Stephen Calender Programming Blog
Your browser does not support the video tag 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. [...more]
Tags: Android App, C#, Filament Games, Project, Students, Unity.
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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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Your browser does not support the video tag 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, […] [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, HTML5, Project, Students, Typescript.
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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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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). […] [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, HTML5, Project, Students, Typescript.
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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One of my responsibilities at Filament is facilitating the hiring process, and I will often be the first person to screen applications. Upon first review, I try to give each applicant 10 minutes of my time. Based on Filament’s structure, I need to evaluate a candidate on the following criteria: Are they capable of building […] [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, How To, Opinion.
One of my responsibilities at Filament is facilitating the hiring process, and I will often be the first person to screen applications. Upon first review, I try to give each applicant 10 minutes of my time. Based on Filament’s structure, I need to evaluate a candidate on the following criteria:
- Are they capable of building a game from start to finish?
- Can they execute at our pace and quality levels?
- Does both the studio and the prospective hire have something to gain from working together?
- Cultural fit: do they care about educational games?
I’ll unpack what it takes to answer some of those questions and give some general advice on how to make it past the first hurdle in the job application process. Full Article
If you have been following Filament Games you have probably met my dog Euler [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, Opinion.
If you have been following Filament Games you have probably met my dog Euler Full Article
Every game teaches you how to play. Plants vs. Zombies is an interesting case study because it made “hardcore” strategy content accessible to casual and non-gamers. [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, Game Development, How To, Opinion.
Every game teaches you how to play. Plants vs. Zombies is an interesting case study because it made “hardcore” strategy content accessible to casual and non-gamers. Full Article
I’ve previously quoted Sid Meier who believes one way to think about game design is “a series of interesting decisions“. Besides game designers, there are a few other professions that obsess over human behavior with a particular focus on the choices we make; namely, psychologists and economists. They study phenomenon that expose flaws in how […] [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, Opinion.
I’ve previously quoted Sid Meier who believes one way to think about game design is “a series of interesting decisions“. Besides game designers, there are a few other professions that obsess over human behavior with a particular focus on the choices we make; namely, psychologists and economists. They study phenomenon that expose flaws in how we perceive the world which give insight into how our brains function. Full Article
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 […] [...more]
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
As programmers, we can embed fail-safes into our code. In essence, we get decide what failure looks like. [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, Game Development, Opinion.
As programmers, we can embed fail-safes into our code. In essence, we get decide what failure looks like. Full Article
When I provide insight into game development, instead of talking about specific games, the conversation revolves around the building blocks of games we call features. Through analyzing the atomic elements of games and how they can be combined and work together, we hope to learn generic lessons that can be applied to all games. [...more]
Tags: Filament Games, Opinion.
When I provide insight into game development, instead of talking about specific games, the conversation revolves around the building blocks of games we call features. Through analyzing the atomic elements of games and how they can be combined and work together, we hope to learn generic lessons that can be applied to all games. Full Article