Dan Norton Archives | Page 2 of 3

Sea of Thieves and Real Emergent Gameplay

Hey. Have you tried Sea of Thieves? It came out last year, it’s been up and down on Twitch, and I think is a pretty great game. It has some very bold and interesting design ideas that I think have relevance to our work here at Filament. First off, what is Sea of Thieves? Well, it’s a…

April 8, 2019 // Dan Norton

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

It’s a Piece of Cake to Build a Pretty Game

(Yay-uh!) Filament makes a lot of games, which is of course pretty awesome. However, there are many times on our projects where the development timeline is complicated by the need of a client or other stakeholder to be able to evaluate (or show off) the game before it’s done. Clients of course generally understand that the…

March 20, 2019 // Dan Norton

Depth vs. Breadth in Learning Games

One of the best things about making digital learning stuff is that we get to have a constant dialogue about the nature of knowledge. After all, if you want to make learning tools, you need to have an opinion about what it means to know something! One thing that comes up a LOT is the…

April 11, 2016 // Dan Norton

Any Platform. Any Age. Any Subject.

Since 2005, Filament Games has partnered with organizations all over the world to create more than 160+ best-in-class learning games and simulations. Our talented team of game designers, artists, engineers, and more work each day to solve complex problems and create high-quality, impact-focused digital experiences. Much has changed in the video games and education industries…

April 3, 2019 // Alex Stone, Dan Norton, Dan White

Abstraction in Learning Games

I was asked to write about abstraction in games for the Filament blog, which is a topic near and dear to my heart. Let me start by offering some hippy dippy nonsense that you will probably roll your eyes at, because you’ve already seen The Matrix. I think it’s useful though just to give you…

April 9, 2018 // Dan Norton

How to Get Hired at a Game Studio: Game Designer Edition

Let’s talk about design as a job! People like to think that designers are a job defined by having neat ideas. They sit on a cushion, think of game…stuff, maybe even write it down. The developers gather around, consume the documents, eager to fulfill the prophecies from their glorious leader, and eventually, the designer is…

January 17, 2018 // Dan Norton

Gamification Done Well

Hey friends! It’s been a long time since I’ve rapped at ya, but today I thought I’d revisit the wild, wild world of gamification. I mentioned in my previous blogoblag about gamification that it was a thing that isn’t hard to do badly. But I didn’t really get into much detail. Behold, gentle readers: this post…

June 14, 2017 // Dan Norton

My Time at the iCivics ELL Convening

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with a special ELL convening hosted by iCivics in DC to talk about some new things coming down the pike for Do I Have a Right?. Currently in development is a Spanish-language translation of the game, as well as new accessibility features for the English edition to accommodate ELL…

May 18, 2017 // Dan Norton

Real-Time vs. Turn-Based Mechanics in Learning Games

Hello there! Recently here at Filament Games I was working on a game pitch and the question of “real-time” versus “turn-based” was raised. As per usual, I had strong opinions without any justification, so I thought I would take some time to unpack my feelings about it and share the results with you, the gentle…

April 20, 2017 // Dan Norton

Gamification vs. Game-Based Learning

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…

March 13, 2017 // Dan Norton