Filament Games Blog

Game Art & Tokotas: How Wolfbears Helped My Art

In February, Brandon Pittser pointed out games can exist anywhere. Sometimes games are hard-coded into societal norms. Other times we try to gamify tasks we don’t want to do to make them more interesting, like folding laundry or washing the floor. But what happens when you gamify something you’re already passionate about? As an artist…

July 6, 2016 // Natasha Soglin

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

FGP2-5: Are you a gamer?

This week we get a glimpse into Dan Norton’s bad lifestyle decisions and learn why Brandon calls Dan a cool futuristic cyberpunk warrior. We also dive into a riveting discussion about game structures hidden in daily life, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, and the pros and cons of casual games. Hot Topics in This Week’s Episode…

July 5, 2016 // Kat Shanahan

How to Design A Student Game Design Competition

Our community of educators continually tells us that students are eager to learn about game design and coding. One way to provide students with game design experience outside of the classroom is to host a game design competition. The competition doesn’t have to be large in order for students to get an in-depth look at…

June 30, 2016 // Jennifer Javornik

FGP2-4: Educator Insights from Miranda Salguero

The charming Miranda Salguero joins us in the studio to talk about how she uses games in the classroom and the changes she has seen in her students as a result. We also learn about Brandon’s greatest ignorance and Dan suffers the consequences of betraying his gut. Hot Topics in This Week’s Episode Clash of…

June 28, 2016 // Kat Shanahan

Filament Games Podcast Season Two

Welcome to season two of the Filament Games Podcast! We’re glad to have you back with us as we explore the world of game-based learning. This season we’re interviewing game-based learning pioneers, sitting down with teachers to learn how they’re using games in the classroom, and taking a step back in time with a new…

June 24, 2016 // Kat Shanahan

Let’s Play! Transforming My Teaching to Match My Students

Miranda Salguero is a Dual Language Immersion Teacher at Sandburg Elementary, a 4k-5 elementary school in Madison, Wisconsin. The article below is a chapter from our eBook How to Teach with Games, featuring stories and resources from educators who are using games in the classroom. Miranda played an instrumental role in the creation of the eBook…

June 20, 2016 // Filament Teacher Fellow

The Game Artist’s Arsenal

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…

June 2, 2016 // Natasha Soglin

5 Assessment Strategies in Learning Games

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…

June 1, 2016 // Stephen Calender

Building Creative Practices: Psychological Safety

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…

May 25, 2016 // Brandon Pittser

Extending the Life of Your Flash-Based Video Game

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…

May 19, 2016 // Jennifer Javornik

A Look Back at our 2023 Releases

What We Mean When We Say AI: Understanding Types of AI

Resource Roundup: 2023 at Filament Games