Stephen Calender Programming Blog


Filament Games Project: TVO mPower

Tags: Filament Games, HTML5, Project, Students, Typescript.

mPower is designed to teach fundamental K-6 math skills while learning about Ontario’s communities and environment. This experience combines both learning and practice with adaptive difficulty and just in time scaffolding that adapts to individual students’ needs. Activities present real world challenges giving students a new perspective and motivation for math skills.
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Filament Games Project: Retail Sim

Tags: Android App, C#, Filament Games, Project, Students, Unity.

Encounter a series of real-life retail management scenarios. Players must make challenging supervisory-level decisions, attempting to maximize their store’s performance while keeping in mind the potential trade-offs in terms of profit, customer experience, and more.
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Filament Games Project: McGraw-Hill Pinball Energy Challenge

Tags: Filament Games, HTML5, Project, Students, Typescript.

Pinball Energy Challenge teaches about the transfer of energy through unique pinball-style gameplay. Just-in-time feedback lets the player know when energy transformations have taken place, like when a turbine converts the energy of motion into electrical energy. Players navigate tricky obstacles, discover 19 different energy reacting objects, and learn all about energy transformations while solving mind-bending physics energy puzzles.
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Filament Games Project: Interactive Books

Tags: Filament Games, HTML5, Project, Students, Typescript.

Dinosaur Skeleton

In 2014 when I started working at Filament Games they had a long history of Flash development and were starting to create games in Unity. At the time Unity still needed a plugin and was delayed deploying it for a year (ultimately browsers refused to allow a plugin and web support was delayed even further). Also we still needed to support IE9.
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How to Design the First Five Minutes of Your Game

Tags: Filament Games, Game Development, How To, Opinion, Students.

A common request when pitching a game idea is “walk me through the first 5 minutes (or sometimes 30 seconds) of your game”. It is a question designed to weed out who has really thought out their ideas. The truth of the matter is that you need to convey a lot information concisely and elegantly at the beginning of your game. Full Article

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How To Get Started Making Video Games: An Interview With A Programmer

Tags: Filament Games, Game Development, How To, Opinion, Students.

On March 9, 2016, I met with the Game Maker’s Club at Norwich Technical High School via Google Hangouts. The interview was published on Filament Game’s blog and I am re-posting it here.
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How to Make a Learning Game: The Post Every Client Should Read

Tags: Filament Games, How To, Opinion, Students.

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 built. It is imperative to challenge your ideas and refine them to ensure it meets the qualifications of a good educational game. Once you’ve made that determination, you’re ready to start the game design process. As a broad overview we’ll discuss this process in terms of design, objectives, scope, and platform.
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Minimum Announced

Tags: Opinion, Project, Students, Timegate, Video Game Trailer.

Yesterday the game I worked on during my tenure at TimeGate was officially announced. I’d like to say that I worked on some awesome piece of magic on it, but it was honestly more nuts and bolts development. I hope the game reaches its full potential, I always had a good time at our internal play tests. Keep an eye on the official website to get in on the action Full Article

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Building Lego Universe

Tags: NetDevil, Opinion, Project, Students, Video Game Trailer.

LEGO Universe Teaser

In May 2009, I joined NetDevil so I could work on LEGO Universe. After working there for over a year, and as our ship date nears, I thought I would share what the experience has been like. Full Article

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A Programmer’s Postmortem: Lincoln Era White House

Tags: ActionScript 3.0, Project, Semiotic Technologies, Students.

White House Project Featured in:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pop City Blog
PittsBlog
Tech Burgher Blog
and on AM 1360 WMNY The American Entrepreneur 2/28/09 “Ron Morris talks with Todd Waits”

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