James LaPierre, Author at Filament Games

Multisensory Learning in the Digital Age

February 8, 2017 // Vera Blau-McCandliss Ph.D.

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

The following is a client guest blog post from Square Panda, for whom we recently developed Square Panda Bubbles, Square Panda Monster Rhymes and Square Panda Jiggity Jamble. Have you ever danced to learn a new letter of the alphabet? Research shows that employing multiple senses may have significant benefits for learning new skills. Multisensory learning…

Speed Sketch! Opposites Attract

February 13, 2017 // Kat Shanahan

Newton’s Laws got nothin’ on the laws of attraction! Watch as Game Art Team Lead Natasha Soglin paints a special Valentine’s Day portrait for these two Motion Force characters. Have questions for Natasha? Get in touch via Facebook or Twitter! In the mood for more Speed Sketches? Check these out! Winter Wonderland Happy Thanksgiving from Filament Games Happy Hallowbee Landscape…

The Importance of Feedback

February 16, 2017 // Stephen Calender

I’ve previously quoted Sid Meier who believes one way to think about game design is “a series of interesting decisions“. Besides game designers, there are a few other professions that obsess over human behavior with a particular focus on the choices we make; namely, psychologists and economists. They study phenomenon that expose flaws in how we…

Augmented Reality Learning Environments

February 22, 2017 // Dan Norton

Holy cow, have you guys checked out quadcopters?! We live in interesting times, where a convergence of technologies, spurred by mobile phone development has led to a ton of very powerful things getting embedded into very small devices. This includes a wide variety of different kinds of sensors, and ever improving video/transmitting capabilities. Stuff’s getting…

How to Make a Simple Project Shine

March 8, 2017 // Madeline Folz

We make games! You already knew that because you’re reading our blog, but what you may not know is that we’ve partnered with a variety of organizations to design elegant platforms to house their games, apps, and other digital content. These projects have brought to light a number of design concepts that we wanted to…

Sennett Middle School’s Gaming Club – Learn About Game Design!

March 9, 2017 // Sarah Conn

We recently adopted Sennett Middle School and some of their students wanted to know, What do you need to do to be a game designer? Myself along with fellow Filamentarian and game designer extraordinaire Abby Friesen set out to show them what it takes… Our first order of business was introducing the concept of game design to…

Gamification vs. Game-Based Learning

March 13, 2017 // Dan Norton

When we talk to people about the work we do, the topic of “gamification” comes up quite a bit. To some folks, it’s synonymous with game-based learning, and to others, it’s presented as the inverse. Brandon and I hashed out a decent working definition on the podcast, but we realized we don’t have a matching…

10 Tips for Designing a Game Tutorial

March 16, 2017 // Stephen Calender

Every game teaches you how to play. Plants vs. Zombies is an interesting case study because it made “hardcore” strategy content accessible to casual and non-gamers. Before Plants vs. Zombies the game industry had falsely concluded that the casual market just wasn’t interested in certain game genres. In addition to appealing to casual gamers, it…

Major League Hacking

March 20, 2017 // Brandon Pittser

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of serving as a judge for MadHacks, the Madison, WI chapter of Major League Hacking (MLH). MLH bills itself as the official student hackathon league, and rightly so! This event was serious business. MLH works with thousands of students on an annual basis, holding over 200 weekend-long invention…

Speed Sketch! Spring Sunflowers

March 22, 2017 // Kat Shanahan

It’s officially Spring here in Wisconsin and we’re celebrating with a brand new Speed Sketch! In our latest video, Game Art Team Lead Natasha Soglin creates a beautiful work of art inspired by our plant structures and processes learning game Reach for the Sun. Check out the below video and let us know what you think on…

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