Games That Make You Smarter

Monthly Archives: September 2014

scream — While I know that our marketing staff shudders every time I give a public speech or write a blog post, I just can’t help feeling the world could be a tiny bit better off with more honesty and less “we’re in a hockey stick pattern and by next year we’ll […]

4 Types of People Who Should Leave Start-ups Alone

September 30, 2014 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

7GenBanner — Everyone loves playing video games, but not everyone knows what it takes to participate in the creation of one. There is so much testing that goes into creating something that has a really good flow from one point to the next. There are a lot of little things that could […]

Adventure Gaming: Find the bugs and eliminate

September 27, 2014 in 7GenGames tagged 7 Generation Games / Adventure Gaming / Game Testing / Internship by Gonzalo

7 Generation Games — We are currently in the process of converting level 3 of Fish Lake from 2D click-based to a 3D scavenger hunt. This process is made relatively simple using the Unity editor. Because we already have 3D assets for the environment and our main character, it is largely a matter of […]

Working in the Unity Editor

September 25, 2014 in 7GenGames / Game Progress tagged 7 Generation Games / Fish Lake / Unity by eric

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from May 29, 2014 on “The Rest of The Story… Lessons From the Red Queen’s Race” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. Since we just launched our brand new 7 Generation […]

Throwback Thursday: It’s not enough just to do whatever your ...

September 25, 2014 in AnnMaria tagged AnnMaria / De Mars / The Julia Group by AnnMaria De Mars

Girls — I have mixed feelings whenever I read about the diversity efforts in the tech industry. On the one hand, as a Hispanic woman over fifty, I am certainly in favor of increasing diversity. There is research showing more diverse teams are more effective, and that only makes sense. Why would […]

Diversity in tech teams is good and we walk the ...

September 25, 2014 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Women in Tech by AnnMaria De Mars

On my first official day of the internship, I was able to try out the Spirit Lake free demo. (You can download it HERE) As part of the internship, I am responsible for the testing the user experience of the games offered by 7 Generation Games. Not only do I […]

Day 1: Spirit Lake Demo

September 23, 2014 in 7GenGames tagged 7GenerationGames / blog / Intern / Math / Native American History / Spirit Lake by AnnMaria De Mars

Yes, I do realize that I’m probably far more excited about our new website coming on line than is normal. Several points here on a Friday night: I completely disagree with those entrepreneurs who say, “You sell the sizzle not the steak” when what they mean is that they really […]

FINALLY we look like we know what we’re doing

September 20, 2014 in AnnMaria tagged steak by AnnMaria De Mars

Welcome to a revolution in educational video gaming! 7 Generation Games makes games incorporating math, Native American history and adventure gaming. Our products are currently used in more than 20 schools and after-school programs. We believe in educating through engaging. Spirit Lake: The Game is commercially available. Our second game, […]

Welcome to a revolution in educational video gaming!

September 19, 2014 in 7GenGames / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Games tagged Adventure Gaming / Fish Lake / Math / Native American History by admin

No matter how hard it looks to make an educational adventure game, it’s even harder than that. The last couple of weeks, I have been at the tiny detail level. You know those really cool things you see made of legos in Legoland? Imagine if you were making one of […]

Building a game one lego at a time

September 13, 2014 in 7GenGames / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

7 Generation Games Blog — Now that our blogging intern, Diana J, has left us and gone back to school, Marisol Castillo Schultz, our Senior Research Associate will be taking a turn filling in on the blogosphere. Although our current games are focused on Native American culture, Marisol has been advocating for a while now […]

Why a math game for ESL students is a great ...

September 9, 2014 in 7GenGames / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

teaching — The new common core standards have statistics first taught in the sixth grade, or so they say. I disagree with this statement because as I see it, much of the basis of statistics is taught in the earlier grades, although not called by that name. Here are just a few […]

Really Teaching Statistics

September 2, 2014 in AnnMaria tagged statistics by AnnMaria De Mars

angry teen — I’m working on a section of a game that teaches fractions. If a player misses the question about where to meet up with the returning hunter, he or she gets sent to study. There is a movie that plays before this about needing to get back to the camp before […]

No wonder kids hate math

September 2, 2014 in AnnMaria tagged Math by AnnMaria De Mars