch! Styles for All Ages

Filament Games’ library of educational tools and learning experiences is constantly expanding. With the exception of the Filament-made iCivics line, no two games look the same. If I told you Filament only has four game artists (one of which is actually a 3D generalist), you may be so inclined as to squint dubiously. So how do…

July 24, 2017 // Natasha Soglin

Sid Meier’s Narrative Design: Part Two

Looking for part one of our “Sid Meier’s Narrative Design” series? Check it out here! Situational choices encourage the player to look at their choice as a piece of a larger context – in other words, a good choice is more than the literal options in front of the player, but one that asks the…

July 26, 2017 // Matt Haselton

Walden and ELA Games for Learning

With Games for Change awarding Most Significant Impact and Game of the Year to Walden, a Game, there’s a lot of attention right now on the type of game that Walden represents – that is, narrative games, which fall more broadly into the category of English Language Arts (ELA) games. As a game named after a…

August 3, 2017 // Brandon Pittser

Five Years of Game Art

When I was hired here at Filament five years ago, I had a lot to learn. Back then, the first tool I learned was Flash. You remember Adobe Flash, right? In recent times it has put on a new logo and has been masquerading around as “Animate CC” but lo, it is the exact same…

August 9, 2017 // Natasha Soglin

The Return of the Learning Games

At the recent Games for Change Festival, Constance Steinkuehler displayed Gartner’s time-honored “hype cycle” and posited that learning games are somewhere on the Slope of Enlightenment (likely closer to the Trough than the Plateau). The Game Based Learning (GBL) space is idiosyncratic and will likely have a unique adoption curve (including multiple hype cycles), but…

August 16, 2017 // Dan White

How to Get Awards for Your Learning Game

Industry awards are a great way to create recognition and credibility around your learning game…check out our roundup of can’t-miss award opportunities!

February 1, 2021 // James LaPierre

Speed Sketch! Character Concept – Hot Dog Hawk

Character concepting is always a fun exercise – whether your character is serious, silly, or something in between, bringing a new character to life is a thought-provoking endeavor with lots of little details to consider. We wanted to unpack this process, so Game Art Team Lead Natasha Soglin crafted the speed sketch below, in which…

August 22, 2017 // Natasha Soglin

Making Games that Learn

There’s a lot we can learn playing games – from Newtonian physics to object-oriented coding, games can make us more capable and more informed. But here’s a thought that might sound a little ridiculous: what can games learn from us? According to today’s article from Fast Company, Unity Technologies is looking to answer that very question. Yesterday…

September 20, 2017 // Brandon Pittser

Filament Games | Educational Game Developers

Video Games and The Scientific Method

The Mario Method Form a question, create a hypothesis, predict the outcome, test your theory. Sound familiar? You probably recognize these steps as the foundational structure of the scientific method. Human beings have used this simple yet profound process to structure scientific inquiry for hundreds of years, and based on the fact that I’m typing…

October 4, 2017 // Brandon Pittser

#staffinsights