Remember your first day of middle school? For a lot of kids, that leap from grade school is bigger and bumpier than anyone lets on, and it's exactly what we built Tales from the Middle to help with. On August 27 we got the whole team together to talk about the game and the transition behind it, and you can watch the full webinar below. Hosted by Ed Metz (the researcher on the project)this is a wide-ranging conversation with people who made it happen: the Bezos Family Foundation, which started the project, Games for Change, which shaped the concept, and us, your pals at Filament Games, who designed and built the game itself. Fifth grade teacher Kelly Cannon, who ran it with her own class last spring, rounds out the panel.

Over the course of the hour, we get into how the idea started, why a game was the right call, how our three characters and their values came together, and what we learned when the game hit real classrooms in our first pilot study. Want to skip around? The chapter links below will get you there. Here's who you'll hear from.

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‍WHO'S IN THIS

Edward Metz, Ph.D. - researcher on the project and host. Former Department of Education, now founder at AppClub, a testing service for edtech.

Eden Xenakis — Chief of Staff, Bezos Family Foundation

Brendon Trombley — Games for Change

Dan Norton — Chief Creative Officer, Filament Games

Kelly Cannon — fifth grade teacher, Calvert County Public Schools

With recorded segments from Kellie Lu, lead game designer at Filament Games

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‍CHAPTERS

0:00 Why the move to middle school is where things get hard

1:13 Trailer, and meet the panel

4:43 Why the Bezos Family Foundation focused on this age

5:53 Why a game, and not advice or a curriculum

8:08 A fifth grade teacher on what the jump is actually like now

11:08 From workshops in Seattle to a game concept

14:14 Three characters instead of one blank slate

16:59 Helen, Kai and Axel, and the values they play with

19:57 Portal moments, when a character changes what they value

23:43 How Filament turns learning goals into gameplay

26:48 Bringing a school guidance counselor into the writing

28:58 Lockers, schedules, and the practical stuff kids asked for more of

32:41 The values system, shown in game

34:54 The energy system, and putting weight on a choice without punishing it

38:04 Pilot 1: what we tested in eight classrooms

41:39 What the teacher saw in her own room

44:15 Pilot 2 this fall, and how to take part

47:39 What we hope this does for kids

50:12 One thing that would help students most

53:06 Q&A: could this work outside the US?

55:13 Q&A: reflection guides for the classroom and for home

56:14 Q&A: can families play at home?

58:15 Q&A: where the character archetypes came from

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JOIN THE NEXT STUDY

The second pilot runs October and November 2026. We're looking for:

• Classes in their final year of grade school
• Classes that have just started middle school
• Families who want to play at home with their kid

Sign up or ask us anything: https://www.talesfromthemiddle.org