Games That Make You Smarter

Yearly Archives: 2015

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from November 17, 2012, “It’s not the math that’s hard” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. Here is a math problem: Hoksinato and Tasunka Ska are going to steal horses. […]

Throwback Thursday: It’s not the math that’s hard

August 13, 2015 in 7GenGames / Throwback Thursday by admin

pink mouse — One of my favorite cartoons is Pinky and the Brain, which begins every episode with the question, What are we going to do, today, Brain? answered by, “The same thing we do every day, Pinky, take over the world.” So, that is what Maria (also known on twitter as @burnsortiz […]

Taking Over the World

August 11, 2015 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

We’ve been sitting on some big news and are thrilled we can finally announce that 7 Generation Games was selected to participate in BoomStartup’s EdTech accelerator! We’ll be spending three of the next 12 weeks in Salt Lake City (two at the beginning of the program and one at the end) […]

Big News: We’re Participating in BoomStartup’s EdTech Accelerator!

August 10, 2015 in 7GenGames by Maria Burns Ortiz

flying chicken — I had a grandchild home from camp with a fever, so she was at my house. If you were in our house that morning, you would have heard this shouted from the downstairs office to the upstairs office. Grandpa! Grandma needs that sound you get when catch a chicken! […]

The Flying Chicken of Failure

August 5, 2015 in AnnMaria / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

audience at pitch session — I just returned from South by Southwest’s V2Venture conference where I attended the pitch contest, and I left the event thinking — like I do every time I attend a pitch event – how completely subjective pitching is. It depends 100 percent on who you’re pitching to and […]

The Perfect Pitch: (Spoiler! There’s No Such Thing)

August 3, 2015 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Two of our founders are down in Rio for the week. It’s an amazing city with lots to offer – beautiful beaches, good coffee, wonderful people – but there’s admittedly one thing lacking: reliable Internet. Now for most people coming down to Rio, that’s probably not an issue. I mean […]

Rio On Five Megabytes a Day

August 1, 2015 in 7GenGames by Maria Burns Ortiz

We here at 7 Generation Games want to extend our sincere congratulations to our very first game tester, Ronda Rousey, who picked up two wins at last night’s ESPY Awards on ESPN. Long before she was earning the distinction of “Best Fighter” and “Best Female Athlete,” Ronda was giving us […]

7 Generation Games Game Tester Ronda Rousey Wins 2 ESPYs!

July 16, 2015 in 7GenGames by Maria Burns Ortiz

Certain parts of a job can get done with less effort or in less time after you’ve done them a dozen times. Case in point, the image above is from the canoeing scene in Fish Lake. The first time I played that part, I thought I’d never make it down the river […]

When Running a Startup, You Never Slow Down

July 15, 2015 in Start-up Diaries by Maria Burns Ortiz

We have data to show that kids who play our games improve their math skills substantially. We have anecdotal data (that sounds so much more scientific than “email from players”! ) that tells us adults who play our games improve their math skills. Seriously, if you are over 13 years […]

Podcasts that make you smarter

July 13, 2015 in AnnMaria / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

AnnMaria and her daughter as crabs — In case you missed it, here is what I was thinking about a couple of years ago …. There have been days, especially when I started my first two businesses, when I was seriously stressed. What if I could not make the payroll? What about cash flow when the business […]

TBT: Advice to Entrepreneurs – Chill. Seriously, chill.

July 9, 2015 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday by AnnMaria De Mars

Teacher with students — I often feel as if people have forgotten the social part of social media. When I see people who are following some ridiculous number of people on twitter, like 200,000 I know it is impossible that they are reading what all those people have to say. I asked someone about […]

My Day of Blog Reading

July 6, 2015 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

Mayan codex — I was going to title this “How not to be stupid in game design” but then I realized the points apply to just about everything. Hello, people in industry, non-profits, government – in short, just about everybody – if you are going to design something for a group of people, […]

How NOT to Be Stupid

July 5, 2015 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars