Matt Haselton

Matt Haselton is a Game Designer at Filament Games and specializes in porting learning objectives into game mechanics. Prior to working at Filament, Matt was a designer at Quest Atlantis. Matt holds an M.S. in telecommunications from Indiana University - Bloomington, and a B.A. in English literature from Guilford College.

Selected articles by the author

ARTICLE

Matt Haselton

May 4, 2016

Tuning Digital Learning Games for Specific Learners

Good game design is largely universal. While things like “pacing,” “theming,” or “feedback” might vary depending on your audience and the reaction you’re trying to evoke from them, the basic building blocks of a game: concepts of success, failure, rules, and balance are always present, albeit in different permutations and to different degrees.

ARTICLE

Matt Haselton

June 12, 2017

Sid Meier’s Narrative Design: Part One

When discussing–or designing–storytelling in video games, we typically leverage the rhetoric of the storytelling mediums we’re already familiar with: notably, novels and films, a media reference point/anchor that Ian Bogost’s argued against in his provocatively titled and thoughtfully reasoned article, “Video Games are Better Without Stories.” It makes sense – in a way, treating video game storytelling as a descendant of these earlier mediums is, to paraphrases Bogost, an unambitious goal.

ARTICLE

Matt Haselton

July 26, 2017

Sid Meier’s Narrative Design: Part Two

Looking for part one of our “Sid Meier’s Narrative Design” series? Check it out here!

Matt Haselton

Selected articles by the author

Tuning Digital Learning Games for Specific Learners

Sid Meier’s Narrative Design: Part One

Sid Meier&#8217;s Narrative Design: Part Two

Sid Meier’s Narrative Design: Part Two