James LaPierre, Author at Filament Games

Tuning Digital Learning Games for Specific Learners

May 4, 2016 // Matt Haselton

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

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. That being…

Digital Museum Exhibit Strategies

May 5, 2016 // Kat Shanahan

Museums all over the country are exploring new avenues to bring in visitors. Gone are the days of static exhibits with the occasional movie or music feature. Now, museums must work to provide visitors with ways to interact, engage, and even transform exhibits. New technology presents myriad ways to captivate audiences. If you’re venturing into…

Machine Learning

May 9, 2016 // Alex Stone

Most articles introducing machine learning on the web start out with charts and equations showing how to fit a line to a linearly separable point cloud. That’s neat. But that does nothing to show the power of machine learning models to change the way that we write software and conduct business. There will be plenty…

Pitfalls of Rigidly Following a Formalized Game Development Process

May 11, 2016 // Arthur Low

Filament’s formal game development processes have benefited greatly from our Work-for-Hire business model. Throughout any given year a multitude of small projects have guaranteed rapid iteration on our ideas of how best to make games. I’ve always thought we’ve been reaching for the ideal. I was convinced that there was some process nirvana that was…

Virtual Reality for Learning Games

May 16, 2016 // Brandon Pittser

We’ve talked before about virtual reality and the unique impact it could have on the education space. Now that the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have both shipped, we asked some of the talented game developers here at the Filament Games studio for their perspectives on how VR might or might not be used in the classroom. Alexander…

Speed Sketch! Natasha Soglin draws Carrie Ray-Hill

May 18, 2016 // Kat Shanahan

Take a look behind-the-scenes as Game Art Team Lead Natasha Soglin draws Filament Games partner and iCivics Director of Programs Carrie Ray-Hill. We captured this video condensing Natasha’s 50-minute workflow and showcasing the skill and attention to detail needed to create art for a game studio. Sit back, relax, and watch as Natasha starts with a blank…

Extending the Life of Your Flash-Based Video Game

May 19, 2016 // Jennifer Javornik

While there have been several waves of education video game development throughout the past 40 years, most of the games that have been developed in the first half of the last decade were built in Adobe Flash (now Adobe Animate). In fact, some say that the accessibility and capabilities of Flash made this most recent…

Building Creative Practices: Psychological Safety

May 25, 2016 // Brandon Pittser

This is the first piece in an ongoing series about developing skillsets that position you for success in a creative enterprise. Central to my approach is the idea that I’ll explore one concept per article. I’ve gained my perspective directing small marketing teams, wherein skinny resource margins mean that incremental growth is more achievable than…

5 Assessment Strategies in Learning Games

June 1, 2016 // Stephen Calender

Every game we create at Filament Games is specifically tailored to meet pre-determined learning objectives. With this commitment to achieving learning objectives comes unique challenges in measuring the learning that occurs during gameplay. Prior to releasing games, we conduct playtests with members of our target audience and sometimes commission independent case studies that include pre…

The Game Artist’s Arsenal

June 2, 2016 // Natasha Soglin

What is one of the most obvious, but least-talked about aspects of digital games? It’s literally staring you in the face, and yet is not necessarily required to make a functional game. If you answered “game art,” you should continue reading. Hi, I’m Natasha, and I’m the art team lead. At Filament Games we are…

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