staffinsights Archives | Filament Games

Writing a Game Design Document Your Team Can Actually Use

*claps hands together loudly* “Alrighty, who’s ready to read my 30-page GDD that I spent the last two days writing?!” Yeah, me neither. I’ve seen a number of game design documents get out of hand and become a chore to maintain and read. They end up looking more like a wall of text than a…

October 20, 2014 // Abby Friesen

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

Quality Assurance and Learning Games

One of the challenges the QA team at Filament faces is that our players are often children and our team is made up of adults. That isn’t a problem when testing a crash or a missing art asset, but it can be when we test the user experience. Here are three things I try to keep…

September 2, 2015 // Peter Rambo

The Balancing Act: Including Others in Your Designs

Designers, we are not the only ones with ideas and solutions. There is a careful balance we must maintain between designing features by ourselves and gathering the developer’s ideas and feedback. A game is a bajillion times better when it’s the combination of everyone’s creativity. It’s the kind of thing that’s obvious in theory but…

September 11, 2015 // Abby Friesen

Why Build Learning Games?

If you could create any game, what would you make? Would it be a chaotic universe where anyone can be a superhero, an epic intergalactic adventure, or a medieval fantasy world with wizards and dragons? After several years in the games industry, my answer is creating learning games. Though it may not seem obvious at…

September 18, 2015 // Stephen Calender

Getting the Most out of HTML5

Quality matters. Your audience does not care about the technology you used to develop your game. The big questions for consumers are: how do I get it, will it run on my device, and is it as good as any other experience I could have on this device. The tough problem for HTML5 is meeting…

October 14, 2015 // Stephen Calender

Building a Case for Game-Based Learning

Need help building a case for a game-based learning or training initiative in your organization? VP Jennifer Javornik breaks down a variety of different approaches!

May 5, 2021 // Jennifer Javornik

How to Make a Video Game for Learning: Costs and Considerations

Game creation is more complicated than portrayed in Game Dev Story. I’m going to explain just how complicated it can be, but I have a few caveats: I can’t walk through every possible game feature (there are many and we make new ones all the time). I can’t provide a standard menu of features either,…

November 9, 2015 // Stephen Calender

How to Make a Learning Game

It Begins With An Idea Video games typically begin with design, either starting with a great idea or pursuing a creative solution to a tough problem. It is entirely possible to imagine games for which there is no demand, or to identify a space where there is a need but no good game can be…

January 4, 2016 // Stephen Calender

Elevating Your 1:1 Initiative: Chromebooks

It’s official. You’ve passed that referendum, approved that budget line item, or received the grant to implement new devices for your district. You’ve debated long and hard, you’ve put your decision through a panel, you’ve surveyed your department leaders and even asked your tech-savvy colleagues. You’ve probably spent more hours than you care to count…

January 25, 2016 // Elle Jacobson

Introducing The Filament Games Podcast!

Welcome to the Filament Games Podcast! Co-hosts Dan Norton and Brandon Pittser bring you trending game industry news, the inside scoop on Filament Games, and enough entertainment and sports talk to fill your week. We’ve released seven episodes for your listening enjoyment. New episodes are available weekly on our blog and downloadable through SoundCloud, iTunes, and…

January 26, 2016 // Kat Shanahan

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